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Down Under: my experiences in South-East Asia, Australia & New Zealand.

Guido's Down Under Experiences: February 2004

FlyingDutchman
2006-03-19 10:32:36

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arrived Sydney on Sunday morning at 7.30 after getting a little bit of sleep during the 11,5-hour bus ride. I was not feeling too tired though, so after breakfast at the hostel I took the ferry to Manly, a beach suburb on the other side of the harbour. From Manly a 10km scenic walkway starts which I walked all the way to the end, passing some nice secluded beaches and getting great views of the Sydney harbour. I went back to my hostel by bus, ferry and train. In the evening I had to burn all my photos on CD, since my 512MB CompactFlash card was almost full and I wanted to have an empty card before arriving in New Zealand. So my last night in Sydney I went to half a dozen internet cafes before I found one that offered CD-burning. But there I wasted at least one hour, because as soon as I had uploaded all my photos, the computer would crash and I had to start all over again. Another first attempt that went wrong. Sometimes I really regret not having brought a laptop, but I am glad I did not when I have to walk with all my bags. Anyway, I found another internet cafe with a CD-burner, and I managed to burn them all on CD twice (backups are essential after all).

On Monday morning I managed to get to the airport in Sydney in time for my flight, but at checkin I was told the flight was very full and I might not be able to get on. I was put on standby and had to wait in the checkin area until half an hour before departure. Another first attempt that went wrong. At least I got a 5 euro voucher for food, so I had a small breakfast at the airport, pretty nice since I left my hostel too early to get breakfast there. Half an hour before departure it was pretty chaotic at the standby counter, but after a while I heard I was on a priority list and was able to get on the Qantas flight (others were booked on an Air New Zealand flight or had to wait for 2 hours till the next flight). I was on a priority list because I showed my British Airways frequent flyer card upon checkin, ...