Xmas in Australia - Getting There

I know when I think airports at Xmas I think of long lines for check in and security. Even worse, we were flying United Airlines (UA) and not by our choice. While DFAT kindly agrees to cover the cost of one return home during a posting, they also mean to do it as cheaply as possible. Hence, economy class and UA for us. Nonetheless, its all started well. We waited about 5mins before checking in, and even security took no longer than usual. Ottawa airport is brilliant in that US Customs and Immigration are located onsite. Its a lot less stressful for both the staff and the passengers than completing the ordeal with 5 other planes worth of travellors after 13 hours in the air. Not one of us was scanned or given a 'freedom pat' as the price of entry to the USA. And so we reached our departure gate unstressed and with plenty of time. We wait. I get a coffee and doughnut, and we wait.

And we wait a bit more. In fact, we waited until until 20mins after we were meant to have departed before UA even started to board the flight. 20Mins after that we finally departed. Annoyingly, we were landed at a small terminal which requires passengers to walk outside from the plane to the gate. Normally, no big deal, but in winter it kind of (really) sucks. This is where it all started to really go wrong. Jane slipped on some ice, ripping her pants and putting a pair of big, deep scrapes on her knee. As soon as we got inside I checked a board for our flight and discovered that it was already boarding. The problem is that our connection in Dulles (Washington DC) was tight before the Ottawa flight was delayed and Dulles airport is huge. Huge enough, in fact, to have its own trains sytem between terminals. Despite the injury, we would have to run to have any chance of making our connection. We each took hold of a child and ran to the train. Luckily waiting only seconds before one arrived. We did our best to catch a few breaths on the train before running again to reach the gate. We made it onboard about 10mins before they closed the doors. We spent those 10mins in the back bathroom cleaning up Jane's rather messy knee with some iodine and bandages provided by the aircrew. That was followed up by a couple of Advil and an ice pack. She had been very brave about the whole thing.

Later in the flight, Lillian asked for her fluffy sheep (Lilly-Baa) which had been carefully packed into her backpack to take on the plane. We couldn't find the bag. I looked under all four of our seats, the the overhead bins. I even looked under the seats of the people seated next to us. No luck. I know Jane had it when she got off the previous flight, but after that it all got a bit rushed and blurry. The only thng we could think of is that the bag had been put down and left back on the train (the only time we had stopped running). I had dreams of our revenge on Dulles, imaginging the chaos as the bomb squad was called in to detonate poor Lilly-Baa.

But no. Turns out the bag was - for some reason – beneath the seat two spaces to the side. We have no idea how or why, it was so far to the side, but were very happy that Lilly-Baa was neither lost nor detonated.

After all that, the San Fran connection was a dawdle. We landed, we walked to our gate. We waited about 30mins and then we boarded. The flight was long, but uneventful. It was an overnight flight, but nobody got nearly enough sleep. UA fed us and whenever the kids got too scratchy I hooked up the netbook and let them watch eps of Shaun the Sheep or Charlie and Lola until the danger had passed.

We landed in SYD around 8am and descended into chaos shortly after. Immigration was bad, but we are on diplomatic passports. Straight to the short line, yay us. Customs, however, was an absolute zoo. The lines to be processed were so long they doubled back on themselves. In fact, there were so many people that it was nearly impossible to move around the front of the room, let alone move a family of four pushing a pair of luggage carts. If luck had not intervened we probably would have been stuck in the log jam for at least another hour. Yay luck! A roaming Customs officer took pity on us. He asked us a few questions (and noticed the magic diplomatic passports) and stamped all our forms before directing us to an express exit. We were free.

Once through the doors we quickly reunited a pair of very excited shorties with a pair of very excited grandparents. Shortly after we were able to flee the airport, and shortly after that Jane had her happy toes in the sea.

BTW - A few days later Jane received an email from UA asking her to complete an online survey regarding our recent travel. This ought to be good.