Trip Report: OOL-SYD-OOL with the new DJ

[Brock Little]

Introduction

Another busy term of Year 11 has passed, and what's better than another spotting daytrip to Sydney to end it with? AND, on my birthday, which is on pretty much the first day of the June/July holidays! This time, I was going to fly Virgin Australia, and booked the flights a day after the airline was relaunched. The flights themselves were quite cheap, with me ending up paying $157 return for both fares, inclusive of all taxes. I opted to fly on DJ500, the first flight to SYD out of OOL leaving at 6am, and DJ539 from SYD to OOL which was scheduled to be an E190 (which I haven't flown on yet) arriving back at OOL at a respectable time of 7:30pm. That gave me just under twelve hours of chilling in Sydney, and the opportunity to do some sunset spotting with my brand new Canon 600D! This would also be my first flight in a Boeing since I went to NTL in 2008! So I started counting down the days until that familiar early morning wakeup on the 25th of June...

DJ500
DATE: 25th June, 2011
AIRCRAFT: Boeing 737-8FE
REGISTRATION: VH-VUK "Mackay-Be Diva"
SECTOR: Gold Coast (OOL) – Sydney (SYD)
SEAT: 12A
ETD/ATD (Gate, Local): 0600/0600
ETA/ATA (Gate, Local): 0730/0730

I checked in online the moment it opened, and promptly printed out my boarding pass. Virgin Australia's website was simple to access, so no troubles were met at all.

So at 3:40am in the morning, I was woken up by my alarm and was excited with the prospect of spending another day spotting in Sydney...and on my 16th birthday! As I had packed my bag the night before, I just needed to have a shower, get dressed, have breakfast and the like. By 4:50am, I was completely ready and in the car on my way to the airport! Again, thanks to my Dad for driving me down this early!

Once at the airport and the farewells had been exchanged, I made my way through security which was no trouble at all, just a quick random explosive trace test of my bag and I that had to be undertaken. The terminal, as you could imagine, was quite empty at this time, only two flights were departing at around 6ish - DJ500 and JQ401 which I flew on last time I went down to SYD. I looked on the FIDS and saw that my flight would be departing from Gate 5, but I randomly made my way over to Gate 4 for some reason and was convinced I was getting VH-VBK, until I noticed that people were milling around the gate next to me and that VBK would be doing DJ504! Woops! Must be the early wakeup. Gate 5 was calling, so I walked over there, sat down and waited to board, rereading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the...eighth or ninth time now?

After the boarding call for any Velocity Gold members, and 'guests' travelling on onward connections to Perth or with partner airlines, a general boarding announcement was made. I joined the queue and soon enough, I was through the boarding gate and out on the tarmac, breathing in the fresh morning air. My ride for this morning was going to be VH-VUK, as I had discovered last night due to it operating DJ545. Within a minute, I was in the aircraft and in my window seat, 12A. The window was positioned perfectly! Photos weren't a very good option at this time, as it was still quite dark and I just settled on watching the news on my Live 2 Air screen.

Not long after this, the aircraft was pushed back, engines started and we were ready to go! It was great being back on the 737. We had a quick (and quite bumpy) taxi to runway 14 and then took off into the pre-dawn sky, littered with stars and a continuously brightening orange tinge in the sky to the east. The subsequent climb and cruise was something I would never forget about this daytrip.

I had booked this seat and flight in anticipation of a beautiful sunrise, and, I was rewarded immensly. My episode of the Simpsons played on, entertaining nothing but the side of my head as I was basically looking out of the window the whole duration of the flight.


DEFINITELY BOOKING DJ500 AGAIN!

Wow. Just wow. If you can formulate a longer, more descriptive word than that, then good on you, because I was lost for words.

Anyway, the sun kept on rising into the sky, but very slowly, which still gave that orangey tinge to the sky even during our descent into Sydney. Tracking west of Newcastle, we made a quick turn to the left and were vectored out over the ocean again for an approach to runway 34R. The moment I put my camera away for the landing, we passed under the cloud which was illuminated by the weak orange light of the sun, and would have been a great photo opportunity. Oh well, I thought. There'll be another opportunity like that. We arrived at the gate on time and I was met by Andrew on the other side, as well as the cockpit of VH-XFA on the opposite side of the DJ terminal finger. She looked amazing! We hurried out of the terminal to see OGB for the last time as it was being prepared to leave Australia forever. We saw it, and it didn't look too nice. The kangaroo was completely painted over and no registration was visible on the fuselage. We left from that area quickly as no photos could be taken from the position it was parked in, and found a taxi to take us to Shep's Mound, where I have never been before.

Spotting in Sydney

After a quick cab ride, we arrived at The Mound on a beautiful clear day in Sydney. I instantly understood why this was such a great spotting place (apart from the numerous poles that get in the way of photos), as the morning light was brilliant on various aircraft making their way from the gates to the runways and vice-versa. We were in a rush, as XFA was about to taxi past just as we got there. I still had my 55mm lens on from the flight, so I wasn't completely prepared and missed it taxiing past, but luckily it was on its way to 34L. However the Skyteam Korean Air B777 departed at the same time, so unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that.

Some photos from Shep's Mound: