Apologies for the delay.
When I booked the flight I noticed it had a couple of unusual characteristics. Firstly, the arrival and departure times where exactly the same, and thanks to cross the international dateline also exactly the same day. For a 13 hour flight that is amazing. Is there any longer flight with this characteristic? (Note between booking and date of travel both arrival and departure times where adjusted, and the flight duration was lengthened.) Secondly, at this time of year the entire flight will be in daylight. Not bad for a flight this long, especially one that is not chasing the sun by flying westwards.
Ahead of the trip I did my usual thing to check loads. It was completely sold out up until a week before departure when a trickle of seats became available. At the gate it seemed like the load would be considerably lighter than this, and so it proved upon boarding. Business class was not very full, and neither was economy. I'm not sure about first class.
The boarding started rather late, at just a short while before scheduled departure. Consequently we pushed back a little late and had a further delay due to ground traffic.
I managed a couple of pre-departure drinks while browsing the menu which had been placed in the little cubby of the seat in front. We were given a pen to fill in the breakfast orders and these were collected before we even pushed back. It seemed odd to be filling these in so early in the day (not even noon Sydney time) for the following day's breakfast. Pajamas (yes Qantas has these in business class albeit not as nice as the first class ones) and amenity kits were also handed out before departure, and our post-departure drink orders taken. Ahh this is good.
I also had some papers out to read, the rest of the newspaper I had yet to finish, and a few other bits and bobs. As I'd selected an aisle seat I didn't have easy access to the side bins to put all this stuff, but fortunately the window seat was not claimed and I stored the guff on that seat.
The runway direction had changed while I was on the ground and we had a long taxi out into Botany Bay before taking off to the north over the city. Almost immediately on reaching cruise altitude we hit the significant turbulence that I'd encountered on the way into Sydney and all service was suspended before it really got underway. The crew made a couple of attempts to resume with the drinks, each time being chased back to their seats in no time at all. By the time we cleared the rough air it was 2 hours into the flight and we were west of the South Island of New Zealand.
Drinks as we pass Stewart Island (not visible in the cloud), followed very rapidly by lunch before it spoiled. Our flight path display showed our track southeastwards towards Antarctica. The skies cleared but nothing to see out the window for a long time other than blue ocean and some little puffs of cloud.
We were asked to pull down the blinds so some other passengers could sleep, and to give the crew a rest I suspect. I complied, but continued drinking while I caught up on the reports I needed to, listened to some movies and music, and snuck some peeks outside when I thought we were close to Antarctica.
Sure enough we did fly close enough to see the ice sheet and parts of coastal mountain ranges. It was difficult to view, however, with so much white including scattered cloud cover, and so little other colours to provide any contrast. The brightness was also a bit hard on the eyes in contrast to the darkened cabin. I was pleased with the views, even though I couldn't but help think back to my
flightseeing trip at much lower altitude and actually over the continent itself instead of flying near the coast. I had some champagne to mark the occasion.
After a few hours we had pulled far enough north that Antarctica was no longer visible. Most of the passengers continued to sleep, having missed out completely on the spectacle outside
I'm not sure that many even appreciated just how close to Antarctica we were flying.
We reached South America by the fiords near Puerto Montt and flew over the rugged terrain. Unfortunately there was not much of a view due to extensive cloud cover, at least not until we had passed the Andes.
Breakfast was served about 2 1/2 hours before landing.
Despite the late departure we had made up an hour en route and would arrive early. It was a misty but warm day, and so we had soft light views of the openness of the plains and the towns and built up areas that sprawl out from Buenos Aires before touching down.
I was in a very relaxed and happy mood.