Day 31 - Cairns to Sydney (10 January)

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Miracles often occur in pairs and today saw us up and at 'em really early. I was so determined that we wouldn't be so stressed at the airport that we left the hotel at 9:45 for a noon flight. What I hadn't taken into consideration was the fact that the airport was a mere ten minute drive from the hotel. So we hung around the airport for well over two hours. The coffee wasn't too bad.

The flight was ok except that Qantas didn't have our meals. They managed to rustle up some fresh fruit salad and a bar of two squares of Cadbury's dairy milk. Now they were talking my language. Then they served everybody a mango icecream bar. It was made by Weis and had an Australian hechsher. It was quite scrummy but it was so cold I burnt the roof of my mouth. The air hostesses were so apologetic and were trying to think of ways to make up for the lack of food. But as we said it wasn't their fault. This is the difference between a real airline and a budget one (Jetstar) which didn't seem to worry about their passengers.

We arrived in Sydney for the last leg of our adventure. We checked into the Marriott at Circular Quay to find an urgent message waiting for us from a rabbi. Oh good we thought we have a shabbat meal tomorrow night. After hanging around for two hours we discovered it was from somebody who wants Don to give his brother a job. Somebody has just made aliyah and can't find a job in Israel etc etc.

We are very upset with The Great Synagogue which according to its website has two rabbis and a chazan. We know that one of the rabbis is on holiday but the fact that in the two months before we arrived we had been emailing to see what they could offer and we haven't heard word boo is not nice. If we had wanted to take a room at Bondi we had lots of invites but we just didn't want yet one more hotel. I'm afraid that this synagogue gets a big zero for its hospitality. Oh and just to add insult to injury the website has a visitors' page which shows you how you can make a donation!!!

We had a word with the Marriott restaurant manager and the chef will heat any food we bring in and will serve it where and how we want it. So off we go to Pita Mix and had a lovely meal and ordered a hot meal for shabbat tomorrow night. We will hunt down Saturday's lunch tomorrow.

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Photos

My Country poem about Australia written 1904 by Dorothea Mackeller
(Woodie Guthrie wrote American folk song This Land in 1940)