The flight to Australia from England is an experience. Nothing can really prepare you for 24 hours in the sky, not even a pre-flight look at the in-flight entertainment on offer ;-). Thankfully we were lucky on all parts of our journey. We managed to upgrade our seats for more leg room, the flight took off on time from London and Hong Kong and landed in Sydney no more than half an hour late. I shall attribute this entirely to luck.
My least favourite part of the journey were the security checks, along with the endless requirement to provide paperwork with barely any notice. It was wearing, particularly towards the end of the journey and made worse from lack of sleep (no sleep).
In fact, I barely had 10 minutes of sleep from 4:00am on the 10th December to 2:00pm on the 12 December (Australian time). Flying has never been my favourite pastime, not helped by a particularly bad experience in the past of turbulence lasting 3 hours. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't relax enough to go to sleep, without waking up with a start a minute or so later. I was surprised by my insomnia tolerance levels - which I can only attribute to the excitement of so many new experiences, high levels of general happiness and a smidgen of fear. Apart from a mild case of delirium towards the end of the sleepless stint, I coped pretty well.
I really thought that the in-flight entertainment would be sufficient enough to keep boredom at bay, though when you're too tired to follow the story lines it all becomes a bit redundant. The final 3 hours of the flight were spent staring intently at the plane sat nav, urging the plane to hurry along now. As I say, delirium.
The mild disappointment of not being able to see Hong Kong at all thanks a major case of smog was put to the back of my mind after experiencing from a distance my first proper Australian storm (epic in comparison with English storms) and landing in Sydney to the backdrop of a beautiful Australian sunrise.
On leaving the plane, things were made even more surreal when we were approached by an Australian Customs and Excise officer, who asked us if we'd carry a drugs substitute in order to help train one of their sniffer dogs. Having agreed, I think the dog may have needed a little extra training as she struggled to find Holly on two separate occasions; once as we headed through security and once while waiting for our baggage to arrive.
From landing onwards the experience was dreamlike. Exiting Sydney airport to be greeted by the ecstatic faces and friendly welcome of my mother and father in law, in amongst (and part of) the crowds of Australians welcoming home loved ones for the christmas break. Experiencing some early morning Sydney sun, the mad rush hour traffic of Sydney, the beautiful Sydney backdrop, the journey over the Harbour Bridge, the first views of bushland and Australian birdlife (made even better by the fact that the first 2 Australian birds I encountered on exiting Sydney airport were a pigeon and a crow)...and slowly but surely heading to Holly's beautiful family home, on the edge of the Australian bush and with Lake Macquarie as a backdrop.
After two hours sleep to tide me over until Australian night I spent the evening watching the sun set, looking out over the trees teeming with vocal, new and exotic birds while enjoying the company of Holly, Garry, Jill, Marcus, Brad and Kiko (the dog). All of this accompanied by a delicious Aussie BBQ (complete with kangaroo) and some excellent beer. As the evening turned into night, the bugs came out. A cricket fell on me (soon to be happily gobbled up by Kiko) and christmas beetles, moths and other exotic insects were never far away. We finished the evening in search of the southern cross - which we struggled to find despite 2 or 3 constellation apps - turns out it's actually known as crux (the latin for cross. Who knew?) and was just visible on the horizon...And then to bed!
Yesterdays animal spots (not including those in the distance):
pigeon (wow!!)
crow,
kookaburra,
australian magpie,
eastern rosella,
rainbow lorikeet,
tawny frogmouth,
cricket,
christmas beetle,
cockroach
...and various moths
Today's plan...stroll around Lake Macquarie, visit Blackbutt to see some more native animals and go shopping for some budgie smugglers and some shorts.
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