Made It To Australia

Well, after a bit of trouble, I did make it to Sydney on schedule.  I took a shuttle from Surprise to the Phoenix airport and arrived with plenty of time to spare.  The only trouble was the flight got delayed for more than a hour.  So what looked like a nice leisurely connection in Los Angeles now got a little tighter.  When I got to the gate I checked with the attendant who checked and said the flight would be further delayed to arrive after my Sydney flight was to depart.  With a lot of scrambling they changed my flight to a US Airways flight.  This involved them having to transfer my luggage and me going to another terminal and getting ticketed and boarded on the new flight.  It arrived an hour before my Sydney flight, but it was at terminal 1 in LAX and my departure was from terminal 5.  It is a real mess getting through the terminal shuttle.  Luckily the security check was not crowded that late and so I arrived at my departure just as they were doing the final boarding call.  So I got on and hoped that my luggage would do the same.

The flight to Sydney was 14 hours.  A long time to sit and cat nap – especially for my 6’5” frame in the economy section.  They did serve 3 good meals/snacks during the journey and I did survive.  When I went through customs and went to the luggage carousel I was elated to see my luggage there.  Got some local currency and took the transfer to the domestic terminal where I now await my Jetstar flight to Cairns.

The weather is good and things are looking promising for a great trip.  ONWARD!