James Mason's Blog -or- The Journal of Contemporary Lunacy

 Map of all flights - 2025 Slightly busier year than planned, with the addition of a July trip to Europe. It felt a little quieter than recent years (but on checking the numbers, that turned out not to be the case), but still plenty of fun exploring. Absolute highlight was the November/December trip to Japan (with a stopover in Taipei on the way). Split my time between Osaka, Sapporo, and Yokosuka (Kanagawa) and had a much better time of it than my first visit (which was limited to just Tokyo).   New cities visited included Osaka, Sapporo, Oslo, Cork (Ireland), Helsinki, Taipei, Jakarta, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. I also finally made it to Uluru/Ayers Rock for the first time. Stats breakdown      

I thought that 2017 had been a big year but 2018 has surpassed it in almost every way. Visiting the USA twice, spending time in England, Wales, Germany, and the Netherlands along with visiting Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand. This is what it looked like on a map: I managed to tick a few things off my wish list on the way. First time flying Business on: Singapore, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, and Emirates First flights on the shiny new A350-900 Visiting Snowdonia NP, Wales and walking the Llanberis path (in the snow) Returning to Zion NP, Utah and ticking off Angels Landing and Observation Point - amazing hikes, both Visiting Bryce Canyon, Utah for the first time - and experiencing it covered in snow Trying out Virgin Australia's Premium Economy SYD-LAX Ticking off all the art galleries and museums I'd most wanted to visit on the US East Coast Visiting some parts of Australia I'd missed out on over the years - most notably the wonderful state of Tasmania ...

For a bit of a change, I'll be writing up a (hopefully) proper trip report of my recent trip to the US. This involved lots of hiking in Joshua Tree, Zion, and Bryce Canyon. I figured this time of year would be a good time to visit in terms of lower temperatures and lower visitor numbers at Zion and Bryce. Getting There Unlike my last two trips to the US, which involved more round-about routings, this time I simply booked a simple cheap economy (sad face) return from SYD-LAX. For reference, here are the flight maps for my previous trips: From the beginning of 2018, a multi-carrier trip heading westwards And from 2017, heading eastwards via Auckland, NZ This trip I did end up upgrading the SYD-LAX leg to Premium due to a discounted UpgradeMe offer but missed out on a Business class upgrade on the way back - my low ball bid was obviously just too, well, low. Next time, in Part 1: Impressions of VA's Premium Economy cabin, venturing into LA'...

It's so nice to have commercial flights operating out of Illawarra Regional Airport (WOL) again in the form of JETGO's non-stop flights to Brisbane (BNE) and Essendon (MEB) . Heading to Brisbane or Melbourne from Shellharbour or Wollongong normally means 2 hours on the train (plus padding) or 1:30 in the car plus parking fees - all for a ~1 hour flight! I went up to Brisbane for an overnight trip and it was such a pleasant change to just have a 10 minute drive to the airport. Comfortable flight too in the little Embraer 135, with a drink and snack offered. All up it meant significantly more time on the ground rather than traveling, always a nice thing on a short trip.