Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Melbourne - Day One

Finally the day arrived for us to leave for Melbourne. Everything was planned right down to the last minute including making allowances for traffic jams and delayed flights. Nothing could go wrong! We had an uneventful flight up to Auckland where the weather was perfect. We walked from one terminal to the other and went to check in for our flight to Melbourne. This is where things started to fall apart.

The last time I used my passport was six years ago and while it hasn’t expired, there was one thing that I didn’t take into account when making the flight bookings. Five years ago I got married and changed my name, so when it came time to check in I was turned away because my passport didn’t match my booking. $50 and ten minutes and with the nice lady at the counter and they let me check in. Everywhere I went I was called Ms Finn – much to the disgust of my ever patient husband. He is not going to let me live this one down in a hurry.

The flight from Auckland to Melbourne was long and cramped. A head wind slowed us down by 20 mins so when we finally landed I was relieved to be able to stand up and walk again. I did enjoy the fact that everyone could watch their own choice of movie or whatever with the individual screens on the back of the seats. I haven’t seen that before so was like a kid with a new toy for a bit. On arrival in Melbourne we found one of our bags had been damaged. It will probably not make the flight back with us which is another added cost.

We get turned away at the immigration window because I have filled out the form wrong and once I sorted that out we got singled out by customs for extra checking of our luggage. We chose to get a taxi to the hotel and wouldn’t you know it, our taxi driver, a nice young man from Ethiopia, had never been to the Hilton South Wharf so had no idea where he was taking us. He aimed for the convention center and luckily got it right – even he was happy about that!

The views from our room are awesome! Watch this space for lots of photos because my fingers are already itching to get to the shutter. It should be noted that I don't have great software for processing these images, they are just a taste of what's to come rather than the finish image.

View from the hotel room.
 View from the hotel room.

1 comment:

  1. Nice, hope you enjoying your trip. It was a lovely spring day here today. Look forward to seeing more great pics. Cheers Liz

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