Perth to Sydney

So....... here we go again.

I worked Good Friday, Day Radio from 5:00am to 1:00pm. Then home - Ryan and I went to the cricket nets for some practise, the cricket season is over but Ryan needs the practise and we intend for him to hit a few balls over winter.

Rayls did last minute packing and washing.  I did a bit of back yard work, the spa, that we never use, is very clean. tHe back yard has had a fair amount of work over the past few months and I am fairly pleased with the results.

Ryan took us to the the airport, Scott has an early start on Saturday morning. Sad to say goodbye to Hunter, our 12 year old Jack Russell, he was just a puppy when we took our first USA trip in 2001.

No real hassles at Perth Airport, our bags are on their way to LA - nice to not have to see them to then.

Qantas QF568 to Sydney, an A330. Good flight and now we are in Sydney

I managed to get some passes to the Qantas Club and here we sit enjoying the view, the food and the surrounds. Nice internet connection and comfortable seating - we are here for 6 hours so I will make the most of it.

Later now and we continue to relax before the big flight to LA. Rayls is sewing half inch hexagons, she needs to do 125 of them. Once she has tacked them all she has to stitch them together. In the end it will be a purse.

We both had a short sleep in our chairs, the view from our chairs gives us a great view of Sydney and planes are constantly taking off and heading for various desitinations around the world.

There is 3 different skywriting efforts going on in the sky. Something to do with it being Easter.

Los Angeles

We have made it it LA, all OK.

In Sydney we stayed in the Qantas Lounge till around 45 minutes before deparure time.

There was no problems boarding the plane and our departure from Sydney was fine, a few minutes late but no major hassles. Whilst waiting to take off I checked the details on the A380 we were on. The plane was registration number VH-OQA and I found that back in November 2010 this was the plane that had a major incident caused by an uncontained failure of the port inboard engine, while en route over Batam Island, Indonesia. Shrapnel from the exploding engine punctured part of the wing and damaged the fuel system causing leaks, disabled one hydraulic system and the anti-lock brakes and caused No.1 and No.4 engines to go into a ‘degraded’ mode, damaged landing flaps and the controls for the outer left No.1 engine.

Rayls was not impressed when I told her this as we taxied to the runway.

The flight was as good as it can be for a 13 hour flight, Rayls watched Django Unlimited and This is 40. We both managed some sleep.

Landed in LA around 9:30am on Saturday 30th March. Immigration took around 30 minutes. We watched as one Immigration guy who was obviously starting his shift took 15 minutes to set himself up ready for duty. Fascinating to see someone take so much time to set up a few things, he was either very very thorough or just didn't want to great the public. I suspect the latter.

The bags came quickly, sadly a bottle of Margaret River red wine we bought for Amy and Steve didn't make it and was 'bleeding' all over the bag and the ground. A very helpful lady assisted us with a plastic bag and a guy was there in seconds to mop the floor.

Then it was too the Alamo Rental place, the dude there was very keen to upgrade me from our midsize car to a bigger Chev Impala for $20 extra a day. No thanks. Then when we go to the aisle where the mid size cars were located there was at least 5 Chev Impalas there, so got one for no extra.

We drove to Torrance where we are staying 2 nights. Had lunch at an Arbys and then I wanted to go to an AT&T store for phone access in the USA, Rayls said there was one near to a Joann's Craft Store. I fell for it and Rayls spent an hour in Joanns whist I searched, and found, the AT&T store.

Checked into our hotel a bit after 2:00pm and snoozed till around 6:00pm.

Then a Wal-Mart for supplies and Outback Restaurant for dinner.

Sunday 31st March

A very quiet day, partly because we are very tired and partly because a lot of paces are closed for Easter Sunday.

We both slept OK off and on and didn't get up till after mid day!!!

We had a light breakfast at a nearby Dennys and then went to Manhatton Beach to check our an Apple Store but it was closed.So we drove down to Long Beach for a look see and then headed back via an Albertsons (groceries) and arrived back at the hotel around six.