Aussie Trip {Part 1} ~ The Beginning

My grandparents moved to Aussie while most of my mum's siblings were still at home. A couple have moved back to NZ since then, but we still have a few cousins, friends, and other relatives over there. The last time we made a trip over as a family was in 2005! We had only four children then :P In that time, another cousin had joined the party, and a couple had married. One of my friends turned 21 late last year, and a cousin wanted to do make her 20th a big celebration. I decided all those things made for a good excuse to head over for a few weeks! :D

: : Temperatures like these provide me with good encouragement to head over the ditch :P : :

In the weeks beforehand I didn't have a huge amount of time to think about or prepare for my trip; I stayed fairly busy teaching and such, fitting in a few make-up classes (if someone's sick or something and we have to change the date), organising classes for the following term (I arrived home late Friday/early Saturday and started up teaching on the Monday), and I'm not really sure what else right now, but it was busy! Lol. A few days before I realised I didn't have time to make anything new for my wardrobe (didn't have a lot of summer clothing anymore), so I started enlisting help . . .  managed to get both my mum and my bro sewing skirts for me!! :P I packed the night before, then tried to get some sleep before leaving. 

Even though I was exhausted, sleep was slow in coming. Once I was out, I was out pretty solidly though; I didn't hear my alarm go off at 3:45am on September 24th. It must have roused me slowly though, because I was awake by the time Mum came in saying we didn't have much time left and had to hurry. Right then I really just wanted to sleep, but figured missing my flight probably wouldn't be the best start to the trip! I don't think I would have had much more than a couple hours sleep :/ We grabbed my stuff and tried to rush/sneak out without waking the little people! Got my bag checked in okay, and then I went through so Mum and Dad could get back to bed. It's amazing how much the airport has changed . . . actually I think something's different just about every time I go there! Although, it was about 10 1/2 years since I had been in this section. Thankfully this wasn't a flight I had to race to catch, so I worked out where I had to go and then sat down to tap into the free (30-min) wifi for a bit. Snapped the following pic to make everyone staying behind jealous :P

I don't remember much between the above pic and being on the plane, so presumable everything went pretty smoothly and ordinarily :P I do remember feeling VERY tired, and feeling like it was a bit strange sitting parked on the tarmac and watching it get lighter and lighter outside, when I really just wanted to be asleep lol. I think we may have left a little late, but the flight was pretty good once we got going. 

: : Not entirely sure how to feel about the direction we were taking here . . . :P : :

: : I love the invention of this app, with a live map and flight details! : :
Look at that destination time though, wouldn't really want to message them before take-off! :P

When I booked my flights I just picked the cheapest options + bag, but ended up with a meal on the flight over there; I wouldn't have chosen to pay extra for it, but it worked out really well, being that the flight was so early and I hadn't ended up managing to eat anything beforehand -- hunger was setting in pretty strongly when they brought it out! Admittedly it can't beat homecooked, but I wasn't about to argue with bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, fruit, juice and bran muffin right then! ;)

: : Not far now!! : :

So my nearly 4-hour flight that I got up in the middle of the night for, arrived in Brisbane around 8am their time! I think we made pretty good time travelling, not sure whether we ended up getting in early or not. I managed to find my way (and suitcase) -- that airport seems pretty big to me :P -- and get through customs in pretty good time. Took off my jacket and cardigan which were a must in Auckland, and just had the problem of the temperature not quite being warm enough for half-sleeves, but too warm for a thin cardigan over the top. Anyways. Connected to the wifi again and messaged home to say I had arrived. (Dad was at work by this stage, not sure that all the siblings were up though :P) 

Waited a bit (since I got through customs faster than my uncle had calculated), and then got picked up by my cousin and a friend who had traveled north the day before and spent the night at my uncle's caravan in Brissy. Turns out they weren't aware I was eating on-flight, so they planned to take me out for breakfast. After we took a couple of detours and got lost a couple of times, we found the mall and went to look for a cafe. By this time I was about ready to eat again anyway so it worked out all right. ;P

: : Iced coffee and cheesecake might not be the best morning tea, but hey : :

: : That jar of coffee in the previous pic was pretty big :P : :

We looked around the shops for a while, then headed back to my uncle's caravan for the rest of the day. Took it pretty easy, organised our stuff, shopped for snacks, made dinner, and watched a movie or two. Finally got to bed; I must have been up for close on 24 hours after only 2ish hours sleep?! Slept pretty solidly, thankfully; just need the nights a bit longer after a day like that ;P

: : And that is actually in the caravan . . . RV or similiar?! : :
Whatever it is, it was shipped over from America and is flasher than our house, if a fair bit smaller ;P 

And that concluded my first day in Aussie after just over a decade! It actually may have been my first time in Brissy, I'm not sure we had been up that far before. But I'll save my thoughts on the city for another post ;)