Time Traveller

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Saturday came around and we both felt sad as it was the very last day of our amazing trip over East, all the boxes had been ticked, well most of them anyway, friends had been seen, weddings had been attended and ties had been reaffirmed.

We didn’t wake particularly early, perhaps just after 7am, which is not bad considering we had trouble adjusting to the time when we first came over, and Caroline was expecting me to get out of bed to make her coffee, maybe I had set a precedence as I have done it for the last 25 years, but today I just couldn’t be bothered, I must have had the subconscious feeling that we would be going home today and I was trying to prolong the holiday.

We eventually rose, after Caroline had brought me a cup of tea, which makes a change, we all appeared around the breakfast table, the plan today was to go and have lunch with the rest of the family in Parramatta Park the home of the Old Government House, it became a public park in 1858.

Soon we were all rallied, as we could not fit 6 in a car Caroline went with Jan, Glen and Bon and I went with Teddy, we met at the Café in the Park and took our seats overlooking the Parramatta River, soon we were joined by Jenni, Ted and Jan’s daughter, then soon after we were joined by Natalie, with the children Erin and Adam, and the twins Luke and Olivia, who amazingly were just babies when we last saw them and now you could virtually hold a full blown conversation with them, as they have sprouted up at an exponential rate.

The weather was just glorious, the mornings are definitely starting to change, but then we are in Autumn, still the positive side is we can now have camp fires when we get back to Western Australia, as the fire ban will have lifted. Besides we are also hearing that it has rained as much over in the West as it has in the East.

We sat and enjoyed our lunch, chatting and catching up what had been happening in everyones lives, Nat said Justin did not come for lunch as he was preparing for a Triathlon tomorrow and had to get all his ducks in a row before the big event. He will also be riding in the Tour de Cure again this year, I think it is his fifth year so he is very well focused on his fitness to ride right now.



Lunch was great, it was a nice venue and soon it was all over, we kissed and hugged and said our farewells and got in the car and went back to Jan and Teds, it was about 3.30 by now and soon we would need to be leaving for the airport, our flight was at 8.20, we wanted to be at the airport in plenty of time to allow for traffic and queues at check in.

We just had chance for a quick cup of tea before we needed to go and get our 3 cases (2 very large ones) which were ready to go, Glen put them into his car so Jan, Glen, Bon, Caroline and myself were soon heading across Sydney to the airport, to get our flight.

We queued at the Jetstar line which was absolutely huge, thus we were glad that we arrived so early, however it soon accommodated all the passengers for various flights and without much delay we were dropping our bags off as we had already checked in online.

There is very little security when flying domestic (Inside Australia) we went through to airside quite quickly where we got a quick sandwich and a coffee, we also wanted to get a couple of gifts for people in W.A. Peter and Leigh were collecting us from the airport, so It was just a little something to let them know we appreciated their efforts.

Caroline came back with a Koala oven mitt, very entertaining if I have to say and I am sure on our next camping trip away which is the Anzac long weekend in a couple of weeks, we will have hours of fun with this.



Whilst waiting Caroline perused the shops and boutiques, I published a blog, we are so close to a major achievement I really want to keep the blogs going, but more on that in the next few weeks.

We were called to the gate at about 7.55, and were soon boarding the aircraft, wheels went up at exactly 8.20 and the flight time back to W.A was 4 ½ hours. We would be going back in time as New South Wales is 2 hours in front of Western Australia.



We touched down at 11.15 Western Australia time to a very wet and miserable yet warm evening, we got off the plane into the baggage hall and there as promised were Peter and Leigh waiting to see us, we waited for our baggage to come off, loaded it in to the car and shot off in to the night, arriving back at the house at around 1.15 am.

We fell into bed truly exhausted, we did not have much sleep if any on the flight and our body clocks are now telling us it is 3.15am. It had been a fantastic trip and thanks to all of our friends who made such an effort for us.

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Photos

Time Traveller
Lunch at Parramatta Park

Time Traveller
Sydney Traffic