As we didn’t have to be out of our room until 11.00am we had a sneaky sleep in before getting up and packing the rest of our stuff.
We got a suitcase trolley and loaded it up with our 5 fully packed suitcases, 3 fully packed carry-ons and a camera bag and left it with reception so we could take one last walk around the Piers at about 10.30am.
There is a $10 hoodie shop that we had been wanting to visit again but it had been closed since Monday. We have found a lot of shops close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the piers, really odd. We got there and it was shut however we saw one of the shop assistants outside so we were hoping it would open.
To fill in some time, we went for a walk to the water and took one last look at Alcatraz Island before going to the sea lions to see them for one last time.
Dave and Kenz tried out the Crepe shop on the pier before we headed back to see if the hoodie shop was open. Kenz was super happy it was and we bought a few last items.
It was then time to head back to our hotel, collect our bags and order an Uber to take us to the airport. The airport is quite a distance out of San Fran and as it was dark and raining when we came in, we didn’t really get our bearings on where it was.
On our way to the airport, we got to see so many more sights that we hadn’t seen. At the airport we had to do a final pack of the last few souvenirs we bought, pack away our big warm jackets, one last weigh to see if all the suitcases were all under weight before printing our boarding passes and bag tickets.
Handed our bags over, had a quick bite to eat of the last few things we had left from our hotel room then it was time to go through security and wait for our flight.
The 4 hour wait went by really quickly and we were on our way to Vancouver. This flight went by quickly and before we knew it we were in Vancouver.
Another 3.5 hour wait before our next flight so we did a bit of shopping for snacks for the plane, looked at duty free but didn’t buy anything, then before we knew it it was our 10.00pm boarding time ready for our 10.45pm long haul trip home.
About an hour into the flight they served dinner and then it was time for sleep. We all slept quite well, solid 1 to 2 hour stints at a time. I only got to watch 2 one hour long tv shows and the rest of the time I was asleep.
We landed early into Brisbane however we couldn’t disembark until medical officers came to the aid of a passenger. About 20 minutes after landing we could disembark, fill in our custom form as they didn’t have enough on the flight. We collected our bags, went through customs, stripped off a few layers due to the awful heat and walked out into the heat to get our Uber to Ruby and Michael’s place in Banyo to get our car.
We landed at 6.30am in Brisbane and we were home in Highfields by 10.00am.
It will take us a while to fully appreciate everything we have seen and experienced but for now all I can say is we had one amazing holiday, with so many memories made to last us a lifetime and many small souvenirs to remind us of our time over there.Read more