Wooooaaah! And you thought the visa application process was a rollercoaster? We've spent the last three days alternating between "this is great" and "oh god what have we done".
Everything people are saying about being out of your comfort zone - pay attention - Australia is a VERY DIFFERENT place from the UK.
This morning, however, I was woken up by the bloody kookaburra that lives in the trees in the garden (again) at 5am. Got up, showered and popped out to the yard. Took a deep breath of deeply scented air (there's a very slight warm rain here just now), watched half a dozen kangaroos bouncing through the bottom of the garden (they actually come up and peer in the windows), and listened to the cicadas and assorted other noisy things.
This is the best place on earth. Having said that, it's only reached 29 degrees so far - ask me again when it's 35 :)
Our flights went very well - Cathay Pacific. An hour from Edinburgh to Heathrow, a two hour stop there, eleven hours to Hong Kong and a mad dash to the connecting flight then nine hours to Sydney. It's a long way, but there's plenty to do on the flights. Our kids loved every second - they were given good bags, there was good programmes scheduled on the entertainment system, and there was enough room for them to curl up and have a sleep.
The food was quite surprising on CP - they had a fantastic beef ghoulash. Overall, the hot meals were ok - not great but much better than BA. It wasn't particularly child friendly food, though. It was made up for by variety, though - if you didn't like the main dish, you could make do with the big pile of fresh fruit, bread, salad and cheesecakes that came with it.
Anyhoo - that's a bit of a ramble - I'm posting to
http://www.nelefa.org more or less daily just now, so feel free to look.
Ohh! It's just started thundering!
Choobs and Daisydeeds
