Travel Day

Start:  San Antonio

Finish:  Melbourne

Distance:  A long way

Total:  A bunch

Thursday began with a normal 8:00 Central Time wake-up in San Antonio. Kyle, Jessie, Bailey and Ava came by the house to visit for a bit and I spent the rest of the morning running around worrying about what I had forgotten to pack. I also spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Hannah and Karla on FaceTime. 

Finally it was 11:45 and time to leave for the airport. Jessie and her girls along with Wyn dropped me off at SA International for a one hour flight to Houston. There I had a four hour layover before my 15.5 hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand. We left Houston at 8:00 PM Thursday and chased the sun all night, arriving at about 5:30 AM Saturday New Zealand time after crossing the international date line and losing a day. 

The layover in Auckland was 3.5 hours, followed by a four hour flight to Melbourne. I arrived in Melbourne at 11:00 AM local time Saturday after 21.5 hours of air time and 9 hours of ground time. The Melbourne airport only has express bus service to the downtown area where my walk begins on New Year’s Eve so that took another hour. 

After getting downtown Melbourne I had some errands to run. Priority one was to get a SIM card for my phone. I went straight to the nearest Vodafone store and took care of that, but while I was there, a few thousand people shut down the mall to “Free Palestine.”  Nothing got out of control; I think they were mostly looking for attention and they were getting it.  Next stop, an ATM to pick up some funny money. Then on to a pharmacy to get some sunscreen. 

Finally, all the errands are done and I checked into my hotel which is the starting line for my walk. It’s 3:45 PM Saturday here; 10:45 PM Friday at home. I’m ready to get this posted and get some rest. 

Tomorrow is walking Day 1. The weather forecast is good and I only need to walk 17 miles. 

That’s it from Melbourne.  Thanks for following along. JB