It is a BRILLIANT day for a sail into the Sydney Harbour! I am up early (quietly starting to pack) and ready to go downstairs to Deck 4 and access the Bow of the Noordam for viewing of the Sydney Harbour! Lets GO!
Here is a panorama picture that I took from the very tip of the bow where I was located as we sailed into Sydney –
Now that we have arrived and I have packed my suitcases – time to get off the ship and wait for our pickup that I booked to take us to the Sydney Airport! First, the things we left behind….
Here we are waiting for our ride….
The airport transportation that I had booked was a bit delayed in picking us up – I later found out that there are 2 areas – for drop off upstairs and one for pickup where we were and for some reason the driver was upstairs at the drop off area. SO GLAD my phone works in Australia so that we could sort that little issue out! Off to the Sydney Airport we went! We only had one LITTLE issue – I had bought a bag on the ship (for $10) and when I was packing it as I was planning on carrying it onto the plane, it seam burst! Yup, you get what you pay for Lynda! Not an issue – just put it into one of the nice canvas Holland America bags that they gave us! However I am not quite sure what happened to our luggage when we were on the ship – Andrew bought one t-shirt and I bought some things but not enough for our luggage to have babies!
Needless to say, in Australia they are a little pedantic about carry on luggage (size AND weight) so I thought, like I could do at YVR, I would buy a tote bag to check our extra things that seem to have exploded onto the scene. We walked from the Qantas Domestic Terminal to the Virgin Airlines Domestic Terminal (across a parking lot) to where I was told there might be a store that sells luggage. Yes, there was a store that sells luggage but at quite a high price and it was carry on luggage – not a checked bag – duffle bag size that I was looking for. We then moved to plan B while in the Arrivals area of Virgin Airlines – while Andrew partook in some caffeine consumption, I took my medicine and other stuff out of my roll aboard suitcase and put it into our carry on bag and put some stuff from my carry on bag like travel printouts and notebooks etc that could be checked and are heavier and then walked back to the Qantas check in area and checked our luggage and then with our two small backpacks and Holland America bag proceeded through Security.
I must admit security screening in Australia is awesome! While the YVR airport has put in faster bins in the C security area for Domestic travel and new x ray machines so that you do not have to take out laptops, which are similar to what is done in Australia now, it is the body scanning which is really cool! No longer walking through a door type thing or into a cage and holding your arms up – you walk between two panels, put your feet apart and hold your arms out at an angle and then they tell you to proceed or not. It does not affect people with pacemakers or other medical devices either. Also I can just push my walker through and then walk between the two walls and be scanned without creating any noise! There are two people watching the people walking through the scanning walls just to make sure nothing is missed. SOMEONE left a coin in their pocket and that was caught (I did not know I had a small coin in my pocket) and they were very nice about it! Onward to the lounge now where I had bought passes as I knew we were going to be in the airport for about 4 hours.
At the Qantas lounge we got seats looking out at the gates below and at the hangars across from us. Beautiful view! However for me, who did not have breakfast or caffeine, this was going to be an experience! Andrew had pre-scoped out the food section for me and brought me some apple juice as my blood sugar was low, however the report back was not good, so then I took my tired body and went and checked it out myself! Oh my, what a surprise! I saw on the sign that they had chocolate chip cookies (which Andrew had returned with too) however below that there was a little note saying they had gluten free blueberry cake if you asked! So guess what I did? I asked for some blueberry cake! The lady showed me the box and then gave me a piece and then asked if I wanted some gluten free bread to make a sandwich. In front of me were some pannini like bread toasters so I guess I looked a bit confused and she said – here is the gluten free bread and some baking paper (parchment) for you to use in the machine! Oh was I happy as a duck! I then proceeded to get some cheese, put the cheese between the slices of bread, wrap the paper around the bread and into the pannini type maker it went for toasting! No crumbs to be found on my food! At the same time, the beets were labeled gluten free so I got some of those and some much needed Coke Zero and off I went with my now browned sandwich to have lunch while watching the planes below!
I was not able to take a good picture of it as the corner of the building was in the way, however we saw the Singapore Airlines 380 plane which we will be taking in a few weeks to Singapore depart and also there were some Qantas 380’s at the international terminal. As I was sitting there all of a sudden I realized there was a tail on a plane in the freighter area that did not fit – it was CargoJet! Now CargoJet is a Canadian cargo company – what was that 767 doing way down here? Well, I went online and traced its route and saw that it is on a journey and obviously doing some charter service to Australia as it was scheduled to depart to Darwin later today. Thus I think is why we see the stairs leading up to the plane for the pilots….
