We had an uneventful day in Los Angeles awaiting our 10:30pm flight to Sydney. We checked out of our hotel and hung out in an area at the Hampton used for breakfast. We essentially had the place to ourselves. It was comfortable and Christine set up her computer and did some of her investing research.

I didn’t realize that the breakfast area turns into a bar at 4:00pm and even serves some food. We got something to eat there, saving us the hassle of finding a place to eat at the airport. We ended up ordering way too much. We put the food in takeout containers thinking that we would finish the food on the plane during the long flight.
At about 6:30pm we ordered an Uber and made our way to the airport. The first challenge was to tackle the check-in kiosks which required scanning passports. Kiosks are not our friend and so we had to get some help. Eventually, our luggage tags printed and we headed to baggage check, where again we had to show our passports and answer a bunch of questions. We then headed to TSA security. It wasn’t too difficult and we moved through relatively quickly.
We settled into the waiting area at our gate. We had about a 2-hour wait and before we knew it, we were boarding the plane. The flight had a nearly on-time departure and we tried to think positively about our 15-hour flight. There’s no two ways about it, 15 hours on an airplane is torture. Neither of us slept much. The people in front of us reclined their seats, taking away a great deal of our seat space and making it virtually impossible to get anything out of our under-seat bags. The other problem it causes for me is the seat back video screen is hard to see because when it is that close to my face I have to crane my neck back to see out of the bifocal part of my glasses. Taking off my glasses makes for fuzzy viewing. Needless to say, I didn’t watch much during the flight. Christine watched a couple of movies. We both played a lot of games and did puzzles on our iPads. The rest of the time we watched the flight tracker and walked up and down the aisle.
We didn’t need to bring all that takeaway food because we got dinner, a mid-flight snack, and breakfast. Australia has very strict rules on what’s allowed into the country and veggies and nuts/seeds/grain (like our Caesar salad and grain bowl) had to be tossed before we got to immigration. We did declare our packaged trail mix and snack packets, just in case customs stopped us in a search. Better to declare than to be fined. At any rate, immigration and customs went smoothly, we kept possession of our snacks, and we were off to find the train.
In past visits, we were met by one of the cousins who had to drive quite a distance to the airport and then get us halfway to Rylstone. I decided that we could get ourselves to Lithgow on the train. Lithgow is about an hour from Rylstone and Louis and Margaret would pick us up at the train station. Lithgow is about 90 miles from Sydney Airport. From Lithgow to Rylstone it’s about 60 miles.

We managed to find the train to Central station and purchase tickets to Lithgow. We had to ask what platform the Lithgow train would leave from because it was a little confusing reading signs and finding which way to go, but we managed to get to Platform 6. We had only a 24 minute wait for the train. However, an announcement was made that there was disruption on the line and the train coming into Central and then turns around and goes to Lithgow would be delayed. And it was delayed nearly an hour.



The train arrived and we boarded for the 2-1/2 hour trip to Lithgow. Unfortunately, the weather was awful, rainy and foggy, so we didn’t get to see much going over the Blue Mountains. We made 27 stops, some with great names like Emu Plains, Warrimoo, Bullaburra, Katoomba, and Zig Zag. And we finally rolled into Lithgow.

Margaret, her daughter, and Lou were doing some shopping, but we finally met up with them and it was a very happy reunion. We were very excited to see them.
We stopped for lunch and then headed to Rylstone. By now, it’s 4:00pm Aussie time and we’re exhausted. Margaret dropped us off and Lou’s. We unpacked and had dinner. Before we headed off to bed, Lou wanted to show us the nativity scene he put up at his church, St. Malachy’s. He’s dismantling it tomorrow, so he wanted us to see it all lit up. It was beautiful!



So, we’re here safe and sound.
Glad you arrived safely! Love these trip adventure updates! Have a blast and send my love to everyone