We got up very early and arrived at the Sydney airport 2 hours 45 minutes before our flight, less than the recommended 3 hours. There was no line to check our bags and no line at security. For international flights they do check your passport like in the U.S. — when you check your bags and when you board the plane, but not at the security gate. They also have a liquids rule. It was so nice not to have to worry about liquids for all of our intra-Australia flights.

The Sydney airport international terminal is meh. It has a KFC, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in an airport. Do you really want to eat greasy fried chicken and get on an international flight? It is the only place we went in Australia without way better restroom availability and cleanliness than we would’ve expected in the U.S. under the same circumstances. And they don’t have jet bridges; you board a bus to get to the plane. They have built a brand new airport in Sydney; it opened while we were there. It’s apparently beautiful, but it is 40 km from the city center and with traffic will take well over an hour to get to and from. They are working on a metro line, but that won’t be ready for several years.

Luckily, our flight was from the much closer old airport. Our plane was only 2/3 full, so we had a whole exit row to ourselves, which was very nice. An easy three hour flight and we landed in Christchurch, on the South Island of NZ. The views as we landed were incredible–snowcapped mountains, green valleys, and bright blue water. I thought this safety video was very clever:

The entry process in the Christchurch airport was quick and easy. They are super concerned with biosecurity, so you have to declare all sorts of things–even packaged food and wooden souvenirs. They make it easy to do ahead of time online and then they ask you about what you declared once you arrive, but it’s done very efficiently. We landed at 2:05 and were in our hotel room by 3:00. (We lost two hours, so we are now 17 hours ahead of Indy.)

Christchurch is a small city–population of less than 500,000–so we will be able to see all of the notable tourist sites tomorrow. We settled in, did some planning, and had a fabulous dinner at The Goldfinch, an Asian fusion restaurant. We are going to love the 1 NZD to .56 USD exchange rate!

We have an American-themed diner and a Mexican restaurant right around the corner from our hotel, along with this interesting clock tower.

We can’t wait to start exploring all that New Zealand has to offer!