When most people are ever faced with the idea of a trip to Australia I’d imagine the one thing that puts them off is the flight (or flights) there. Unless you’re travelling from Asia, it’s pretty much the other side of the world for everyone. But I can tell you this now, the two flights of a combined 23 hours from Vancouver was pretty much painless.

Our first flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong was the long one, 13 hours. This was almost pain free except for when we boarded at 2.45am Pacific time, the crew of the plane were working on Hong Kong time. So while we were ready to sleep, the air hostesses were ready to serve curry. I can only deal the prospect curry at that time of the morning if I’ve been drinking heavily, which I hadn’t.

Hong Kong airport seemed nice for the 2 hours we spent there. Big and spacious. A little on the hot side, but that’s Hong Kong for you. 30 degrees when we landed at 6.30 in the morning. We have a habit of spending the cost of the air ticket again at the airport through magazines, books, bottles of water and food. Impossible at Hong Kong airport, everything is so cheap. If I hadn’t needed every penny I had, I would be a proud owner of a new Apple Mac at this point – half the price than in the UK.

The next flight was 9 hours to Sydney. This again flew by, mainly by watching countless episodes of the Simpsons on the head rest entertainment system. I can’t imagine what flying was like in the past before these devices were installed.

When airlines get around to installing wi-fi, which our airline of choice Cathy Pacific are apparently doing next year, flying could almost be fun.

I’m not going to lie and say flying to Australia was enjoyable and something I’d like to do on a regular basis, but it was bearable and managable because of the excitement and anticipation of spending 7 weeks down under. So don’t be put off by Australia because of the flights. Be put off because of the snakes and spiders, and I’ll report back at a later date on how those go.