Day 39 - Sunday May 28, 2017 - Melbourne

After an uneventful flight (the best kind) we duly arrive a bit early, landing in Sydney at 7.35 am. Of course, the downside to arriving early is that you can’t get in to the gate so we sit for 10 minutes waiting for the previous occupant of the gate to depart. We make it through immigration and customs without too much hassle though Anne-Margaret declaring the matcha tea whisk (bamboo) she got in Japan slows us down a bit as we have to go through the something-to-declare line. When we finally get to the head of the line, the jovial customs guy sends us on our way without any drama.

The downside to coming in to Sydney (apart from the hassle of an extra flight) is that the international and domestic terminals are on opposite sides of the airfield, so you have to muck about getting on the transfer bus etc. We make it through that whole process without too much trouble and head to the lounge for a coffee before our 10 am flight to Melbourne.

We’re on board, the door is closed and we’re ready to go on time – when all of a sudden one of the flight attendants comes rushing up to the door in a flap about some duplicate boarding pass. They then open the door again, get the gate agent and spend the next 15 minutes talking about …. who knows what. Some passenger had boarding passes for 28 E and F .. but was in row 49 with his family. At no point did the passenger appear or did anybody get on or off. What the point of it all was I have no idea. End result was that we wasted 20 minutes at the gate after we were originally closed up and ready to go and then spent another 18 minutes taxiiing and waiting before finally taking off. With no chance to make up lost time on such a short sector, we were late arriving in Melbourne, providing a rather sour end to our trip. Elizabeth had come to pick us up so she had to cool her heels in the remote lot for a while and then go round a couple of times before we finally made it off the plane and out to meet her. Welcome home!