Up up and awaaay

Up up and awaaay

A reduced Team Starrett set off Monday afternoon for our 2015 adventure. We are cruising in the Caribbean with Jason's parents (Brian & Annette) and his sister and her husband (Amanda & Richard). Jason himself is not coming - he had a taste of cruising back when we sailed the Mediterranean and is not a fan. 

My dad picked up the boys from school at lunchtime and I came home from work an hour later supposedly to find them ready and waiting to go. They didn't do too badly. On a final sweep I collected a few missing items (braces elastics, 1 hat, 1 pair of sunglasses) and we headed off. We flew down to Sydney with Fly Pelican on a little 19 seat plane, the first of a four flight transit plan.

We had booked a room at Rydges for the night and needed to catch the "t bus" to get there. I thought this was pronounced "tee bus" but the boys have informed me that "..we are not in Newcastle anymore and it is pronounced "t'bus". The process of getting the bus, regardless of pronunciation, was held up by a lady who took 10 minutes to buy a ticket from the machine and then lost the ticket by the time the bus arrived. There were a few giggles from those of us who had witnessed both episodes and some speculation about who would be unlucky enough to have her on their flight.

After an uneventful night and a two hour SpongeBob SquarePants marathon we walked across the road to the airport and checked in.  The boys chowed down on the Qantas club offerings and then discovered that there was a gelato bar. 8am gelatos followed and they rolled on to our fairly full plane for a long flight.

We were picked up at the airport by our Vietnam Adventure friends Angela, Allen and Rose. They took us to a fun diner nearby, "Dinah's" for breakfast. Poor Flynn was sick and Cambo was practically falling asleep at the table but it was fun to catch up. They had some treats for us and shouted breakfast before dropping us back to the airport for the third flight. 

Flight delay, awesome pizza crust, flight delay, happy limo pick up, and at last we made it to our hotel, which is gorgeous. More tomorrow.