We're going to the land down under where women glow and men plunder..... : It's my turn to fulfil a bucket list dream so we're off the Australia and New Zealand for 5 weeks. We're doing 2 back to back tours with g Adventures (same tour operator we went to Peru with). We will be exploring the east coast of Australia for 2.5 weeks and then off to New Zealand to see both islands for another 2.5 weeks. Seems like a long time to be away but, hopefully, we'll stave off being too homesick by staying busy.

Well, we left Toronto at 8:05 pm en route for Sydney Australia. Our total flight time is 22 hours and 20 minutes. UGH! I was VERY grumpy when we finally arrived on March 24 (2 days later)!

We had a refueling stop in Vancouver but were not allowed off the plane. It was a very long, uncomfortable flight. The plane was new but good old Air Canada scrimped on the seats. They were the narrowest seats we've ever been in and it's the longest flight we've ever been on. Plus they provided no food unless you bought it. We did get 2 drinks of juice gratis, however. In any event it was just too darn long to be couped up in a metal tube 40,000 feet in the air.

We arrived in Sydney and had a 3 1/2 hour layover until our flight to Cairns. It was nice to be able to walk around. The flight to Cairns was only 2 hours so it wasn't too bad.

Luckily we decided to arrive a day before our tour starts to try to get acclimated to the time change and get caught up on some needed sleep.