We then realized our flight to Adelaide is going to depart from right below us as that was OUR luggage right on the cart sitting in front of our window! Really cool! So here is a picture of our luggage on the far side of the cart that is full (the blue and maroon bag) and our plane!
Now that we have boarded – which again I found to be an interesting process – rows 1-15 board through the front door – we were in row 7 and then rows 16-29 go down some stairs and board up a set of stairs going up into the rear of the plane! That is how they get their planes boarded so fast! Very interesting. Unfortunately, Andrew and I pulled the short straw on this 90 minute flight (plus a 30 minute time zone change) as a family of 4 boarded and sat in the 3 seats behind us. Behind me was a woman plus her baby which would have just been under 2 years old and in the middle seat, behind Andrew the other youngster, about 3 or 4 and then on the aisle, the dad. Needless to saw, for 90 minutes I had a constant pounding of my seat by the baby – along with the seat tray I think too and screaming! I asked the father to please reduce the banging on my seat and he said “it is a baby – not much we can do”. Great – my poor back is getting sorer now and we have a car ride ahead of us! Andrew I could tell was not happy either as he was abnormally quiet….
However I must admit, I did have a short period of excitement on the flight – beautiful views flying out of Sydney and then they handed out the snacks for everyone on the flight and not only were they Dairy Free but they were Gluten Free too! Wow! A whole plane getting gluten free snacks! That would NEVER happen in Canada! Now, I do not like mustard so I did not partake in the dip portion however the nuts and crackers were really good! We flew over a lot of farmland, that could have been mistaken for Ireland and then started getting lower as we approached Adelaide. Great views of a dam, the train station we will visit in about a week and the sports stadium! The Adelaide Airport is fairly small – it has swing gates like there are at YVR – which means some gates that have doors that trap (lack of a better word) people in the gate area for International flights. There seems to be about 16 gates in total to the terminal. Right in the middle when we arrived was a flight from Doha, UAE with the glass doors closed which showed it was an international flight. For most of the other gates there were no doors or the glass doors were open. It was interesting to see the ads that United is starting to fly to Adelaide from LAX in December!
We quickly found our luggage – due to the delay getting off the plane last – my walker did not show up at the gate so they took me off in a wheelchair as there were lots of ramps to go up to get to the gate area and then my walker met me there – our luggage was luckily the last rounding the carousel belt when we got downstairs, after I had to visit the ladies room!
We found our shuttle to the car rental agency and and soon were on our way – it was Andrew’s re-introduction to driving on the left side of the road again too! We managed just fine and while avoiding the toll road, drove to the M2 highway that we were going to take to Victor Harbour where we were going to stay for the night. This drive took us about an hour. It is a GOOD thing that we did re-organize our travels when in Fiji as there was no way we would have made that 7 pm ferry from Cape Jarvis – we got to Victor Harbour just at 7 pm which means we would have arrived at Cape Jarvis about the same time which would have been a bit too close to call!
It was a lovely drive once we got off the M2 highway through vineyards and over hills covered in Mulberry trees – there was a lovely rest stop where we had a view south with the sun shining through the clouds which made for a great picture! And of course, the road sign watching for kangaroos caught me by surprise and cemented the country that we are actually now in!
We very soon arrived at our hotel in Victor Harbour – Nightcap at Victor Harbour. Here are some pictures of it – it was night when we arrived so I grabbed these from their website. The bar manager checked us in and the menu for the bar/restaurant was sitting at the front desk and I commented on how wonderful that it was they had gluten free fish and chips on the menu and that we would be done for some shortly! We soon got downstairs and found that the restaurant and bar, which was supposed to close at 8:30 pm decided to close early at 8 pm and it was currently 8 pm! So they suggested once I told them I had Celiac Disease, that we go to the restaurant at the end of the block and sure enough – they had decided to close early too! So we came back to the Victor Hotel and let the lady at the bar know (the bar was still open and we had coupons for drink and I think Andrew at that point deserved a beer) and she suggested we order from Dominos as they have GF pizza. As I was hungry that was our only option on a Sunday night so that is what we did! We sat in the bar and enjoyed our drinks and waiting for the pizza to arrive! Once the driver figured out where the hotel was and where we were located in the bar (there was some confusion on that part) we got our pizzas and retired to our room where we had pizza in bed and then went to sleep as we had to leave at 7:30 am to get to the Jarvis Bay Ferry Terminal for 8:30 am to board the Kangaroo Island ferry!
I have only one comment to make now – the bed was LOVELY and firm! So tired of the SOFT bed on the Noordam! My back is going to be happy tonight! Sweet dreams all!