Woke at 6 am to take the dogs for one last walk before we go away.… then did all the usual things you do as well as checking out the Port of Mare ( mar-ray ) cos I got an email from P & O this morning to say our cruise itinerary has changed…. no Isle of Pines on X-mas day now, instead we will be in Lifou and the day we were supposed to be there we will be in Mare. In the process of doing this I had to take our document folder out of the bag and OMG… nearly forgot to repack it!! That is my all time worst nightmare, getting to the airport with no passport and without all my holiday planning documents.

The bit I hate about travelling is the waiting…. I can wait months, weeks and days quite patiently but those last few hours before going to the airport are the worst!!

Our flight from Longreach to Brisbane was as usual fairly uneventful ( except being 15 mins late arriving and 45 mins late leaving Longreach cos someone was a little sick all over the plane and they had to clean it up ).



I generally take some nuts or other nibblies instead of eating the packaged snack they provide however today I forgot and as I was starving had to concede that eating a few NUMBERS wouldn’t put me in an early grave! On offer today was a piece of carrot cake , a packet of apricots ( sulphur snack anyone? ) and a spinach and cheese muffin with chilli jam. I decided the muffin would be the lesser of 3 evils and I have always liked this particular Qantas treat, the chilli jam is yummy with just the right amount of chilli. Naturally I cut my muffin in half, scone style, and taking the knife provided in the cutlery bag spread my jam …. Then I did what I do best… surreptitiously studied my fellow travellers to observe their eating rituals. It amazes me how some people just tackle things with no plan of action ….. Some people just ripped open the bag and ate their muffin straight out of the packet, others took it out of the packet and ripped into small pieces, neither of this group used the chilli jam!! One guy put the jam on top of the whole muffin so he had to practically dislocate his jaw to get a bite and then ended up with jam on his nose!! Another girl tried to dip her whole muffin into the tiny ( 20c sized ) jam container, only when she had ¼ of it left did she discover the cutlery bag and then proceeded to use a spoon to apply the jam!! ( This budding Einstein went on to douse herself in cloying perfume mid flight.. My nose was not impressed ). When I mentioned my observations to Rodd he shook his head and said “ only you Liane”!! Well I never!! I mean everybody does their fair share of “people watching”!!



With the delay we only had 2 hours to wait in Brisbane for our flight to Sydney… we had checked our bags straight through from home to Sydney so didn’t have to lug them around with us. Naturally we found a bar and had a drink to while away the time…. I did some more people watching and Rodd watched cricket!

Landed in Sydney on time and found our way out to the car park where Gabby and Chris were waiting for us. So lovely of them to come and pick us up, but it didn’t stop there, they drove us back to their place in Pyrmont and cooked the yummiest pizzas. Wholemeal spelt bases, homemade tomato base and yummy toppings including the best ever pesto… also homemade of course! The meal was finished with a Maple Nut “Cheese” cake ( no cheese in it though, it’s all nuts, lemon and healthy stuff , Gabby reckons you can even have it for breakfast!! ) topped with mango puree and fresh blueberries. I didn’t take a photo of this but will try to pinch Gabbys one she posted on face book.



A quick taxi ride to our hotel .. City Hotel in Clarence St, looks a bit dodgy but the rooms are nice, clean and all the things you need.

Great first day… made special by the wonderful time spent with my cousin and her husband.