The business cabin was full apart from the seat beside me. Most of the time this is the case on these flights - Qantas has almost perpetual sales to keep the cabin as full as possible, and my high status generally means the seat adjacent to mine is the last to be made available for selection by passengers.
Once the stream of economy passengers boarding slows to a trickle, a pre-departure drink is offered - bubbly, juice or water. Menus had been placed on the seat before boarding.
We left on time and after the initial bumpy ascent I was able to get some more sleep. I could care less about breakfast as I have two more opportunities to eat courtesy of Qantas. I woke at top of descent, slightly annoyed that I didn't manage to sleep some more. Oh well.
We'd had a fast flight across the Tasman so as penalty we had to fly firstly well to the south of the airport around Wollongong and then fly past the airport and over the northern suburbs as well before landing to the south. As this was on the third runway, this meant a long taxi back to the terminal. Instead of arriving early we were 20 minutes late and some passengers were anxious about the connecting flights, some of which were already boarding. To rub salt into the wound we got the gate in the non-Oneworld pier that doesn't have an airbridge. This not only requires stairs and a short walk across the tarmac, but you arrive in the terminal right at immigration. Those who have transfers have to fight against the flow of people (which is huge in the early morning peak period at Sydney) to get to transfer security.