In Cairns/Sydney

This article was written 17 years ago in 2006 when I was 21, so I ask you not to judge the writing too harshly! The text is as it was originally published.

So, I'm in Sydney. I'm not entirely convinced when yesterday ended and today started; even though I didn't have to cross any date lines or move more than an hour out of a timezone, the two flights still took nine hours combined, and despite it being ten o'clock in the morning, it feels like mid afternoon. I have a nasty feeling the jetlag is really likely to bite today.

James, apparently, is somewhere in New Zealand and will be boarding his flight in the next few hours to meet me here at 2.30pm. That leaves me doing some waiting. I mean, a lot of waiting. In fact, the past 24hrs have been mostly waiting. After I got back from the war memorial yesterday, I have spent most of my existence wandering around subway stations, 'skyliner' stations and in airports. For example, five hours of last night was spent reading, then re-reading The Weekly Telegraph. Unfortunately as someone with daily access to BBC News, the content is somewhat dated already.

Arriving in Sydney, I was a little surprised at the extent of the building works outside of international arrivals. On closer inspection (as I tucked into what I would consider half a baguette for the reasonable extortion of six quid) it is not works at all, instead a series of large arty, rusty iron meshes that act like screens, but have the unfortunate appearance of a crumbling construction site.

Not all is bad though. In fact you might get the wrong impression. Sydney is nice and cool, I can blow my nose in public, don't have to remember how to say thank you in Japanese and am enjoying comfortable surroundings on the sofas. With free internet access. Why are they still charging for it in the UK; every other airport seems to be offering it gratis apart from in the ones back home.

There was mediocre excitement on the flight in between the film and finishing of Clarkson's book. I was dosing in the middle of the night, when one of the passengers waiting for the toilet next to my seat did a full on stunt-passout and landed flat on his back. This has happened before, and it might be advisable that anyone considering flying doesn't sit near me, except unlike when it happened last time and the air hostess screamed like a baby, this time the very casual Aussie air hostess waved a magazine in the guy's general direction and told him to get on his way. It's this type of ruthless efficiency that drives this nation.

I am guessing we are going to be hearing some dose of moanage today. Apparently Australia are waking up to the news that Brazil won yesterday night. Well, that's another 10p on the free accumulative bet I got with Skybet... I'm going to have millions by the end of the World Cup.

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This post was first published on Mon Jun 19 2006 originally on justbeyondthebridge.co.uk, my former personal blog

The author

My name is Andy Higgs and I am a founder, designer, occassional surfer and travel enthusiast based in the UK.

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