We arrived at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport in the morning, for an early afternoon departure to Auckland in New Zealand. This was part of a halfway round the world multi-stop holiday, all flights with Air New Zealand. London Heathrow to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to Sydney were reported earlier in the Airline Experiences forum.
I found that Sydney airport was very good for viewing, with an excellent balcony and also many windows. I saw my first DC8 for years (I don't know who it belonged to) and a Thai aircraft in a special livery as we sat in the cafe.
Here is a photo of a Qantas 747-400 and a Singapore Airlines 747-400 behind it.
We also saw "Wanula Dreaming", the Qantas 747 which was painted in a red Aboriginal art scheme, but we didn't get a photo as we were on the bus at the time!!
Here is a Qantas 747 just after take off (the Air New Zealand 747 was our aircraft).
Here is our aircraft with a DC-10 of Continental Micronesia
We were flying on a Boeing 747-400, flight number NZ104. I had been lucky enough to get a window seat, but it didn't really matter as the aircraft was only about a quarter full and everyone chose a seat to suit themselves anyway.
We took off at 1.30. The runway at Sydney jutted out into the sea, and so we had a spectacular take off, followed by an even more spectacular sharp turn, offering superb views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. I wish now that I'd taken photos of them, but I didn't!
The cabin crew were reasonable, which was more than can be said for the meal. I asked for a lamb curry, as I normally love Indian style food. The lamb, however, was inedible. It was solid, hard and of teeth-breaking consistency!! It was possible to play a tune on it with the fork!! The rice was tough as well. The dessert was a Waldorf salad, which was okay.
There was some turbulence throughout the flight, and I sat and watched the winglet fluttering at the more severe times. The flight lasted 2 hours 27 minutes, and, with New Zealand being 2 hours in front of Australia, we landed in Auckland just before 6pm.
It was dark when we landed, and I was starving because the meal had been so bad and we hadn't eaten in Sydney, so we went to McDonalds in the airprot and I had a fish burger and chips.
It wasa memorable flight in a very memorable holiday.
