Day 50 goodbye NZ, latam airlines, hello Sydney

Mon 19th Feb
Our hotel provided transfers to the airport and we were on the 5:30am one. It's only a 5 minute journey and it wasn't  long before we were in the Qantas lounge. It was very quiet. Plenty of breakfast style food and drink available and comfy chairs. Announcements were made giving warning of when people needed to move to their gate which were nicely accurate,we arrived at the gate and people were boarding.

We were flying Latam airways this time, just over 3 hours for the flight time and the aircraft had a ' turn left' for the business section. Plenty of leg room and comfy seats. Not anywhere to stow things close to you like on Korean airlines though. Drinks ( orange juice or water) were brought round and we both decided to check out the movies on offer. That was when I found out my remote control didn't  work. The air stewardess was unable to fix it so we moved seats. It was lucky there were two seats unoccupied! We were now in row 1,slightly smaller TV screens than where we had been but still ok. Latam had quite an extensive range of movies to see so I didn't  check out their selection of TV shows and started to watch LaLa Land. Jono chose Bladerunner 2049, both films were starring Ryan Gosling!

Jono chose the egg option

Vegetarian breakfast ( plus croissant, I'd  already eaten that)

Electronicaly operated windows

Reclining seat with footrest

Oodles of leg room

Can't  actually  touch the maroon shelf thing with my feet 

The plane had windows which you could brighten or darken electronically either as a whole by the crew or individually. The plane was kept in low light for most of the journey for anyone who wanted to sleep a bit longer and to help with that we received a black and white pack containing socks,a blind, a pen and ear plugs.
Breakfast was served about halfway into the flight, I had a vegetarian meal and Jono had the egg choice.
When La La Land finished there was enough time to watch most of Me Before You before the plane landed. Business passengers were let off first and we were off to claim our baggage, be questioned and inspected on what we had brought in (shells from a NZ beach) and then we caught an uber to our airbnb at Maroubra beach.
We already knew the place would not be ready for us but we had permission to dump our luggage there while we spent the day on the beach until checkin time at 3pm.
Maroubra had loads of surfers out on the water with lifeguards patrolling and a small swim between  the flags section. It was fairly cloudy but pretty warm. The lifeguards kept having to tell the surfers to move down the beach away from the swimming area, generally followed by a warning that they'd close the surfing down if the surfers  didn't  move. They also warned the swimmers that the sea was pretty powerful, that the waves were knocking people over and the current was strong and dangerous. We went down for a swim and quickly realised that it wasn't  safe to go past knee depth; the waves would easily reach waist height  pushing us over and the tow was dragging us into the sea.

360 view here

After a relaxing time on the beach we walked back up to our apartment at the northern end, keen to get settled and unpacked. We were not happy to discover the apartment in the same state  as earlier and had to email and ring the people who were managing it. They didn't seem to realise it hadn't  been  cleaned but promised to get someone in straight away. We decided to go and find a supermarket and get in food. This took us about an hour and a half as we were on foot and the nearest Woolworths was at the other end of the beach and then some! We arrived back to find the cleaner still there with not a lot done. We unpacked the food and had to leave again while he finished. We used the time productively, buying and loading two opal cards which are used to travel around Sydney (these are brilliant, we have used them continuously). They are capped so after you have spent $15.40 (£8.62) in a day or $61.60 in a week all journeys are free. Yes all journeys whether by bus, train, tram or ferry.
Back to the flat to find the cleaner had gone at last. Unfortunately he hadn't  left towels, washing up liquid  or cleaned the hob. Back on the email to the management company who promised to get them delivered. A couple of hours layer the cleaner turned up with the towels and a load of shampoo. I explained we needed washing up liquid and off he went. Eventually the washing up liquid arrived!
On the whole we are not as happy with this place as the ones we have had in NZ. It has no tablespoons or dessert spoons,no veg peeler or grater and only two eating knives (its meant to sleep 3 or 4). The windows could do with a good clean and the single glazing means sound travels rather too easily but it's location is good.
We could see the beach from our dining area and the bus stop was right outside. We planned what we wanted to do and cooked a meal ourselves.