Well we finally finished packing our bags at 10:30 am this morning. And then rang for a taxi to transport us to Townsville airport.

We arrived at the airport nice and early, and booked our luggage through to Sydney. The nice girl at the counter made us re-arrange my backpack bag, because she said it was too heavy. I took out Russell’s toiletries and a few other things and put them into a plastic bag (courtesy of Russ who has packed at least four spares). We were then allowed to proceed.

It always amuses me that the luggage weighs exactly the same but has been distributed differently.

We decided that we should have a light lunch before we went upstairs, and Russ had a pie with sauce, (always complaining that he should have stopped at Brumby’s for a decent one) and I had a chicken and spinach quiche – yes, you read correctly – it had a vegetable in it, and I enjoyed it also.

Anyway, we spoke with Carol who was manning the x-ray machine when we entered the departure area, Russ was checked for explosives, and we went upstairs to sit down and wait.

It suddenly occurred to Russell that we were very early, and he had not requested an exit row to accommodate his long legs. He left me to guard the luggage (one bag more than we had started with) and went back downstairs.

He returned and had been successful, except that the lady (Vicki) would not change my seat allocation without sighting me. She was saving the seat next to Russell’s new allocation until I appeared downstairs.

Russ then assumed guard duty and I went downstairs to speak with Vicki. When I returned we were set to go and had our allocation on the aisle exit seats.

Finally we were called to the departure tube and we boarded our plane for Sydney.

We were flying with Virgin and had a very good flight. We were pleased that we had bought a couple of nut bars when we got lunch, as they hit the right spot during the flight. We had taken plenty of water with us and made sure we drank it whilst in flight.

When we arrived in Sydney we were early due to a tail wind, but it also took us some time to collect our luggage. Sydney airport is very slow. We had to take our luggage along a long walkway, down the escalator and under the road, then up again to get to terminal 3 which was where Mum and Dad were arriving.

We sat and waited for their arrival – only about 20 minutes – but then we waited for ages for the luggage to start on the carousal. We spent the time wisely and asked about the shuttle bus to our overnight hotel, and where to catch it.

Finally, we all had our luggage, and started to the pedestrian crossing to find the bus for the Ibis Hotel. We left the domestic terminal, went to pick up someone from the international terminal, and then turned back on our tracks before we made it to the Ibis.

It was a nice clean hotel and there was a small café/restaurant in the foyer where we had our tea.