5:30am, Tuesday the 22nd of March saw me, red-eyed and yawning outside my house awaiting a taxi to Sydney Airport for my short holiday down to Melbourne. Like always, I would be making this trip on Virgin Blue, for many reasons I always fly with them.
But anyway, back to Tuesday morning, taxi came around with any trouble and we were off to the airport at about 5:40ish. Not a long drive to the airport as I only live about 3km away in Eastlakes, so before I knew it we were pulling up outside the terminal. Today I would be traveling with my mum only, dad was to stay home and look after our dogs!
I had already checked-in the night before but I had accidently closed the browser before printing it so all we had do was to go to the bag drop counter. Five minutes later we were in the food court watching the early morning movements of Sydney airport. We bought some breakfast from Maccas (with a much needed caffeine boost) and before heading off to the gate, I purchased a copy of “Australian Aviation” to read on the flight as I knew I was about to board an aircraft with no Live’2’air.
DJ814
Date: 22nd March 2011.
Aircraft: Boeing 737-8FE
Registration: VH-VUV
Aircraft Name: Ruby Blue
Seat: 21F
We boarded the aircraft about 5-10 minutes late but it didn’t really matter. Once everyone had boarded the aircraft, the captain announced that Sydney’s ATC had advised him of heavy fog in the Melbourne Area, so we would have to wait a further 10 minutes at the gate. He turned the seatbelt sign off and told us we were free to use mobile phones. I took this chance to check my facebook and take a few quick snaps before pushback!
A few minutes later we had pushed-back and the crew were performing the usual safety demonstration. As we began our taxi to 34R, we took an unusual left turn out of the tarmac and headed for runway 25. The captain lined us up on 25 and rolled forward abit and stopped. He advised us once again that we were to hold here for a further 10 to 20 minutes. Slowly the minutes crept by and finally we turned into taxiway Charlie and were on our way again. Not long later, we were rolling down runway 34R.
Just after rotating into some low level clouds.
