Technically, it’s Day 1 and 2 because of the long travel time. We had to add in a leg that we would have otherwise skipped because of another part of the itinerary. So, it was Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, Atlanta to Los Angeles, LA to Sydney, Sydney to Cairns. That was (rounding) 2 hours, 5 hours, 14 hours, 2.5 hours of flying plus the in-between airport time. In other words, we departed the house at 11:00 a.m. Sat morning, 30 Nov and arrived in Cairns 11:30 a.m. on Monday, 2 Dec. The “extra day” was due to crossing the international dateline, yet even with that, it was in excess of 30 hours of non-stop travel. You can see why we won’t be doing this more than once. All things considered, travel went fairly smoothly. The delay out of Atlanta that would have meant missing the flight to Sydney was salvaged with the LA departure being delayed so that we literally walked up within ten minutes of boarding. We would have had an even longer journey with a 6+ hour layover in Sydney before the Cairns flight, but luckily, Quantas put us on an earlier one and we contacted the car service to let them know of the change.
The driver who picked us up was pleasant and the room was thankfully ready early. The agent we used for booking this trip had annotated that it was our 25th anniversary and the young lady who checked us in said they had a bottle of sparkling wine for us and asked what the secret was to 25 years of marriage. “Wait for the right one,” my husband said. “Marry someone who is also your friend,” was my response.
A much needed hot shower and then lunch close by. There is a boardwalk fronting the marina with several restaurants. We picked the closest that was casual and did fish and chips with a cold draft – no Fosters on the menu by the way. We returned to the room, had half the bottle of the lovely sparkling wine as we sat on our little balcony, looked at the mountains (smallish, but mountains, nonetheless) across the bay, and watched the array of boats. (I took the photo of the room from the hotel website – I’m having problems sending photos from my Iphone.)
A long nap, then dinner also on the boardwalk, but in the opposite direction, although still a short walk. Prawns for me and a local fish for husband. All very fresh with excellent flavors. Finished off the sparkling wine, the stars visible as the clouds moved. I had all the constellations mixed up since we are in the Southern Hemisphere and finally, hubby pulled up one of the apps on the Iphone to check them out. Sextus and Taurus as it turned out. Okay, tomorrow we will explore Cairns.
