Planes, planes and planes!

Wow – if I never see the inside of an airport departure again, it would be too soon!! I had to check out of the hotel by 12pm on Tuesday and I arrived at Jo’berg Airport at about 12.30pm. My flight was leaving at 9.50pm so I had to keep myself entertained for over 9 hours! It wasn’t easy! I drank cups of tea, read my book, had lunch and went on the internet and still it was only 4pm! I decided to see if I could possibly check in 6 hours before the flight – and indeed, I could! So I went through to the departure lounge and I drank cups of tea, read my book, had dinner and went on the internet. I also had a back, neck and head massage which was heavenly.

The 9 hour flight to Perth was pretty good. I had a double seat to myself and managed to get about 5 hours sleep. We arrived in Perth at about 1pm local time on Wednesday afternoon. And I was looking forward to another 10 hour stopover at another airport! My next destination was Brisbane and I had another flight from Brisbane to Townsville. My luggage was checked in all the way through to Townsville so I already had my boarding pass and I headed into the departure lounge of Perth Airport. And guess what I did with myself during all that time – yep, I drank cups of tea, read my book, had lunch, went on the internet, drank cups of tea, had dinner, had a snooze and read my book! We finally boarded the plane but it was delayed by an hour as they were replacing some part – no idea what but we didn’t crash so it was all ok :-) The flight to Brisbane was only 4 hours so I didn’t get much sleep at all :-(

When we arrived very early yesterday morning, I only had 15 mins to get my flight to Townsville! But there were 5 or 6 of us transferring to that flight so I think they held the plane for us as we all got on. However, I was dubious that my luggage was going to make it to Townsville – but I was wrong! My bag was waiting for me on the carousel :-) I finally arrived in Townsville at 9am yesterday.

Freya lives about 10 mins drive from the airport so I got a taxi there and she was waiting to greet me! She is sharing a house with 3 other students but all the others were away until the weekend. I was feeling really jetlagged! I had to get some sleep so I went to bed for about 3 hours. Freya and I headed off to do some food shopping and when we got back, one of Freya’s house mates, Kyle, had arrived back earlier than we expected. All we did last night was have dinner (a fab veggie stir fry followed by chocolate brownies with ice cream :) and watched a DVD. I did somehow manage to stay up til midnight…..

…….but I slept right through until 10.30am this morning! This afternoon, we headed into town. We stopped of at a Tourist Information Centre where I booked two days diving next week. I am off to dive the SS Yongala on Monday and Wheeler Reef on Tuesday. Both are supposed to be fantastic dive sites on the Great Barrier Reef so I’m really looking forward to them. We went to the Townsville Aquarium which was really good and confirmed for me that Dory from Finding Nemo is a palette surgeonfish (we had a long discussion about this in Mozambique and thought she might be either a palette surgeonfish or a powder blue surgeonfish).

On the way home, we popped into the local gallery for a while and saw part of a really good exhibition on war photography and have decided to go back to see it all over the weekend.

We have now fed and watered ourselves with fajitas and beer. Freya has gone to bed and I am looking forward to another day exploring Townsville tomorrow :-)