Of course, the hard part of hiking a trail in Australia is getting there in the first place.
December 26, 2004
Unfortunately, our flight to Australia was leaving from Dulles, in Virginia, quite a long way from my house. With a relatively early flight out on the morning of the 27th, CareFree and I opted to get a hotel near the airport the night before, so that we could leave on our own schedule, and not be pressured by an imminent deadline. Late in the afternoon, my mom dropped us off at a metro station near my house, and we took public transit nearly the whole way to the airport, getting off a stop earlier to go to our hotel. This took a bit longer than expected, due to some track work and station closures, requiring an out-of-the-way detour, but aside from a one-transfer trip being three transfers, we got where we needed to be far cheaper than it would have cost to hire an uber. (The relatively small difference between the cost of the hotel and an uber also factored into our decision to get the hotel.)
After dropping our bags in the room (which smelled a bit like Indian food), we walked to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. The food was great.
December 27
Being only two days after Christmas, we expected the airport to be very busy with holiday travelers, so we rushed a little in the morning, to take advantage of the hotel’s “free” breakfast buffet, which started at 6 am. This meant we missed the hourly airport shuttle, which started running at 6, but since it was a short walk back to the metro, and only one stop further to the airport, we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
The airport was not as crowded as we expected, and we breezed through security and on to our gate.
Since we tried to book the flight as inexpensively as possible, we had two slightly lengthy layovers: a four-hour stop in Charlotte, and a three hour stop in Los Angeles.
Charlotte was quite a bit more crowded and hectic than Dulles was. Several times, we saw the airport’s wheelchair service pushing two people at once, which both seemed manifestly unsafe, and also a bit rude as the workers were shouting at people to “make a hole” so they could speed through without losing their built-up momentum.
Then, boarding the plane, I found my seat had been reassigned — problematic since both CareFree and I had paid to pick seats next to each other. We got that resolved on-board though. When we boarded, I spoked to one of the flight attendants, who basically said “not my problem, ask someone if they’d like to move”. Near our seats, an older flight attendant was much more helpful, and did the talking for us.
In Los Angeles, as soon as we landed, we got a message that our flight to Melbourne had been delayed two hours, turning our three hour layover into a five hour ordeal. We were both a bit grumpy, but (an overly expensive) dinner and a quick trip outside (to the smokers area) for some “fresh” air helped.
A few hours later, still hungry, I got a sandwich, and almost as soon as I’d finished eating it, we received $15 vouchers from our airline for the flight delay. And then our flight was delayed an additional two hours.
We learned from one of the gate attendants that, apparently, the issue was that they were having a problem towing the plane to the gate, which is a new one for me! Fortunately, they seemed to have resolved the problem, and the extra delay was quickly rolled back.
December 29
One very smooth sixteen hour flight over the Pacific, we landed in Melbourne, largely skipping over December 28 thanks to crossing the International Date Line. Customs was a breeze, as was (unexpectedly) biosecurity. Being able to tell them that we had cleaned our hiking gear before we left allowed them to just wave us through.
We picked up eSIMs for our phones so we’d have cell service for the month we’ll be in Australia, and got tickets for a bus (leaving every 10 minutes) to the city center.
We arrived at our hotel in Melbourne a few hours before we could get our room, though they still let us check in to get the paperwork out of the way. We went and found a restaurant to get breakfast food from. Recharged a bit, we took a walk, exploring the city a bit and taking care of some chores — we needed to get fuel for our stoves, as well as sunblock. We stopped for ice cream on the way back towards the hotel; conveniently then, we got a call from the hotel that our room was available.
At over 5 million people, Melbourne is more than three time as populous as Auckland, and almost as populous as the entirety of New Zealand. The city felt a little like Auckland to me, but bigger and more spread out, and less personable. it did not feel crowded at all (and the area around our hotel seemed outright deserted), but that may have been due to the holidays.
After over a day of traveling, we were ripe and ready for showers, but after that, we did little else, and turned in quite early, thanks to being jet-lagged.
December 30
We took advantage of our hotel’s (not free, but quite good) breakfast buffet, mostly so we wouldn’t have to think about where to go for breakfast this morning.
We again wandered around the city for several hours, stopping at an inexpensive restaurant in a fancy hotel for lunch.
The highlight of the day was visiting one of CareFree’s work colleagues, who lives in one of Melbourne’s suburbs. He generously offered to let us store our luggage at his house while we’re off hiking, but since that was still a few days off, we met today for dinner and drinks. Despite only living in the area for a couple of years, he was surprisingly well-versed in the history of the neighborhood we walked through on the way to two different bars. The first bar wasn’t really conducive for conversation since it was pub trivia night, but the second, on a rooftop, offered us a quieter atmosphere and a nice nighttime view of the Melbourne skyline.
December 31
We spend another day walking around Melbourne, this time heading southwards, to Port Phillip, the horsehead-shaped bay south of Melbourne. In contrast to New Zealand, whose oceans and bays never really smelled like “the ocean” to me, there was a quite notable ocean scent here.
The view across the greenish harbor was felt somewhat bland, lacking anything reminiscent of Rangitoto and Mototapu Islands in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf.
Dinner was sandwiches, with material from the nearby food store.
January 1, 2025
My second new year outside of my home country (the first being last year — a fantastic hike over the Tongariro Crossing on Te Araroa). This was mostly a low-key day, as we both took care of business that needed to be done before we absconded to the trail.
In the evening, we again made the trip to CareFree’s work colleague’s house, to drop off our luggage while we’re out hiking.
Dinner again was sandwiches.
Tomorrow morning, we take a train, and then a bus, to Portland, and we’ll start our hike on Friday!