Lisa Blundell's Page

Day One
Saturday December 12, 2009 Mark I

A day of travel. Starting at 10:00am by wishing Nan good-bye (who made me promise I wouldn’t come back for her funeral and considering she’s fighting fit and will live till 110 I was able to tell her it was highly unlikely the need would arise) and heading to Tulla.
Australia is a remarkably long way away from the rest of the world and this is highlighted when sitting in row 51 on an Airbus overnight with four children; such an incredibly long trip.
1:00pm domestic flight to Sydney. Nice check-in lady turned a blind eye to our thirty-seven suitcases and didn’t charge us for over-weight. The benefits reaped when Qantas is asked to do Jetstar’s work they get a tad rebellious and it only benefits us customers!
International check-in and a few hours in Sydney while planes were switched and they put the faulty one away and pulled out a nice working airbus from the hanger. Good decision I thought and didn’t at all begrudge the extra 90 minutes wait. In fact Coach, Beach Culture, Lonely Planet and Oroton were most happy with the extra shopping time it gave me.
Elliot has decided to develop fear of flying. Which is a little annoying. But he also seemed to have developed fear of sitting still in the Qantas club which was greatly annoying, but more for the other passengers than us. Having ignored our relentless five hours of ‘stop running Elliot and sit down’ he slipped on the marble floor in the foyer as we were leaving and smashed up his top lip somewhat. The nice Qantas ladies were way more sympathetic than his parents.
Jetstar was the very best it could have been. The children slept fitfully. Luckily I bought the little doughnut pillow things for them, which helped them sleep a lot better. However, there is nothing like sleep deprivation and disorientation caused by jet lag to really throw a body out. Hopefully tomorrow is better.
Ironically we traveled over the international date line right on midnight.