Today (which was actually yesterday) our journey commenced when the phabulous Phams kindly picked us up and drove us to Canberra Airport. Josh and Maddie were also on hand to farewell us and receive last minute cat-minding instructions from Maureen. On arrival at Canberra Airport, we took the obligatory 'start of holiday photo', or 'Kyle's start of holiday selfie'.
We then checked in and waited at the gate for our aircraft, which was a Virgin Australia ATR72-600 that ended up departing around ten minutes late.
The flight to Sydney was uneventful, which is what you’d like to see when travelling on an aircraft (except for me, I love turbulence, and there was none of that).
After arriving at Sydney’s Domestic Airport, we caught the shuttle bus across to the International Airport. Clearing customs is now so much easier with Automatic passport scanners and no longer a requirement for filling out departure cards.
We then checked in and waited at the gate for our aircraft, which was a Virgin Australia ATR72-600 that ended up departing around ten minutes late.
The flight to Sydney was uneventful, which is what you’d like to see when travelling on an aircraft (except for me, I love turbulence, and there was none of that).
After arriving at Sydney’s Domestic Airport, we caught the shuttle bus across to the International Airport. Clearing customs is now so much easier with Automatic passport scanners and no longer a requirement for filling out departure cards.
After a brief stop at Maccas for dinner, and short walk to our departure gate, our next flight, NH880 from Sydney to Tokyo, a ANA Boeing B787-9 (JA887A) departed on time (2130h).
After taking off from the south and over Sydney, we flew through the night, our track taking us due north, until we crossed the Queensland coast at Mackay, then flew directly over Port Moresby, PNG, tracking well east of the Philippines (directly over Guam) and into Tokyo Haneda International Airport from the east. I watched a great movie, “I want to eat your Pancreas”, which I thought was going to be a Horror movie, but ended up being a ‘tear-jerker’; but I was brave and got away with only slightly glazed eyes. Sleep was pretty difficult in economy, despite quite a reasonable pitch and seat width. The food served onboard by ANA was was not too bad.
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| Our aircraft ANA Boeing B787-9 (JA887A) |
