Hobart-Sydney-Peking

Friday, 1/26/18 & Saturday 1/27/18

I am giving away my last cherries to my camp neighbors, as well as after-sun lotion because the mother got burned pretty badly, and they are quite excited about it. After half a roll, I'm full, so I'll buy something to eat somewhere and sometime, because I'm spending so many hours at airports today, something will come up.

I roll the 50m to the car rental. Rob tells me that I have done 2,417km. There were days with 22km or even 60km, but also long distances, like from Arthur River to Waratah or earlier this week from Lake St. Clair to here at Seven Mile Beach.

Rob drives me to the airport, where I wait from 10.20am. I check in, but can't check my bag in. So I wait outside for another 1.5 hours in slowly developing sun - at least in fresh air. To get the luggage weight right, I unpack the softshell jacket from the bag again, put the cookbook, which I just got as a goodbye gift, in there and put on both jackets and stuff everything that is small and heavy in the backpack into the jacket pockets. In the end, my bag weighs 24.5kg and my backpack 6.5kg - my jackets probably weigh about 10kg, because I have both fleece jacket pockets and both softshell jacket pockets full. After getting rid of the luggage and getting the backpack okay, I put everything from the jacket pockets back into the backpack.

3.5 hours after my arrival at Hobart Airport, my plane takes off for Sydney. I have an aisle seat and unfortunately can't see anything of Tasmania as a farewell.

We arrive in Sydney on time at 3.10pm. Now I have to get my big bag here and change from the National to the International Airport. The bag is soon there and I walk outside into a 28°C-warm air with my two jackets on. So first attach one jacket to the backpack and buy a bus ticket. Yes, buy! Here the transfer between the national and international airport costs $6. The bus runs every 10-15 minutes, the ride takes about 12 minutes. My plane doesn't leave until 8.40pm, so I have about 5 hours of waiting time and there really is no rush. However, I still cannot check in at Air China at the international terminal because they only open 3 hours before departure. So my radius is quite restricted. The Business Class Lounge, which I could use, is behind security and therefore unreachable for me - with luggage and not checked in. You can't check in online at Air China, at least not for these international flights.

So I get a coffee and a sandwich and sit in the hustle and bustle and read a little until about 2 hours have passed. Then I walk back to section A and can actually check in now. I spend the last 1.5 hours in the very beautiful Air New Zealand Business Class Lounge. I'm not really hungry anymore, but it's never a bad idea to replenish fluids a bit.

The Air China Business Class to Beijing is almost full. The comfort of this 777-300ER is better than on the Airbus on the outbound flight. The service is also better, the food more beautiful - but the flight is extremely bumpy. Around 6 out of the 10.5 hours it feels like a bus ride on gravel roads and sleeping is impossible. When I finally fall asleep 2 hours before landing, I am woken up shortly afterwards for breakfast.