The Great South America and Antarctica Expedition 2018

...or, as it will from now on be referred to as, GSAaAE!

The plan will be to start at 9am in the morning with champagne in the company of a Ballpoint Penguin (Tim) and mate (Pam).

Actually it hasn't started with champagne, as the bar is closed!  Probably they think it unwise to have it open at breakfast time, so we will have to wait until we get on the plane to toast our upcoming adventures.

Bags are loaded (mine is 25 kg with all my Antarctic gear in it - but TnP have space to rearrange for our limited luggage constraints on the flight down to Antarctica from Punta Arenas). Pam has already left her phone at the luggage drop (at least I have not yet left my passport anywhere), and now retrieved it, and we are happily sitting in the Business Class lounge at Perth Airport for our flight to Sydney.

QF580 to Sydney 737-800 - this will be Flight 1 of 10 flights in our GSAaAE, with an overnight in Sydney before Flight 2 to Santiago tomorrow.  The 737-800 is one of those planes which has those nasty dated red vinyl seats in Business class, with the 12 seats in a 2:2 configuration.  However, not complaining, because, you know, Business Class!

Unfortunately, the happiness displayed on Tim's face in the photo above did not stay long, as his guitar was swiped from him at the plane entrance and consigned to the cargo hold, because "these 737's just don't have the locker space of other planes".  As it turned out, a big fib!
The food for lunch was good, but the steward got a bit confused when I asked for the cheese to be served at the same time as the soup.

To overcome the stress of having to deal with the steward's stress, I listened to classical music all the way! This was just as well, because after arriving at the Domestic Terminal and successfully negotiating the T-Bus to the International Terminal, and our final overnight sleep at the Rydges Hotel, we found out that they had no record of our booking!  Our first glitch was fairly easily rectified by successfully booking rooms, followed by a recovery gin and tonic on the roof bar of the hotel!

In Summary
Pros

• Cheese
• T1 shuttle bus from Domestic to International airport is free, takes 10 minutes, and drops you 100m from the Rydges Hotel.
• Less than 5 minute walk to the International Departures
• Beds and pillows at the Rydges were very comfortable
• Best thing was the Rooftop bar with a great view over the airport and runways
• 2 Bombays and a Tanqueray to start the journey

Cons

• fronting up to the airport hotel in Sydney to find that no rooms had actually been booked though we were all very clear which hotel we were going to!