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| Day 0 - Saturday, September 29th, 2001 Ottawa - Sunny 18°C | ||
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With boarding passes in hand and security clearance behind us, we boarded our 1PM short flight to Toronto. Landing in Toronto and pre-clearing U.S. customs was uneventful, and with only a slight delay, we boarded our connecting flight to Los Angeles. Lucky for us our departure terminal was the same one we arrived at, so our experience at LAX was not grand. Not wanting to have to clear security again, we decided to kill off our 4-hour layover by trying to relax and read our books and explore the portions of the terminal within the security perimeter. At this point, we were getting quite tired, so when the boarding call came for our flight to Sydney we were looking forward to getting some sleep on the plane. While prolonged moments of unconsciousness were hard to achieve, we did manage to get some rest despite the seats, babies, caffeine, and the butterflies. The fourteen-hour stretch was broken up by some memorable moments, like a wonderful view of the southern hemisphere's stars including the constellation of Crux (the Southern Cross), a beautiful sunrise above the clouds, and a shooting star. We landed in Sydney and set foot on Australian soil for the first time at around 7:30AM local time Monday morning. Due to our crossing the international dateline sometime during the flight, we effectively "skipped over" Sunday entirely. With Sydney not being our final destination, we moved through the usual luggage lines and customs clearance, then boarded a bus to the domestic terminal for our flight to Brisbane. After an uneventful flight, we collected our luggage and hailed a cab to our hotel. |
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aking up early like anxious kids on Christmas morning, our departure day seemed to last forever. Prepared far in advance, our shiny new luggage sat by the door waiting for Lyne’s dad to arrive and deliver us to the airport. After a quick call to the Air Canada information line to ensure departure status and time of our flights, we loaded the truck and headed off. Due to the recent events of 9/11, security checks slowed things down a little, but also caused there to be fewer people present, so trips through the baggage check lines were quick.
