With the sailing season still several months away, Mark and I decided to take a little side trip to visit my brother and family in Australia. We’ll be staying with Margie and Matthew for 5 weeks and are excited to catch up with them and also see a few new spots in the country.
Our adventure started on Tuesday, Aug. 23 with our usual drive to Toronto. We had a great visit and lunch with Ted and then headed downtown to have dinner with Evelyn and Caroline. We spent the night at Evelyn’s. We were up early (5:30am) and Evelyn drove us to the airport at 6:30am (arriving just after 7am). I am very pleased to say that all the horror stories I’ve been reading about Pearson Airport didn’t come true for us. Evelyn was a great help as we navigated the WestJet self serve checkin kiosks and then the self serve baggage drop off!!
By 8am, Mark and I were through security and American Customs and Immigration and were seated at the gate for our 10:35am flight. Time for coffee and a bit of breakfast.
Our WestJet flight boarded on time and we departed about 15 minutes late (that seems pretty standard to me). It was a full flight to Los Angeles but didn’t feel crowded at all. This was our first WestJet flight and it was quite nice.
We made great time flying across the USA and when we arrived at LAX at 12:45pm (pacific time), our gate was still occupied by another plane. We sat on the tarmac for about 15 minutes before the plane proceeded to the gate. It was a very smooth first flight and with the aid of our newly purchased AirTags, I could tell that both our checked bags made it to LAX!!
So here we sit – an 8 hour layover before our big 14 hour flight to Melbourne. The departure gate for our 9:30pm flight was empty when we arrived at 2:30pm, so we found a nice spot by the window where we could plug in our devices and charge them up. We still have about 4 hours to kill but airports are always interesting places!! Next stop – Melbourne at 6am Friday morning!!!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 