On the Way

Sunday, June 28

Here we are at Syney Airport, waiting for our hotel bus to pick us up.

I'm writing this at 33,000 feet somewhere over far north Queensland, according to the in flight map.

We're on the way.

Despite the best efforts of the Qantas engineers and the coincidence (not!) of their strike right on the eve of the school holidays, we got as far as Sydney last night. Got the bus from the airport to the hotel, which was driven by a fellow who was mistaken – he thought he was driving a very fast car in the Grand Prix, and not the elderly 12 seater mini bus that the rest of knew that we were on. No matter – we got to our hotel a good minute or two earlier than we would have. The hotel lounge was full of a tour bus of middle aged Australians cheering on the Wallabies in their test against the French, and young women who'd come in on the bus from the airport with us and who kept coming into the bar and trying to buy booze to take back to their rooms – and who kept being politely declined. The Australian rugby team was doing well, so the lounge was a cheerful place. At 5pm this morning when their tour bus left they still looked – from the hotel window at least - to be a cheerful lot.

We weren't far behind them and got the 5.30am bus from the hotel to the airport. Schumacher the bus driver wasn't on duty at that time – instead we had a grumpy fellow who didn't believe in lifting bags.

Sydney International is always busy and at 5.45 am it was all go. It's renovation is nearly finished and that means that there's plenty of space and plenty of signage and it's easy enough to find your way around.

Korean Air is gorgeous. It's staff are relentlessly cheerful and helpful. Even in economy there are all the little things that make a longish – 10 hour – flight bearable. And the biggest thing – the legroom is good. Even though the person in front of me has their seat down I'm able to stretch my legs in front of me. We're 4 hours into the flight, and so far so good.

So – onwards. Next stop Seoul, and then LA!