Our round the world trip (5): wizard! – we’re in Oz
Day 6 (Sunday) of our trip was effectively a travelling day. Our flight on Qantas Airways Airbus A330-200 was another ‘overnight’ journey east into the sun. The journey from Bangkok to Sydney was nine and a quarter hours, so we landed at 7 am Bangkok time but – since this part of Australia is four hours ahead of Thai time – it was 11 am in Sydney. For our onward journey to Melbourne, we had to transfer to a different terminal where, after a welcome hot drink, Vee decided to go shopping. Then the fun started …
In his befuddled, jet-lagged state, Roger had misread the arrival time in Melbourne for the departure time from Sydney, so that we had much less time than we had originally thought. When Roger realised his mistake, Vee was nowhere to be found.
He reported to the departure gate and explained the situation to the staff. A final call was put out for Vee – but nothing. After a little while, a further call was broadcast – still nothing. Roger could hear someone on the aircraft speaking by radio to the departure gate staff member announcing that the doors had to be closed. A third call was transmitted for Vee – STILL zilch. Then Roger spotted Vee on Cloud Nine, strolling casually through the terminal, utterly unaware of any calls, but delighted with her purchase of a new handbag.
The flight to Melbourne was just a hop and skip at 70 minutes, so we reached the Crowne Plaza Hotel in mid afternoon. Barely an hour later, we had a briefing from our tour guide for Australia, the very competent and informative Manuela Blankenhorn, and met the other members of the group (only 11 – nine of them North Americans). It’s going to be fun getting to know them over the next 10 days.
Australia is the smallest continent but the largest island on earth – approaching the size of Europe. It is the planet’s sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil. The nation has a population of 24 M – only a bit more than a third of UK (63.2 M) but the size of Australia is more than 31 times that of the UK. It is an urbanised country with 90% of people living in cities and towns.
Since the nation is so huge, understandably it has a federal political system with significant powers held by the six states (and two territories). There is a short guide to the Australian political system on this web site here. Economically the country is doing well, thanks largely to the mining sector supporting the rapidly growing Chinese economy.
Melbourne, on the banks of the Yarra River, was founded in 1835 by a character called Batman who persuaded the local Aborigine community to ‘sell’ him their traditional lands – a whopping 250,000 hectares – in exchange for a crate of blankets, knives and knick-knacks. Some kind of super-hero! Today it is a city of 4M – and we are going to meet four of them who are personal friends or professional contacts of Roger.
March 11th, 2013 at 12:32 am
Hello Roger
Welcome and I’m glad you arrived safely. I see it is going to be a hot couple of days. Melbourne is of course renowned for having very changeable weather. Wear your hats and drink lots of water.
Kind regards
Nadine
March 11th, 2013 at 10:56 pm
Hi Roger and Vera, Hope you are enjoying your time im Melbourne, the weather has been a little warm for you. Enjoy your time in Australia and looking forward to reading about your trip.
Love Trish