Tuesday 13th April 2010 (NZ Time) – AUCKLAND / SYDNEY / VANCOUVER / EDMONTON (Darryl)
From the plane:
We stayed the night at Maria’s house, although Sarah & I only had 1.5hrs sleep before the shuttle arrived at 2am to pick us up – as we didn’t finish the final packing and cleanup of the house til late.
The first incident happened at Auckland Airport when Lachie almost got gobbled up by the escalator! At first I thought he was just kidding around when he was wiggling on the floor, but soon realized his arm had got caught by the rubber escalator hand grip where it feeds into the floor, so grabbed him and pulled like hell until he popped free. The escalator cut out and his only injury was some bruising, a few tears, and a broken watch strap, but as we were a bit jaded with the early start it was surreal and like something out of a movie!
Lift off was at about 7:15am to clear skies and a sunny but windy day (on a Boeing 767). The flight to Sydney was a bit bumpy for a while, and just as I started to feel queasy – Kelsey decided to test out the barf bags, and blew chunks a few times. We only really had about 40 minutes in Sydney airport, so made the most of that time with several quick laps around the shops to get the circulation going before the 14 hour stretch coming up. Touchdown in Australia was around 9ish Aussie time, and we departed for Canada at about 10:30.
The larger Boeing 777 with Air Canada was a bit more comfy and a smooth takeoff, but still a few bumps in this road too! Currently cruising at 35000 feet, 590mph ground speed and the temp outside is -43 degrees F. It is 5:20pm (Aussie time),now dark outside and we are roughly halfway to Vancouver. With 3932 miles travelled so far, and only 4001 to go, we should arrive in Canada around 7am local time.
Later:
Well we made it. What a marathon journey, but we are finally in Canada!
Its hard to believe as it has taken so much planning and agonizing over costs and routes etc, and with the tiredness from all the travel it seems quite surreal.
Anyway, the flight to Vancouver went fairly well – with time passed by watching movies ( I saw Sherlock Holmes and Avatar) reading my book (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), work on the laptop, sorting out the kids (mopping up after them and setting them up for a sleep etc). Me, Kelsey and Lachie shared a row with Sarah and Callum behind. The boys all slept well at times, however I only managed about half an hour with the odd spot of nodding off in the whole 13.5 hours – as the flight seemed to hit all the bumps when I tried (Lachie woke me up to tell me to put my seatbelt on – thanks mate!)
I loved all the food though, so that also filled in the gaps.
We landed at Vancouver around 7:15ish, and after a grilling by border control, collecting our luggage, check in and security for the next flight etc - we had an hour or so before the Edmonton connection so made the most of it and had a snooze on bench seats in the departure lounge. Waking around 10:30 and feeling quite groggy we boarded and were taxiing ready to lift off before 11am (this time on a smaller Airbus Industrie) but there was some minor drama with a faulty auxillary power unit….so we must have gotten away around 11:15.
The view of the Rocky Mountains from the air was fantastic, and the snow only appeared to be on the tops but the ranges extended forever with some big rivers and lakes in between. This flight was the most bumpy and Kelsey blew chunks again, but it was over pretty quickly landing in Edmonton Airport after 1pm.
The airport here was the newest and nicest of the lot so far, but being a fair way out of town it cost us $58 to get to the Hotel! The change in scenery around Edmonton is stark in comparison with the Rockies, as suddenly the land is flat and brown and dusty. Apparently we just missed the snow, with evidence of broken ice floating down the Saskatchewan River and patches of snow here and there.
The Alberta Place Suite Hotel is pretty good for the price, with a separate bedroom for us and continental breakfast included. Its also very central to the CBD so great for taking a walk around town.
A nice long hot shower, shave and change of clothes was just bliss. We decided to take a walk and look for a restaurant to have dinner and celebrate our arrival, but they took a lot of finding. Initially we thought the air temperature was quite tolerable, and actually nicely brisk and refreshing – but later on the temp dropped and we started to really feel the cold, so needed to find somewhere fast! We stumbled upon a Boston Pizza place which was just perfect, and after some tiny burgers, and individual pizzas Mine was spicy Perogy (had to ask what perogys were!), red wine and hot chocolate everything was looking so rosy that Sarah nodded off a few times!
I realized that tipping for service was the right thing to do so had to come clean and just ask the waitress what was expected, and made my first ever tip (usually 10 to 15%, so I paid $10 on a $67 bill).
We were all still feeling the effects of the epic journey so we needed some sleep desperately, so off back to the Hotel.
On the way back we stopped at Sobeys supermarket and stocked up on some provisions for meals in the Hotel room. Interesting looking around and comparing what different foods are here.
Anyway, back to the Hotel and we all passed out before our beds hit the pillow around 9:30!
