Breakfast at 6am (Aqaba/Jordan days start at 6am, Petra opens at 6am) and collected by Isham, our taxi driver, at 6.30am for our 2 hour drive to Petra. He stopped at a tourist shop along the way but we didn't buy anything. We arrived a Petra at 8.30am. What a tourist trap! All along the walk down we had to keep saying "no" to the men who tried to talk us into having horse rides. From the entrance to the Siq (where we paid 20 dinars = $40 each) we were saying no ...

What an interesting day! We had brekky at 7am by the pool - pancakes, toast and black coffee. We then walked down the street to the beach and along the pavement by the seaside. The owners of the glass bottom boats kept wanting us to have a trip to the reef. We were amazed at how close Israel is. There were people swimming down there at 8am - I think they had slept there overnight and were bathing! They sit in the sand on plastic outdoor chairs! We walked down t...

We landed in Dubai at 7.20am, using instruments because there was no visibility until we hit the runway. I had watched "Pay it Forward"with Kevin spacey, Helen Hunt and the cute kids from "Sixth Sense"on the way to Singapore, but there wasn't anything good to watch on the next leg. Dubai airport was not as good as they claim - there were none of the Clarins products that I needed to buy. Emirates gave us a voucher for free refreshments and a free lunch - we did...

After a day that seemed to take forever, driving down to Penrith to drop the little car into the smash repairers, back up to home to finish the packing, and then boarding the train to get us to the International Terminal, leaving the girls at home, we checked in our luggage and tried several times to ring the girls but they were having dinner and had taken the phone off the hook. We finally spoke to them and then proceeded through immigration and on to duty free ...

On Sunday we had taken the girls to High Tea at The Carrington Hotel, Katoomba and on the way home we were run into by a man who didn't give way. I was in the Festiva with Sophie, Jess and Jessie's friend Courtney (Tom, Charlotte and Shannon were in the Volvo right behind us). So, before we leave for overseas we'll have to arrange for the Festiva to be repaired.