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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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Alarm went off at the unholy hour of 4:30 this morning. Too early even for me, especially after going to bed around midnite. But it was easy from there: five minute shuttle to the airport, five minutes to check in, an hour wait in the AirNZ lounge, and off to Oz at 7am.
Had a really good 3.5 hour flight. Some very good food. While I opted for fruit, Deb went with pancakes, and bacon cured in maple syrup. Two mango/kiwi smoothies topped it off. Managed a quick 30min snooze. Arrived Sydney on time at 8:30am local time, two hours ahead of NZ, ten hours ahead of GMT, and sixteen hours ahead of Houston, I think... On the flight I was able to summarize our driving on the North and South Island (see pics).
All went smoothly at Sydney airport as well. Picked up an Oz sim card for Deb's phone (I'll post the number when I have it handy), obtained maps from TI, got some local currency from the ATM, and Hertz provided us with yet another Toyota Camry. This one fire engine red in color.
On the motorway out of town (we're doing Sydney proper at the end of this trip - Thu, Fri, Sat) we noticed that there was a brownness to the sky. Sure enough a bush fire started o/s of Sydney last Monday in one of their national parks west of town. We found this out when we stopped at a TI near our lodging for tonite. The TI rep told us that the fire is still not under control, and, in fact, roads were closed, roads which we had planned to travel over the next few days. Looks like weather might dictate our trip in Sydney as well!
Local weather is hot. Forecasted high is 28C. No rain. Hasn't been significant rain in months. Landscape looks parched.
previous travel blog entry
57Sheffy says:
Got your T-Day card today-thanks so much! Hope they'll be able to get that brush fire under control soon-is the dry weather an El Nino thing, or does that even affect OZ? Love you both!