And we are off!

 Our start may have been a bit bumpy but we all managed to get on the same plane in Sydney heading to Santiago.

Our ‘Electronic’ Chile Visas needed to be printed and sighted before we got on the plane in Brisbane which saw us having a last-minute scramble but Dugald and Chasely came to our rescue and it was the first time we have had to be called to our flight – after some very lovely people let us through ahead of them in security. In fact everyone has been very helpful. Anjila at the Sky Lounge came to the rescue and printed it for us.

Our agent had booked Tejal on a later flight than Linda, Bill and Heidi’s which meant she only had just over an hour to get from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, through Customs and security and to the gate.

We were very happy to see her when she arrived with time to spare!

                                                      

Our flight was then delayed an hour but we spent that time trying to change our voice messages and sorting out eSims/data roaming etc

 Hello to Nics, Neil, Heather and Callum down in Pitt St!


We have watched a very interesting series of short documentaries about the Australian Antarctic Program, we saw some fabulous views from the plane ...


Bill and Heidi saw this amazing sunrise through the polarised plane windows.


When we landed in Santiago we were told that we had to throw out all of the food we had with us before we left the plane and that Santiago was very strict about bringing in food. So the snacks that we were given, and had not eaten had to be thrown out. Tejal and I declared the snacks we had in our checked luggage once through Customs and ... phew ... we were allowed to keep them.

                                                                First stop ... loo with a view



We are staying at the airport and were grateful to be able to have a rest before going for a walk around the hotel and airport grounds.
 












Comments

  1. Ron BJanuary 5, 2024 at 6:18 PM

    Please to see trip is progressing without too many hitches

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Preparations but only a day to go

Image
One thing that Heidi and I did over the past few days was to check out how our bodies reacted to the SCOP patches to make sure that when we used them on the crossing there wouldn't be any serious adverse effects. Pleased to report that there were no serious side effects Yesterday Bill and I finally managed to purchase an eSim from Airalo and load them onto our phones. It now remains to be seen if we can get them to operate when we reach our destination tomorrow.  This is where it starts to become real!!!!! Less than a day to go now. Last minute panic stations. What haven't we done yet, what have we forgotten to pack.....!!!!  
Read more
In a few days time Heidi, Bill and I will be heading off on an amazing trip to Antarctica. This trip has been in the planning stages for a couple of years now. Heidi found out that the friend that we travelled in Nepal with - David Sinclair had started up his own company called Islands and Ice Travel. David is also a keen and accomplished photographer, has had extensive experience in taking tours to many interesting and amazing places such as Antarctica. So we are fortunate to be going off on his inaugural trip to Antarctica aboard the Icebreaker 'Polar Pioneer' Having signed up and paid the deposit for this trip we decided that it would be crazy to head all the way over there without experiencing parts of South America. The next year has been spent researching and booking places that we will be traveling in. Most of this has been done by Heidi our amazing in-house travel consultant. We will also be accompanied by Tejal, who, like us, when she heard about our plans for Antarcti
Read more