Off the aircraft into the heat and towards the terminal which I must say has a really nice layout at MCY. Over to baggage collection where our bags came out relatively quickly and we headed to Europcar to hire our Ford. After getting the keys walked to the car park which is relatively large for a small airport like MCY but a lot of tourists flock to places like Noosa and that is why the car hire is popular.
Maroochydore tower visible above with one controller seen inside.
Drove the 20-30 minute drive to Noosa from MCY which is a really scenic one past the coast. Arrived at our apartment on Hastings Street which is on the beach and this is the main road in Noosa where there are excellent restaurants, shops and cafes.
Here’s a view from the apartment onto Noosa’s main beach:
Enjoyed 3 days of a well earned rest, beach and having a few golf rounds and tennis at Noosa Springs which I must say is a brilliant venue for those who love golf and tennis- immaculately presented golf course and tennis courts with an excellent bar/club.
It was time to head back to Sydney from paradise- not that Sydney isn’t, just that Noosa is a very nice spot!
Flight: DJ472 YBMC-YSSY
Date: 09/11/2008
Departure: approximately 1010 am
Arrival: just after 1230 pm local time
Aircraft: 737-800 VH-VOG (same aircraft I got for SYD-MEL in my last trip report:P)
Seat: 8a
Gate: stand 6 if I remember correctly at MCY
Arrived back at MCY with about 45 minutes to spare till flight was boarding, so I decided rather than going into security and the enclosed terminal that I would take a quick walk around Maroochydore airport to Singapore Flying College which is located about 500m-1km from passenger terminal.
Singapore Flying College trains a lot of the Singapore International Airlines cadets and when I arrived in MCY their learjet 45 was on the tarmac.
Unfortunately but as it was a Sunday the building was shut so instead I just wondered over to gate 8a and watched a Tiger airways a320 depart to Melbourne and a Jetstar a320 land from Sydney.
Back to the terminal and we had our boarding passes- so just headed straight through security which was crowded by now as passengers for the Jetstar flight to Sydney and our Virgin flight were converging on the terminal area. This configuration of MCY airport is somewhat odd in that once you clear security you cannot exit the glass enclosed terminal/observation area which leads onto the tarmac as there is only entry points.
Boarded just before 10 am and headed to my window seat. Took this shot out of window of passengers boarding at air stairs at rear of plane.
Power out of the bay as no pushback tugs at MCY and we backtracked on runway 18/36 towards runway 18 threshold as the taxiway is only for aircraft 7000kg or below.
Backtracking
