03 to 05 Nov 2010 - Kamloops to Melbourne

As you can expect getting up facing the leaving on a long trip involves a lot of second guessing, questioning and re-searching to make sure all preparations have been done.  We also decided that we had to do a last load of laundry,  so up at 7 our day started.  Now remember all the bags were packed and ready to go so there really should have not been much need for an early start, but what can I say?

Once we got the chores ready I really suspected we would end up waiting until the taxi we had ordered arrived.  Believe it or not, he arrived early so we did some last minute scrambling after all – yeah I know I am so good at timing I would have been ready perfectly on time, but when he arrived early…well threw my whole schedule off. 

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time and learned that we could check our bags straight through to Melbourne rather than deal with them in Vancouver – this was great news.   We packed light I should add with only 52 lbs in one duffel and 48 in the other.

The flight to Vancouver was not unusual.  I did get to say hi to Karl who was on his way to a meeting in Vancouver.  Then we had the LONG wait of 6 hours in Vancouver.   You may wonder why I booked this way with a long layover in Vancouver, but at this time of year if there had been a problem with the flight we could have driven down.   We wondered around the airport, got lunch, and managed to waste time.  A couple of friends had thought about coming down to visit us, but it was a work day and there was no way they could swing the time.

Going through security was no problem other than my 22 lb backpack with 2 laptop computers took time to disassemble and reassemble. (Yes I bought the light weight netbook so I would not have to cary a heavy laptop, and guess who has it in his backpack?)  That will change likely. 

So here are the times for the record:

Flight from Kamloops – 12:30 am PST arriving 1:20 pm PST
Flight from Vancouver – 7:44 pm PST arriving Aukland at 6:00 AM – (9:00 am PST) with a lost day
Flight from Aukland – 8:00 AM (11 am PST) arriving in Melbourne at 10:00 am (3 pm PST)

The long flights were not as bad as I had expected.   From Vancouver we were fed a dinner and a breakfast.  There were about 72 movies to choose from and we had good books.  More importantly we both were able to get some sleep so we arrived feeling tired but not exhausted.

After some running around and checking costs we decided to take a taxi to our hotel.  Using the various types of transists with two of use and all the bags would have saved us about 10 dollars and it was not worth it.  As we drove with the taxi driver we were able to learn a lot about the city and got very useful information.

We were able to check in as soon as we arrived at the hotel which was just before noon.  Then it was time to go find something to eat.  Fortunately this hotel is right on the train line (rapid transit) so we walked over there, explored rates and routes and found something to eat.  

Since we have been told by many that it is important to stay awake during the daylight hours to adjust to the time zones we decided that we needed to do something so off we went walking to the downtown core.  It is about 15 km from hotel to downtown but we knew where to find the metro to get back so a walk sounded good.  I did not want to go back to the hotel room to change into walking cloths and shoes so silly me just went as I was.  Needless to say we did have a long walk and most of it was enjoyable.  The temperature is around 20 so all in all we had perfect environment for a long walk.  Ok, by 3+ hours my feet were killing me and my jeans were very uncomfortable and hot but we made it downtown.

We wandered around and got to do some exploring but by 4 pm (local time) we both were starting to flag.  This is not a surprise.  So we decided to find our way back to the hotel area, eat an early dinner and try to stay awake at least until 7 pm (that would be about midnight PST).  Wes made it until about 6:30 but I forced myself to say up until 8 since I did not want to wake up at 5 local time or worse – earlier.  We got up at 7 am local time so Wes slept over 12 hours and I slept 11….guess we were a bit tired but I feel good as I write this.