DAY 7
PAPÉETE (Tahiti, PYF) to BRISBANE (Queensland, Australia)
Friday February 16th, 2007
TODAYS MILEAGE – 4053 miles or 6523 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 9179 miles or 14772 kilometres
Headed home to Australia.
Who's silly idea was it to get up at 5AM to get on a tin crow - hmmmm that would be mine!!!
I didn't get a real good nights sleep for a good number of reasons. Not wanting to miss the early morning flight, incoming guest arriving on the 1AM Air France flight and sweating my arse off all had me tossing and turning throughout the night.
I managed to beat my 5AM alarm by 20 minutes, so readied the rest of my goods & chattels and loaded them into the Rent–A–Joke for the quick ten minute trip to the airport. Having dispensed with the vehicle, I then stood in line for an hour and twenty minutes just check in. No matter – I have plenty of saddle time to go getting back to Australia.
The final leg of my journey home saw me flying 5½ from Papéete (Tahiti, PYF) to Auckland (NZ) where I wiled away the 3½ hour layover by enquiring as to where my errant baggage was. As you may recall, I asked the baggage service in Tahiti to have the bags waiting for me in Brisbane, rather than having them get lost again trying to catch up with me in Tahiti.
To my surprise, I was informed that the baggage was sent to Tahiti, but with no one accepting the baggage, it was shipped on to Los Angeles (USA). Upon further checking, it was ascertained that the baggage was in transit to Brisbane (Australia) and they were "pretty sure" it would be on the the same plane as myself into Brisbane.
From there it was another 3½ hours across the pond into Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) and guess what??? My missing baggage was awaiting my collection – all be it in far worse shape and condition than when I handed it over to Untied Airlines in Boise (Idaho, USA). A quick hour or so's drive South of Brisbane and I was cracking a coldie with Philthy and his bride Jodi watching the sun set over the Gold Coast.
All up today started at 4:45AM on Friday February 16 and ended around 6PM Saturday February 17th – a bit of a long day.
Tomorrow I'll be off to church - yeah right!!!
Fitzy
Just in case you are interested, I've broken down the flight times and distances in getting over there:
∗ PAPÉETE ~ Fare Suisse (Tahiti, PYF) to PAPÉETE ~ Faa'a International Airport (Tahiti, PYF)
3 miles or 5 kilometres
• Drive Time: 11 minutes
2547 miles or 4099 kilometres
• Flight Time: 5 hour 19 minutes
1428 miles or 2298 kilometres
• Flight Time: 9 hour 27 minutes
∗ BRISBANE ~ International Airport (Queensland, AUS) to TERRANORA (New South Wales, AUS)
75 miles or 121 kilometres
• Drive Time: 3 hour 12 minutes