Day Fifty - Back Home

Some ten hours after taking off from Honolulu we landed in Auckland, New Zealand. We've lost a day but for me the flight was reasonable. I managed to sleep a little and we were provided with a late supper and an early breakfast. The terminal was a delight after the horror of Honolulu.

As we were 'Transit' passengers we were only required to submit to a security screening. We assembled in the Departure Lounge with the largest collection of passengers we've experienced. Our seat numbers gave us a hint at the size of this aircraft. Seats were 41H and 41J. We were impressed by the size of this Boeing 777 with Economy Class rows having 9 seats in three groups of three. Our seats were isle and middle but the young lady who had the window seat offered to let us take it. Not that you could see anything but that enormous starboard wing.

We were offered breakfast again and the two and a half hour flight was almost comfortable. Landed in Melbourne where we had to navigate the hurdle of the automated passport checking process. That's something we've had problems with in the past. Apart from delays caused by the large number of passengers and difficulties experienced by some we 'sailed' trough smoothly. Collected our luggage and joined the extended queue for customs clearance. Nothing to declare, welcome home, through you go.

Off to look for the Virgin check-in desk. Turns out that it is next to where we arrived and we'd been expecting the need to travel on a transfer bus !! The Baggage Drop queue was the longest in the hall, Does everyone do 'on-line check-in' these days ?? It is all a bit beyond me. despite the apparent confusion we were processed in good time and we were on our way to security screening for the last time this trip. Yippee !!!

Waited in the comfortable lounge to board yet another ne aircraft type. A brand I've never heard of, Embraer ERJ-190. Built in Brazil it is a very comfortable narrow body jet seating about 100 with four sears per row. The flight lasted just under an hour and at 14:30 local time we touched down at Canberra Airport.

We were met by Natalie and Amy who made light work of our luggage. They delivered us to our little home where we faced the task of finding our way around again. We hadn't been here that long before we left and now we're getting used to being there all again.

A pretty lame end to this series, thanks for following and hope you've got something from the experience.

Last image for this trip is a snap of the Melbourne Airport. You can view the image by following this link to my main album.

Wishing you good health and safe travel.
Have a great day and stay well.
Cheers .. Tony