In Transit

777-200 inMEL (Right) 777-200 in AKL

31/10/08 11:35 ...Air New Zealand Flight: NZ124

After checking my bags in, and trying to find a bookshop with a copy of Bill Brysons:
Down Under. MEL Airport security in there infinite wisdom selected me for a random BOMB and Narcotics search... admittedly I was wearing ALL black, had my hair out, and was carrying a bag chock-o-block full of electrical gadgets... so perhaps I was a little suspicious. Customs in NZ were upset that I did not have my deoderant and toothpaste in a clear 'baggie' I almost had to repack my excellent "Crumpler" bag, retrieve a baggie and jump on the back of the security cue all over again... so I extend a huge thank you to the Indian gentleman who happened to be carrying 2 baggies, and generously gave me his spare.

Air Newzealand was fantastic. Now this was my first long-haul flight, but after speaking to others that flew in from other countries, I got excellent value for money, great service, great food (considering) great individual selection of on-board movies. Between MEL and SanFran via Auckland I got to see... Dark Knight, X-file Movie, WALL-E, part of Tropical Thunder and one other which escapes my right now. Oh I did manage to get three hours of airplane sleep :)

I purchased my flights the same day that the Aussie dollar crashed, a big thanks to my travel agent who called me back on her lunch break - because within hours my tickets jumped up $800!!!

After a 12 hr flight: NZ 8 on a 747-400 to San Francisco (kicking myself I forgot to take on-board photos :) ...which arrived 20mins late, by the time I got through customs and security my domestic flight was only 2mins from boarding... almost no waiting "sweet as" (don't be suprised if I return home with a Kiwi accent, there overwhelming amount of Kiwi's working for CME)


United Airlines 31/10/08 13:36 to Denver, Colorado

Clear sky's no ocean fantastic views of terrain... three that came out the best...






Landing in Denver was very interesting indeed, I was not allowed to take photo's during landing, but it was quite an impressive proceedure of joining the circling and decending cue of planes probably 2km apart from each other one landing pretty well as soon as the proceeding one turned off the runway, onto the taxi way... first time I have been able to see it in such clear weather...



Denver International Airport ..."Frontier" ParkingLot (Where Marty will be passing thru)

This airport is SO big I had to catch a TRAIN to baggage collection. By the time I jumped on my "own" (fortunately I was one to many) Colorado Mountain Express shuttle to the Vail Valley it was dark, and DIA's 'Sales-Canopies' are lit up at night it was really quite spectacular - I thought I took a really good photo of it - but can't find it. After 25hrs of travel I probably dreamt it, along with a bunch of other photo's I should have taken if I had had more time between flights to figure out the various airports.