Travels from Hawaii to Australia

September 23rd was big day of travel for us as we changed continents and crossed the International Date Line. We arrived at the Honolulu airport a little before 7 am only to find that our 9 am flight was delayed til 10:40 am. We weren't too concerned as we had a direct flight from Honolulu to Melbourne and didn't have to worry about missing any connections. It turns out that if you have to wait for a flight the Honolulu airport is a good place to do it. Much of the airport is open-air, which seems sketchy in terms of security, but we weren't going to complain about fresh air and sunshine. There's even a beautiful courtyard in the center of the airport with Japanese and Chinese gardens. We spent a lot of time enjoying these areas as we waited. 

This does not look like an airport, but it is!

Brandon in the Chinese garden

The garden was full of bridges, sitting areas, waterfalls, and vegetation

Eventually, we were able to board our flight to Melbourne. We flew Jetstar, which is a budget airline, so we weren't sure what to expect, but as it turns out we were favorably impressed. Brandon is planning on writing a post at some point reviewing Jetstar for any of you interested in the airline. A 10.5 hour flight feels long no matter what airline you're flying, so we were thrilled when the plane set down in Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. We then went thru the customs and baggage claim process before figuring out our way to our Airbnb stay in the suburb of Altona. 

Hello, Australia!

I had done some research on how to reach our final destination, so that we wouldn't feel completely lost. The website Rome2rio was particularly helpful to our success. We easily bought Skybus tickets for $18 AUD one-way per person to get from the airport to Southern Cross Station, about a 20 minute ride. The double-decker Skybus is super convenient as it comes every 7 minutes and it has free wifi. It was a great ride for us, because we got to sit on the top deck in front of a huge window for a cool view as we entered the city center.  

On the Skybus, super excited to be in Australia! G'day mates!

At Southern Cross Station, I knew we needed to purchase Myki Passes for the Metro train system to get to Altona. After information from a kind security guard, we found the ticket counter and purchased our passes from a thoroughly helpful agent. We looked at the screens and determined the line and platform we needed for the correct train. Since we had 20 minutes til the next train we needed, we grabbed some food from Pie Face, which is apparently a popular Australian chain, before heading to the train. As luck would have it our train was delayed as well. We fretted a bit about whether we had really picked the correct train until it came, and when we got on we were very happy to get some confirmation that it was indeed the line we wanted. Success! We made it to the Altona station and then followed some easy walking instructions to our Airbnb stay, only about 3 minutes away. 

Our public transit route from airport to Airbnb

At the Airbnb, we were greeted cheerfully by host, Jacqui. She made us feel immediately very much at home as she introduced us to our room, fellow guests, and important things around the house. After hot showers we were ready for bed and looking forward to our first full day in Melbourne the next day. 

Our bed, towels, toiletries, and bottle of wine awaiting us