Day 1!!

The morning started very early with a 4:20am wake up in order to catch the 6:20 am flight to Sydney. We checked in and said goodbye to our 4 bags until San Francisco. We then went through security and waited for our flight and said good bye to Mum and Dad for 5 weeks. Our Qantas flight to Sydney was really nice.

We had exit row seats, so plenty of leg room. Breakfast consisted of a muffin and muesli bar. We arrived in Sydney flying over the cliffs south of the airport, which was really pretty.

We had a 9.5 hour layover in Sydney, so we had bought passes to access the Qantas Business class lounge. The lounge is very nice. It had great views over the airfield and out towards the city. The seats were really comfy, and we managed to get some right next to the windows. There was free food, coffee, drinks, freshly made juices, an ice cream bar, showers and more. It was a fantastic way of passing the time. The time came for us to board our plane at about 5:30pm. We had been given pretty good seats in the 2nd row of economy, with a row of three for the two of us. The seats were in a kind of mini cabin with no one behind us and a bit of privacy. The flight wasn't all that full, probably only 65%. This is where the day got really interesting!! All was fine, and we taxied out to the run way.

I was even starting to think it was going too well, surely something had to go wrong. We lined up on the runway, and the engines spooled up ready to blast off.

Full thrust was set, and we started rolling down the runway. Next thing we know the engines get pulled back to idle and we taxi back off the runway. The captain came over the PA saying that there had been some unusual indications with one of the engines. He said it could just be due to the string cross winds at Sydney airport, so we'll do a few tests on the ground to see if it persists. A few minutes lated he came over the PA again. The problems were still persisting, so back to the gate we go to get an engineer to have a look at it. We were told it would be about a half an hour wait for the engineer to sort out the issue, and we'd be back on our way. The crew came around and offered us water while we waited on the plane. After about 1.5 hours the issue was 'fixed', and we were shown the safety video for a second time. The engines started, and then nothing else happened. The captain came over the PA again, and sincerely apologised and said that the same warnings were being displayed and we would have to return to the gate once more. The engineers came back on board and found that the simple problem was something far more complex, but they thought they could probably still repair it tonight, but it would take about 2 hours. We had to stay on the plane still, however the crew came around and offered food and drinks to keep us happy. They were all really friendly and happy to answer anyones questions. It was soon decided that the flight would be cancelled and we wouldn't be leaving tonight. By the time they fix the problem, and do all the tests, it would be after the curfew at Sydney, meaning we would not be allowed to depart. The ground staff had to sort out a few things before we could get off the plane and make our way back through immigrations and customs. It was about 10:30pm before we got off the plane. We then had to wait in line to get a hotel and taxi card for the night. We stayed at the Novotel on Brighton Beach. It was a pretty old and scummy hotel, but fine for a night just to sleep. We didn't get there till about 11:50pm, having still not really had dinner. We had each been given a $50 credit to use at the hotel, however the hotel food wasn't all that appealing, so we just ordered a bowl of chips to share. Smallest $13 bowl of chips ever!! we then had to call Qantas to sort out a flight out for the next morning. We were on hold for almost an hour before someone answered our call. As they had cancelled our flight, and not rescheduled another flight for the next day, there was about 200 people trying to squeeze into what ever seats were available. We had been rescheduled onto the 11:30am flight to Los Angeles with a 5 hour stopover before flying to San Francisco. We were not very happy with this as we had been up since 4am that morning, travelling for almost 20 hours, and not really getting anywhere. And now the next day we would not be able to sleep in, then we would have to fly for 22 hours before reaching our destination and missing out on almost 2 days there. We expressed these concerns with Qantas, however they offered us no alternative as there were so few seats available. needing some sleep we went to bed hoping to try and sort something out at the airport the next day. We didn't get to bed until about 1:30am!!