The final leg of my epic trip down to New Zealand, starts off making my way through International Transfers at SYD which is a pretty simple process, once through I found the International Terminal was huge. I had the task of finding a lounge to use.
Simple you would think, wrong.
Virgin Australia don't have a lounge in the International terminal at SYD their high status Velocity members and business class passengers are entitled to use the Air NZ Koru Club as are Virgin Atlantic Upper Class and AU passengers (but only on selected flights) as a VS AU travelling on VA metal to NZ I was initially denied access, the lady event showed me the "lounge access bible" she was right in the VA section there was a nice picture of a VS AU card with two nice big red crosses next to it
No worries I said, is there a Priority Pass lounge here? No she replied, but you can pay $55 to come in here 
great I said reaching for my Amex Plat card. I told here I only needed access for a few hours as my next flight was at 1035 and she smiled and let me in 
After coffee and a shower I felt human again.
I stayed off the booze for this part of my trip as I needed to keep awake all day.
I left the lounge before boarding was called for my unfamiliar stroll to the gate which was pretty close it turns out arriving there when boarding should be commencing, no joy our plane wasn't even at the gate yet, I should've stayed in the Koru a bit longer.
After about twenty minutes our Chariot arrived a B737-800 still decked out in it's Pacific Blue livery, the crew made their way aboard and boarding commenced at around 1100.
Having never flown short haul PE I wasn't sure what tho expect my boarding pass had seat 1F allocated as mine, once on board I was shown to my seat, it was a standard row of three seats with the middle 1E one blocked out by a drop down table and the armrest moved towards the centre of the middle seat giving more room mat the hips, I was also told that 1D was also held back for me, across the aisle in 1A,B,C the same had been done for another passenger, this gave both of us the entire front row
After a pretty long taxi to the far runway we took off and headed East for NZ with a predicted flight time of 2.35.
Having already changed into my travel comfy pants I settled in reading a book on my iPad (the new Reacher one) pretty good so far.
Drinks service soon came around with me opting for coffee once more, ,the meal offering was Roast Chicken with Mash, Carrots and Peas which was actually pretty good, in fact significantly better than my PE breakfast on the LHR-HKG leg.
No IFE on board this flight although you could hire (free for PE pax) a tablet loaded with movies and TV shows, I just stuck with my book.
We landed atAKL at 1600 local time, as I made my way through the airport I thought to myself the place looked closed, then bang the immigration hall although not too busy by this time only two CBP officers on duty dealing with the remnants of a JAL flight about half an hour for twenty people GRR.
Next on to customs and as they X Rayed my bag it was flagged for attention, apparently hiking boots have to be declared for further scrutiny in case I had stepped in anything (not sure about anyone else here but I for one don't put dirty shoes in my case especially if I had stepped in something undesirable)
At 1700 local time on Monday 09 Sept I stepped out into fresh air for the first time since checking in for my trip at 0800 Saturday 07 Sept at LHR into the arm of Mrs H
and just a three hour drive to Rotorua.Dominic 1
Jetlag 0
Last edited by Hull on 19 Sep 2013, 20:31, edited 1 time in total.
