<span>April 2019</span>, Tourist By Transit, Page 3

Arrival In Sydney

Sat. March 2nd was the big day to leave home for Sydney. The morning was spent walking Dylan at Minto-Brown Park in Salem, doing a little geocaching along the way. Richard picked us up around 3 pm to takes us to the airport.

We went to the Delta Club to wait for our flight out of PDX. The flight left late due to the inbound plane being late. We arrived at LAX and had a brief stay at the Delta Club in T3 before heading to the bus to the Int’l terminal. Turned out our Virgin Australia flight was late due to the gate being blocked by another airline. Our flight finally closed its doors by Midnight that Saturday night. We arrived in Sydney around 10 am on Monday (that Sunday did not exist for us.

I tried to get the AirBnb to release the keys to us early, but no response, so we had until 3 pm to get the keys from a timed lock box. So we first hung out at Central Station to grab some lunch (and my first Australian Geocache). Around 2 pm we moved to Milson’s Point to a coffee shop that was right by the entrance to our apartment building. Key access opened at 3 pm, so I got the key and we headed to our room.

It was a one bedroom apartment with a nice deck overlooking Syndey’s Luna Park and the harbor with a bit of a view of the famous Harbour Bridge.

Later we went out to get dinner at the Tramsheds. This involved taking the train back to Central and then hopping on the Light Rail. The Tramsheds is a shopping/dining venue in a former Tram depot, which was pretty cool. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to crash…

30th Wedding Anniversary Trip to Oz and Kiwi Introduction

My wife and I spent 25 days in Australia and New Zealand in March of 2019 for our 30th Wedding Anniversary. The next series of blog posts will be more or less day by day o what we experienced along the way. Basically what I had posted as Facebook Photo Albums, just moved over to here.

The trip consisted of flying from Portland to Sydney via Los Angeles. We spent four nights in Sydney. We then boarded a 13-day cruise around New Zealand. Upon return, we flew up to Cairns for 2 nights, then flew to Melbourne for 4 nights and then the long trek home. So much was seen and done. Even by my standards, this was a very epic trip.

Since I like stats, I will give bullet facts to start with:

Cities/Towns Visited

Australia: 4: Sydney, Katoomba (Blue Mountains). Cairns, Melbourne
New Zealand: 9: Dunedin, Wellington, Napier, Tauranga, Rototura, Hobbiton, Auckland, Paihia, also went through Fjordland NP via cruise ship

Transportation

Since this blog is about tourist by transit, this is important. And about 98% of all trips we did involve some sort of transit mode other than a private car or taxi.

# of plane flights: 8, with 3 of them in First Class. The rest in coach.
# of Cars driven: 1 – in Cairns, rental car price was about the same as Taxi
# of taxies used: 1 – in Sydney, mainly due to being hungry and the next bus was late by 20 minutes
# of trains taken from airport/city and back: 1: Sydney
# of buses taken from airport/city and back: 1: Melbourne
# of commuter rail systems used: 3: Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland. Wanted to try Wellington, but no time
# of light rail systems used: 1: Sydney
# of tram systems used: 1: Melbourne (very useful)
# of city bus systems used: 3: Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland
# of Ferry Systems used: 1: Sydney
# of Funiculars: 2: Wellington & Blue Mountains (Scenic World)
# of Cruise Ships: 1 – Ovation of the Seas
# of Tender Ports: 2: Auckland & Bay of Islands
# of port shuttle buses used: 4: Dunedin, Wellington, Napier, & Bay of Islands
# tour buses used: 2: Sydney & Tauranga
# of old fashion touring car used: 1: Napier

Other silly facts

# of photos taken: 5000+
# of Hotels used: 0, none, zilch, nada…
# of AirBnBs used: 3
# of St. Paul’s Churches visited: 3 (2 in Wellington, 1 in Melbourne)
# of steps taken: 307,000+
# of miles walked: 136 miles
# of floors climbed: 757 floors

Oz-Kiwi-2019: March 2-4: Arrival in Sydney

Arrival In Sydney

Epic Trip of a lifetime: Australia and New Zealand