We awoke to a rainy, squally day, so abandoned our original plan of taking the local bus to Manukau City. A taxi delivered us dry and in plenty of time to catch the airport 380 bus.
Arriving at Auckland Airport, we checked in, pleased to rid of some of our luggage. We still had lots of time to wait, so amused ourselves by eating lunch, and watching planes reloading.
The A380 was due in - it's always exciting seeing that big bird come into land. (One of the Emirates captains described his plane to Doug as, "The queen of the skies." Unfortunately we didn't think to point a camera at it.
Soon it was time to wander over to Gate 5. We were a bit disappointed to see an A320 loading up. Erk.....they fall out of the sky sometimes......pretty small for flying across the Tasman!
We were very cramped, but really that was our only complaint. The cabin crew were lovely and were working under really difficult conditions. They would be in the one aisle with a trolley, then have to back right up to let someone pass.
We arrived at Melbourne to a beautiful day, cleared customs no trouble. (Not like Border Patrol). We then caught a Skybus shuttle bus (another first for me, a bendy bus) which took us to Melbourne Southern Cross railway station where we caught a free shuttle to our accomodation.
We are staying at the City Edge, east Melbourne. It's fairly basic but clean and comfortable. Doug has battled with wireless internet last night and this morning and finally we're 'on line'.
We've been awake for hours. Time to set out on our first trip of exploration!
No comments:
Post a Comment