The Journey Begins

The day started in Thirroul, up early at 7am to see them off to work. Back to bed for an hour's doze before a quick breakfast and a final review of packing. Off to Prestons by 9:45, where we had tea and cake with Mum. Then we left to pick Rae up from his school concert at Birrong, before having lunch at a cafe in Bankstown Square. Thankfully we didn't get shot by bikies as seems to happen there!

Finally after the running around we made it to the airport by around 2pm, in plenty of time for our flight. Breeze through security, 10 minutes wait at the gate and suddenly we're on the plane and taxiing. Took off over the city so we were treated to one last view of Sydney in the sunshine as the rest of our lives beckoned.

The flight to Brisbane was pretty uneventful, though Shandos was seated next to a rough-looking man with a lot of gold jewelry (including a chunky gold ring with a diamond-studded dollar sign!), who used Facebook most of the way and then took a phone call while the plane was on final approach. We decided he was probably a bikie.

Spent several hours hanging around Brisbane airport waiting for our flight - had a couple of drinks, had a salubrious dinner in the food court of rice paper rolls and Subway and after 4 long hours our flight was finally ready to go.

Very full again, and this time we had a generously proportioned lady sitting next to us. But not long after takeoff it was lights out so Shandos dozed and I played Civ V for the next four hours until we arrived in Darwin.

Hot and humid outside the terminal building even at 12:30am, we found the shuttle bus with very little difficulty. Although I don't know why they bother, we were probably on the bus for less than a minute before getting out at the airport hotel! Checked in and finally collapsed into bed around 1am, after a very long start to the trip!Read more