Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 10: SYD to HNL

For a 3-week trip to Australia and Hawaii in 2002, I took a 30" suitcase and packed it with 32 kg (70 lbs) of stuff. In 2011, for a 10-week trip to Europe, I took a 26" suitcase and packed it with 19 kg (43 lbs) plus a 4 kg (8 lb) backpack. I think I had about 8 days worth of clothes on this 2002 trip, including 2 pairs of jeans, vs 6 days in 2011; also, I packed all of my scuba gear to save a few bucks on rentals, my suit and dress shoes for the wedding at the end of the trip, and I had bought a few books to take home.

Tuesday, October 1 to Monday September 30: Sydney to Honolulu
The Time Zone Shuffle

Sigh. I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to have to leave. But circumstances demand it. I checked out of the hotel and caught the second shuttle to the airport. I planned to take the Airport Shuttle bus as part of my SydneyPass (which includes a free round-trip to and from the airport). When I inquired at the front desk they insisted that the shuttle would pick me up at the front of the hotel, which conflicted with the official map of the bus route, as that indicated the stop was a couple blocks away. Sure enough, at 7:30 the airport shuttle showed up – a shuttle VAN, hired by the hotel and requiring a payment, not the shuttle BUS that I had already paid for. Luckily the next bus stopped at its regular place about 14 minutes later, and it was off to the airport.



Maybe I bought too much stuff, maybe I just tried to put too much of my carryon items into the big suitcase, but before they let me check my bag, I had to take about 3 kilos of stuff out: I was over the 32 kg suitcase weight limit (that’s about 70 lbs). Fortunately there was room in my carryon baggage, but the bags just got heavier. I got my GST tax refund from my watch, and proceeded to the duty-free shop to pick up a couple bottles of Australian sparkling wine (they can’t call it “champagne” because the French won’t let them; the Americans just go ahead and do it anyway) to bring to the wedding party on Friday afternoon. Of course, that meant that I’d have to take it, my laptop case, and a regular carryon bag onto the plane, and keep the wine safe over the more than 8000 miles I’d travel between Sydney, Australia and Carmel, California. No worries, mate.

We flew a 747-338 across the Pacific, crossing the International Date Line and the Equator once again. I didn’t get to see the upper deck on the 747, though, as apparently it’s only for those in Business and First Class. Oh well. As what seemed to be a tradition, I had a seat over the wing, this time seat 44H over the right wing, the row right in front of the emergency exit. No extra leg room, but we didn’t have anyone behind us kicking the seat or complaining we were leaning back too far. We were supposed to leave at 10, but of course that was delayed until 10:27. Why ruin an almost-perfect record of not leaving on time? A half hour isn’t too bad on a 9 hour flight, and the pilot said we should be able to make that up. Not that it would matter in this case, since we are one of the last flights into the Honolulu airport and there’s nothing leaving after we get there that I could take.

Qantas is a nice airline to fly, especially on the long-distance routes. They’ve got decent food, free drinks (at least on my flight), and a varied in-flight entertainment system with music and video choices. On the screen we started off watching the morning Nine News, then an episode of the Aussie sitcom “Kath and Kim”. After a couple of hours, the moving map said we were passing south of the island of Noumea, which I had never heard of. Some halfway decent lamb something or other for lunch, followed by the first of three movies, “Minority Report”. I slept through the movies on the way out, this time we flew during the daytime (at least as far as our body clocks are concerned) so I was awake. The map then told us that we passed over Nadi Island, another obscure chunk of rock somewhere in the South Pacific, traveling at 35,000 feet altitude at a groundspeed of 580 mph (typical for the flight). About 4:30 out from Sydney we finally crossed the International Date Line. That puts us back a day, so I’ll get to experience the night of September 30 twice. That makes up for my not having a night of September 15 on my way out to Sydney. Sometime during the movie “Mr. Deeds”, about 8:30 pm Honolulu time (6 hours out from Sydney) we crossed the Equator. Following that movie was “About a Boy” (I hadn’t seen this or “Mr. Deeds” yet), during which they served dinner. Honolulu is only 4 hours ahead of Sydney (or rather, it’s 20 hours behind) so jet lag wasn’t TOO bad, but they served dinner (pasta, cole slaw, a tiramisu for dessert, and a VB beer) at the Australian equivalent of 6 pm (10/1), which corresponded to 10 pm (9/30) in the islands. Good thing I have my new watch to keep track of where the time zone is and what time my body is supposed to adjust to. We made up basically all of our flight delay, landing at 11:26 pm, just a few minutes off what was planned. The map screen told us that we flew 5191 miles.

After clearing Customs in the Honolulu airport (boy, it’s nice to be in the short line for once – and now that we’re back in the US, it’s a line, not a queue) and getting my bags, I turned on my cell phone and got a signal for the first time in over two weeks. It held a charge pretty well over that duration, though I did charge it my last night in Sydney so it would be ready. No phone mail messages – I got a little worried because I had sent an email to Katalina (the hotel/car/ticket consolidator I met my first time here) to have her reserve one of two rooms for me, and to call me and let me know. My fears were confirmed when neither place on my list had a reservation, but my first choice did have some extra rooms at a very reasonable $79 per night, their “walk-up” rate. It was still in the ballpark of what Katalina had said she could get, though. The last shuttle bus of the night took our planeload of people into Waikiki, stopping at various hotels along the way and pointing out sites of interest – “This is the harbor where they filmed the opening scenes from Gilligan’s Island… Over here is the clock that you see in the opening of Hawaii Five-Oh…” . We didn’t make it to the Ohana West Hotel until about 2 a.m. I checked in, unpacked, and went to bed. With a little time to kill waiting for the shuttle, I called my house to check on my phone messages. In the 17 days I was gone I had accumulated 26 messages – but only one was from a real person (a neighbor), the rest were from phone solicitors. I need to do something about that.

It was only 10 pm as far as my body thought, but this was the start of the Time Zone Shuffle: skip a few time zones, spend a few days getting adapted, then skip to another time zone and repeat. The Sydney to Honolulu leg is 4 hours difference (off a 9 hour flight), to be followed later this week by the 3-hour Honolulu to California time change (from a 5 hour flight) and then the 2-hour California to Houston segment (a 4 hour flight). In theory, those small amounts should be manageable without too much trouble – hopefully no repeating the “sleeping through Cairns” jet lag debacle – but in theory, everything works out the way it’s supposed to. I didn’t purposely plan the flight segments to get this, it just kind of fell into place. In order to get the (relatively) cheap round trip air fare between Sydney and Honolulu, I had to return on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday. Only the Tuesday departure would allow me to get to California in time for the Friday afternoon wedding (a Thursday departure from Sydney would have gotten me to Honolulu on Wednesday night, enough to get me there on time, but there were no flights out of Honolulu to California that I could get with my Frequent Flier free ticket until Friday morning, which would have got me there too late). So then I had to figure out someplace to spend the intervening three days. Hmm, it’s Tuesday, I’m in Hawaii, and I have three days to get to California. Where shall I spend the time until then? Geez, that’s as no-brainer as I’ve seen. So that’s why I’m in the islands for three days.

During the flight, I read a couple of the guide books I had brought with me and took notes of where to go and what to do. I thought about going island hopping (over to the Big Island of Hawaii) before the vacation started, but by now I’m mentally and physically tired and I just want to take it easy over the next few days. I’ll see Kilauea and the rest of the Big Island on my next trip, this time I’ll see the island of Oahu in more detail.