We got up early to say goodbye to Aunty Jan. we packed and I watched Les Miserables. We left after lunch and got the bus into town and the train to the airport.

Australia has been a really special time. I knew we were going to see family, but I didn't anticipate how important the time with family would be. I would call Australia a second home. 2 months has gone so quickly!

Australia is very expensive and everything is in the middle. For example, we have Tesco for the lower income family and Waitrose for the higher income family, but all food pretty much costs the same wherever you buy it. Supermarkets don't sell alcohol, clothes, stationary or any of the other little useful things I have got used to buying in the UK. No alcohol sales is also annoying because you have to buy that much more food to get your petrol discount voucher! However, they do have things we don't like flavoured tuna, Vegemite and Topdeck.

There are a lot of utes especially in Queensland. And the transport systems are generally better (as is a newer country). Parking is mostly free, especially near the beaches which was great!

The majority of homes are bungalows, and the kids in Adelaide weren't shy of letting us know how much they wanted stairs in their house!

Toilets are a bit different...EVERYONE ALWAYS puts the full toilet seat down after use, you have to keep your finger on the flush for it to actually flush (not just push it) and in most public toilets (especially in Queensland) the toilet roll holder is ridiculously low. So low you almost have to touch the floor to get the paper. It's even too low down for a dwarfs use! Weird...

Australia is much greener than I thought. The red centre was indeed red, but there was also a lot of bush there. Flying into Sydney, there were almost as many trees as buildings. And Cairns was so tropical!!

Food is pretty much the same, although they are much bigger on oriental food, and the overall average quality of restaurant food is higher. I even tried kangaroo, which was lovely! Australians are much more into their coffee here...although we have had the BEST coffee in Australia in every state we've been to...

One thing I can't fail to mention is Australia humour, especially on the TV. Driving down the east coast, every 50km were official signs saying 'are we there yet?' the government clearly have a lot of extra cash! We saw the weather report (which is extremely long) where the reporter said that there was so much sun forecast, that you could poke a stick at it..TV as a whole is much cheesier, and reality TV dominates, with few few quality Australian dramas (that I saw advertised) even corporate slogans are cheesy! But certainly kept us entertained! :)

I have ticked off everything I wanted to do in Australia this time around, apart from seeing a Platypus, which is pretty good going! Highlights were the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru along with Australia's natural beauty and wildlife! I still can't believe I was brave enough to swim in open ocean in shark territory! Uluru was a magical experience sleeping under the stars and learning all about the ancient aboriginal culture. It was really eye opening.

Seeing friends both old and new has been great fun!

It's been great getting to know the Gleeson side of Garth's family, and therefore more about Garth. Ivor, Jan, David and Colleen have been very generous, and it's been great meeting Garth's cousins too! It was a special time spent with Darren, Natasha, Jono, Ethan and Anna and discovering that I am now more than an Aunty to just Leo. I thought we would visit Australia as a once in a lifetime holiday, but I think we have to go back now! :)

Our flight was over 6 hours ( longer than we expected)! With no personal entertainment systems and shocking 20 year old TV shows on the main screens, it felt like a very long flight indeed!! :(

We arrived in Bali at 11pm. It was dark and very humid! We had to pay for visas at USD25 each! Managed to get cash out (it's ridiculously big numbers!!!) and managed to get a taxi. It was a 20 min drive which was rather hairy at times! Our hotel was nice with a pool. We managed to get wifi to confirm Gede for tomorrow before collapsing asleep!