In 1994, Jay & I had the opportunity to take a once in a lifetime trip to Australia & New Zealand. Jay had retired in 1993 but I was still working, so getting time off was a challenge but we figured out how to accomplish our goal. We would travel in December of 1994 & January 1995. That was I would take vacation from both years to make up the time I needed. We were living in Colorado Springs, Colorado at the time. I had flown a good bit for work & had accumulated a good number of miles in the original United Airlines mileage program. That program was ending in 1994, but as long as we had started our trip by the end of December we could use the original program miles & destinations. This meant that I had enough miles to get us two business class tickets to Southeast Asia, which included Australia & New Zealand. We found a trip which would meet all our needs & criteria! If you want to skip to just viewing the pictures, click here.
Thursday, 15 December to Saturday, 17 December 1994 – Sydney
We left on 15 December 1994 and did not return until 16 January 1995 – 32 days. We flew from Denver, Colorado to Los Angeles and then on to Sydney, Australia. It was a very long flight – the flight left Denver on 15 December 1994 and arrived in Sydney the morning of 17 December 1994. The flight from Los Angeles was 13 hours & we lost a day crossing the International Date line. Even though we slept on the plane we were still tired when we arrived. When we got to our hotel we both had a nap. When we got up we went out for a walk and strolled over to the Sydney Botanic Garden. You can view the pictures in a larger format by clicking on the top icon.