Flying to Australia

[jakbar]

I'm sitting at an internet cafe in Port Douglas after a long day at the Great Barrier Reef, and I figured I'd check in with my NYCA friends. I flew out to the reef this morning by helicopter and met up with the boat that Wendy took out to this floating pontoon which serves as a base for the divers/snorkelers. I got some nice aerial pics of the reef, as well as some in-flight cockpit shots in the helicopter. It was a challenge shooting in the cockpit due to the large amount of glass and relatively small amount of "cockpit", but I think the shots came out nicely...at least on my camera's LCD screen. :)

Australia has been absolutely excellent, and tomorrow we're off to New Zealand. We'll be flying a Qantas 763 from CNS to SYD (switched from Virgin Blue so I could have 6 hours to spot from the observation deck at the international terminal in SYD!!) and then an ANZ A320 to AKL.

I had a great day spotting at SYD on Wednesday. Chris Griffiths (StealthZ from a.net) picked me up at 5:30am and we spent 12 hours at the airport until I had to leave for my Jetstar flight to CNS. Chris was a perfect host, and I am extremely grateful for his help. The weather was dodgy at times, but I still got some great shots. We shot from the spot next to the control tower, from The Beach (which wasn't as good as you'd think) and from the observation deck at the int'l terminal (which was awesome). The highlights of the day were an ANZ 744 (which I am told is extremely rare at SYD), a Qantas 743 and the Virgin Blue 737 painted with the Gillette advertisement. Sorry Brian...no Wunala. :( Our flight to CNS on Jetstar was great....only 35 people on board, so we had room to spread out. There's no assigned seating, so we had entire rows to choose from.

Then, on Friday, I made the 60km drive from Port Douglas to CNS to shoot at the hill made famous by Anthony Jackson and others. Climbing this "hill" was anything but easy....it was in the humid, hot forest, with a very steep path. But, I made it to the lookout spot, and I got some amazing photos. CNS is kinda like SXM in that most of the good stuff is between 11 and 2, so I got there around 10 and stayed until about 2:30. I got too hungry to stay after that! I saw a few Australian 763s, an ANZ 744, a few Qantas 763s and 738s, a few Virgin Blue 737/738s and a few Jetstar planes (one A320, and two 717s).

As you can tell, it has been a productive week in terms of spotting. I'm gonna take more pics tomorrow at SYD and maybe some in AKL next week, so hopefully when I come home I'll have enough pics to keep me busy editing for a few months during the winter!

I'll check in next week after we get to Hobbiton....I mean, New Zealand.

Cheers...

Josh

[mirrodie]

just remember, that QANTAS pilots mum owns the shoe shop in Port Douglas.


jumpseat baby;)

[Mr Smith]

great stuff Josh...glad to see you've enjoyed Oz and got some spotting done, Wunala is currently on QF 93/94 Mel-Lax run this week, you'll probably catch her there on your way home!

[jakbar]

I'm back in New York after an amazing vacation in Australia and New Zealand. It was a lot of flying, but I'm not complaining about that! I must be crazy, too, because I'm flying again this coming Sunday when I go to ABQ on business (LGA-ORD-ABQ and ABQ-DFW-LGA).

I did get to do some spotting at AKL last week, and I saw a few interesting things there. So I'm gonna have pictures from SYD, CNS and AKL, as well as one from WLG which I took while waiting for our flight to AKL (the picture is of the plane we were about to fly on). Lots to keep me busy this winter.

I'll post a more complete trip report over the weekend.

Josh

P.S. -- Mario, it was impossible to even get cockpit shots let alone jumpseat rides. On every single flight I went on, I was not allowed to even go near the cockpit when the door was open pre-flight, and the door was always left shut when we landed. Not a single flight attendant on any of my flights on any of the airlines was receptive to the idea of me even talking to the pilots much less taking pictures. In fact, on every airline the response was "No, it's a security issue". These airlines include US Airways, Asiana, Jetstar, Qantas and Air New Zealand. Times are changing, I guess.

[eric8669]

Josh,

Welcome Back, It sounds like you had a really great time. Can't wait to see some of the stuff you shot.



Eric

[Mr Smith]

just remember, that QANTAS pilots mum owns the shoe shop in Port Douglas.


jumpseat baby;)

no chance, only QF family and staff are given jumpseat and that has to be authorized weeks in advance, Qantas is even anal about letting people take photos in the cabins during flight for some reason!

glad you arrived home safely Josh and enjoyed your time down under, see you in about 8 weeks ! :D

[mirrodie]

Sorry to hear it Josh. Since my last trip there was June 2001, of course, I can see how they changed. But it was worth a shot. Sorry to hear it.

Looking forward to your report. Welcome back.

[Darren Howie]

Glad to hear you hada great time Josh.
Sorry i couldnt arrange to be in Syd for your visit but its great that Chris organised to be there for you.
Hope you had a ladder down at the beach!!
Take it easy
Darren