Australia: Day 3, Arriving in the Land Down Under
After leaving on Saturday, December 17th we arrived on Monday, December 19th at 6:30 am. For that reason, I’m skipping ‘Day 2’ and picking back up with ‘Day 3’. It’s definitely a crazy feeling to lose a day – but we knew we’d pick it up on the way back.
By this point, we were pretty exhausted. After not being able to sleep on the plane, we’d been on the move for just under 24 hours, and still had another flight to make. We went through Immigration, picked up our luggage, and then left Customs. We picked up the train to get over to the domestic terminal to check-in for our flight to Adelaide at 10:35 am.
We arrived to the domestic terminal around 7:30 am and attempted to check in for our JetStar flight. Apparently they won’t let you check in more than 2 hours beforehand – so we had an hour to kill. Luckily, the airport had free WiFi! We found a table by a café and called home and hopped online to check email to pass the time.
Being impatient, at 8:15 we walked over to the kiosk to check in – but in the process of printing our boarding passes, the machine froze and only one of our tickets and luggage passes printed. Because we weren’t supposed to check in yet, we had to wait a little longer before we could get the other one.
Going through airport security was SO much easier than it is in the States. We could keep our shoes on, could take water through, didn’t have to remove any belts, etc. Josh did randomly get picked to have his luggage swiped to test for explosives, but even that was quick.
Once inside the terminal we stopped to grab a bite to eat from Subway, because we knew the flight to Adelaide wouldn’t be serving food. After eating, we found our way to the gate and hopped back onto the WiFi – it’d be the last time I knew I’d have reliable WiFi for awhile.
Our last flight for the “day”
The flight was relatively quick and we landed in Adelaide at 12:10 pm [which was 10:10 pm on 12/18 at home]. If you’re doing the math, that’s 31 hours after departing from Atlanta. 🙂
We claimed our luggage and made our way to the taxi queue to grab a ride over to the Crowne Plaza Adelaide – $24 later we arrived at the hotel and checked in around 1 pm. The room had been booked using the Friends and Family discount via my friend Hannah, but we opted to upgrade to a room with a balcony and a view of the city. Looking back, it probably wasn’t worth it to upgrade because we didn’t use the balcony except to take a few pictures.
View from the room
The first thing we did though was take showers! After 32 hours of traveling without a shower, it felt fantastic to wash away the travel grime!
Once ready, we walked over to Rundle Mall to explore. We stopped in a few stores and picked up a few snacks (Tim Tams and Shapes) and water from Woolworth’s. And all of a sudden, the jet lag hit us hard. It was 2:30 pm and I was determined to stay up as long as possible – I was going to fight the urge to sleep. We walked around and decided to split a pizza at Brunelli. After a delicious late lunch/early dinner, we made our way back to the hotel around 4 pm.
It wasn’t much later that Josh had fallen asleep (5 pm) and I fell asleep sometime after 6 pm, only to wake up at 7 pm, and again at 9 pm. I figured it was best to wash my face and get ready for bed – Josh didn’t move one bit!
Throughout the night I woke up at 2:30 am, 5:30 am, and 6:15 am, but I stayed in bed until 8 am because I still hadn’t seen Josh move, and I wanted to let him sleep as long as possible. Leading up to our trip, we’d both been pretty busy at work – so we agreed we wanted to relax while we were in Australia. Plus, we’d spent over a day traveling, I figured he could use the rest – we had a busy day ahead of us!
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