Off to the Tropical North

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If we do say so ourselves, a very well organised packing and cleaning morning saw us on the road to the airport on schedule (a master of planning!) I’ve got to say that planning the route to the airport was fraught with problems as we knew there was a toll road that would automatically charge us, but it didn’t appear on any of our maps. I’m still hoping that we didn’t actually drive on it without noticing!!

One thing did strike me, we’ve referred to the Suffolk place names in South Australia, followed by the Irish ones in Victoria - well, amongst others, Sydney and outskirts does have a flavour of home with Woolwich, Greenwich and even Canterbury and Bexley (I’m still a Kentish girl at heart) - there are places with more exotic names and some hopeful ones, such as Beverley Hills ... but the one that I cannot for the life of me get my head round was Chipping Norton!

After our experience at Perth airport, we were concerned over the excess baggage charges and the amount we were carrying in our hand luggage. The end result of this was that John ended up travelling in his heaviest clothes. Unfortunately, they were also his warmest ... jeans, long sleeved T Shirt, thick woollen jumper and ski jacket (stuffed with books). There was sweat pouring down his face! I wore my jeans and carried my jacket. I also had a brain wave, and put some things in a carrier bag and carried that as well as my back-pack ... and no-one queried it! Genius!

We were actually only stopped as we went through security for my batik stamp which I’ve been carrying in my back-pack - I said to John that it’s got to go into my luggage next time ... (that’ll be some more T-shirts biting the dust!!)

After a flight lasting 2 hours 45 minutes, we finally arrived in Cairns (have we mentioned that this country is BIG?), with an onward bus journey to our apartment overlooking the beach. The bus driver pointed out where the mountains would be if the clouds weren’t obscuring them. We believed him, but couldn’t see that far because of the rain - yes, it’s raining ... we’ve managed to avoid it for most of the time we’ve been away, but I think we’re going to be making up for it here in the Sunshine State!

Oh the bliss of being shown our apartment - the space! We have a fully equipped kitchen ... it has a double oven, a dishwasher, a huge fridge/freezer and more pots, pans, plates, etc. than you’d ever want to shake a stick at. We also have a laundry room all to ourselves complete with tumble dryer and there are even 2 toilets in the apartment!! Now this might not sound grand ... but we’ve been in a little van with only basic amenities, and believe me, the sight of a washing machine all to myself nearly brought tears to my eyes!! (the thought that I’m actually getting excited about having sole use of a washing machine did actually bring tears to my eyes!!)

A little disappointed that there is no free WiFi, we’ve gone mad and actually paid for access for the whole week that we’re here, so that we can hopefully catch up with everyone. To prove the point, we’ve had a wonderful evening, sitting on our balcony chatting to everyone and catching up with life in Blighty.

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