05.02.2020: Another trip to Berlin, the second one this year. And another one with a great sunrise over the alps.
07.02.2020: This morning I left for another trip to “down under”. i will first visit a customer in New Zealand, before spending ten days in Sydney. In Zurich it was one of those cold but beautiful winter mornings, below a view from the outside deck of the Swiss lounge on Terminal E.
As always I’m flying with Singapore Airlines, they have excellent connections to just about any destination in New Zealand and Australia. And as nearly always it’s an A380 from Zurich, definitely the best plane for long distance flying.
A last view at Lake of Constance…
…and a glimpse at the Austrian alps before the ground disappeared under a solid layer of clouds. Zurich – Singapore is a pretty long flight of around 12:30, but that’s only half the trip.
08.02.2020: From Singapore we had a Boeing 777-300ER to Auckland, another long flight of around 10 hours after a stop of around 2:45. That’s a total of 24:45, or around 28 hours door to door. There have been some discussions when organising the trip due to the Corona virus situation in China, and I had expected a lot of people in Singapore wearing face masks, but to my surprise that was not the case. They had set up infrared cameras at each jetty to check whether passengers leaving the plan showed signs of fever, but that was about all one could notice.
It’s a strange feeling to see Australia from above, but not to land there…
09.02.2020: I did a stroll down to the harbour in Auckland this morning, a nice place to enjoy the late summer weather.
Preparations for the America’s Cup in 2021 are in full swing, but what interested me more was the booth of Auckland Seaplanes…. But unfortunately I had not time to spare, as I had a meeting scheduled in the afternoon with a friend form our local office, to first discuss the visit of the following day and then to go for a beer.
11.02.2020: After visiting the customer yesterday I flew today from Auckland to Sydney, on a Boeing 777-200ER from Air New Zealand. What looked normal from the outside…
…looked pretty strange inside.
What a silly idea to turn seats away from the window, I want to look outside when I’m flying!
Below a last look at the coast of New Zealand, heading out west towards Sydney…
…and a first view of Australia after flying for more than three hours across the Tasman Sea. The distance from Auckland to Sydney is about the same as from Zurich to the polar circle, New Zealand is definitely a far away place.
For shorter stays, such as this one, I always take a hotel in the centre of Sydney which I can reach by train, and preferably one directly along the airport line. That line goes through the city loop, including Circular Quay station, where one has a perfect view on the main attractions of Sydney. So even before reaching the hotel I have already seen the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, that always makes me feel like being a tourist.
21.02.2020: I’ts time to fly home again, the usual route via Singapore with only an hour transit time. Below my plane arriving, again a Boeing 777-300ER to Singapore and from there an Airbus A380 back to Zurich.
Below a last view at Australia, unfortunately hidden under clouds.
26.02.2020: I’m returning home this morning. Most of the flight from Sydney to Zurich, including the stop of one hour in Singapore, is during the night. Only when approaching the alps the sun started getting up again.
The first view of Switzerland from somewhere north of the eastern end of Lake of Constance…
…from where we continued into the landing pattern of runway 34, that’s from the south via the lake of Zurich.
Below the city of Zurich in the background, with the Zoo in front on top of the hill.
26.02.2020: Today I flew to Paris, a first of probably quite a few meetings at SNCF for the CLUG project. I only took the plane around noon from Zurich, missing the usual sunrise over the alps. Instead there were some spectacular clouds north of Paris, but they didn’t impact our flight.
27.02.2020: Today I flew home from Paris. We took off on runway 27R, and luckily I had a seat on the left side, so I had a nice view of the city…
…and even of the Eiffel tower. Ok, the picture is not spectacular, but considering that it has been taken at night from a plane with a mobile phone on maximum zoom that’s not too bad.
29.02.2020: From how the Corona pandemic develops it looks as if the trip to Paris was the last one abroad in quite a while.