NSW1

I got my mate Lal to drop me off at the Airport, had to set off around 5.45am for a 9am flight. He looked over-joyed when he dropped me off and seeing me going to Australia - he had just returned from 12 months in Australia, with his Girlfriend, so wasnt pleased to see me keep mentioning all the sunshine, beaches etc...

So I entered the Departure Hall to see a que of around 500 yards long, I soon realised that was my que. There was a great deal of security checks following the terrorist attacks on New York just over a month earlier. As I was travelling alone, I came in for a few more questions than the families travelling together, but the checks werent exactly rigourous, although I dont exactly look like a Muslim terrorist, that would be on the return journey when ive got my sun-tan.

I then had a bit of Brekkie at the Airport, may aswell go out with a full English Breakfast as my last meal if the plane was gonna crash. It was at this point I began to ask myself what the hell am I doing? - Yep it had just dawned on me that I was going travelling to the other end of the world on my own and I wasnt sure if I liked the Idea anymore. I managed to convince myself it was actually a good idea in the end, but was edging towards asking for my bags back at one point and a taxi home.

So anyway, I got on the plane and hoped to be sat next to someone decent as id be stuck next to them for 14 hours. I was lucky really, I got a window seat and I was sat next to a farmer and his wife from Yarkshire. They soon started caning the beer, so obviously it would have been rude not too join in. The journey to Singapore went via Zurich, where we collected some more passengers. We where all relieved to here the Pilot announce that we would be avoiding the "combat area" on our journey towards the middle-east.

We landed in Singapore at around 6am on Wednesday, so not sure if this is exactly Day 2, but the jet-lag was taling effect. There was only about an hours turn-around at Singapore for my flight to Sydney. The worrying thing was I was already feeling exhausted and still had an eight hour flight to cope with. Maybe a night in Singapore would have been the better option. So I still managed no sleep at all, as im not exactly a big flying fan - bit silly I know going travelling to Australia!. I spent a couple of hours walking around the plane and stretching, feeling incrediby bored and tired now, so a bit of DVT wouldnt help things, gotta keep stretching, cant afford to get a blood clot, especially as I had Shitty Travel insurance and didnt wanna get buried in Australia. Speaking of stretching exercises on planes, it was easy to spot the difference between the English(Pommy) traveller and your Australian one, the British traveller was doing nice gentle exercises and the Aussies where doing big star jumps and sit ups at the back of the plane, they have to take all this exercise/Sport a bit far dont they. Talking to the Singapore Air-Hostess' doesnt help matters. I had a nice Indian stylee hostess chatting to me for a good 15 minutes at the back of the plane. It doesnt help, knowing you havent got a cat-in-hells chance of getting anywhere with 'em either.

We continued our journey over Australia, and with a couple of hours till we landed in Sydney, the Captain announced to everyone that to the left was Ayre's Rock!!!. So everyone excitedly started to move to get a view, only for the Captain to announce that "But as you can see, its far too cloudy for you to see today". We landed safely in Sydney at around 8pm. I was that knackered that I couldnt be arsed getting one of the buses they have outside the airport and I'd just get a taxi as i wanted SLEEP!!. I got a Greek taxi Driver, although he may well have been Brazilian as he was doing a fine impession of Ayrton Senna. So probably after a few laps of Sydney City Centre I arrived at my first accomodation the Y on the Park. I then had a shower and headed off to sleep.