Weekend in Sydney

Thanks to the changing of how Qantas airpoints can be used (can now use them in place of cash money & don’t have to take a bad-timed long-routed award flight) we had a long weekend in Sydney to visit Sara and Lucy. We still see Sara a bit in Wellington for work but hadn’t seen Lucy in 8 months since we had our farewell picnic above the airport.

We had a fabulous weekend – lots of chatting in cafes, lots of walking, a Thai massage that left bruises, some cold rain, some stifling sun, an electrical storm, facials, a massive shopping mall, buttons, cocktails & champagne and Barbara Walters the kookaburra!

We got to see the new International Pumpkin Terminal at Wellington airport – it’s been 10 years since I’ve flow internationally out of Wellington so it was rather strange. Although if we’d been flying out of Auckland I would’ve been hankering for next top New York no matter how much I wanted to see Sara and Lucy! The outside of the International Pumpkin Terminal isn’t actually particularly pumpkin-looking any more now that it’s finished, more bronze domes like I think was the intention!

Barbara Walters was waiting for us on the balcony in the morning – we slept in the lounge and I was so excited she was the first thing I saw on Saturday morning after hearing so much about her.

Coffee stops at various places took hours as there was so much to catch up on!

Lucy took me to the button shop she’d sent me a photo of a while ago and Sara took The Mister for his first Thai massage … not sure he’ll ever trust her again as by that evening he had terrible bruises all over his face and neck after the little Thai lady climbed all over him – he looked very beaten up!

Our view during dinner on Saturday night was just magic and when the rain cleared was crystal clear.

Walked 11.5 kms when it turned out fine on Sunday with a bit of a sit in the sun in Darling Harbour.

And a stunning view of the Sydney Opera House where we managed to get a photo in between wedding shots … actually on our walk we saw 11 weddings!

By the time we had to fly home on Monday night an electrical storm was rolling in and it arrived right over the top of the airport just after they’d boarded our plane and shut the door. For fear of lightening strike, all ground staff abandoned their posts so our plane couldn’t be checked and guided out so we sat there for 1.5 hours waiting for the storm to pass, then another half an hour on the edge of the runway waiting for a backlog of planes – the lightening was like nothing I’ve seen before, totally constant. It was one of the scariest take-offs I’ve had – right into the storm banking hard left just before we got to it with the plane’s belly being pummeled by lashing wind and rain knocking us all over the place for 3 or 4 minutes. I got some video while we were waiting to take off.