Back to Australia, and catching up with family.
Trip Start
Jul 04, 2006
1
63
Trip End
Jan 16, 2007
Melbourne,
Australia
Monday, January 29, 2007
As our travelblog still shows our location as that of Warrington, UK, it is time to put our final entry into the blog and bring us back to Melbourne, Australia, and wind up our "excellent adventure". So for those interested, here is a quick run down on our journey back to Aussie.
Early Monday morning, the 15th January, we left Warrington as planned, and with final goodbyes to Deidre and Tony and many heartfelt thanks for all their kind hospitality, we checked in at Manchester International for the short flight to London. We were flying British Airways to London, and then transferring to a Qantas flight to Australia. We had a bit of a scare as there was only 90 minutes scheduled in London between our arrival and departure, and the domestic flight out of Manchester was 30 mins late leaving. Once at Heathrow, it looked like being a bit of a mad scramble on our last day in the UK as we had to catch a bus between terminals, however there was no need for concern and we made it to the boarding gate for our international flight with plenty of time to spare.
The initial flight was for twelve plus hours and this passed rather uneventfully, and after three movies, lunch, dinner and breakfast, plus a little sleep in between, we were soon landing at Hong Kong International Airport where we had a 90 minute stopover for refueling. There wasn't much time for anything other than a walk around the airport to stretch our legs and to do some last minute duty free shopping. We had left Manchester International Airport just after 10.00am Monday 15th January, and in addition to the flight time into Hong Kong having taken over twelve hours, we had flown through so many time zones that we had to advance our watches by eight hours. By the time our re-boarding call came, it was just after 10am local time, Tuesday 16th January, and as far as our minds and bodies were concerned we had been on the move for 24 hours, and we were beginning to feel it.
Soon enough we were back on board for the final nine plus hour flight to Melbourne, and we once again fell into a cycle of onboard movies, meals, and unsuccessful attempts to get some sleep.
From memory we crossed into Australia at the very top end, somewhere along the Northern Territory coastline, and at that point we had a little less than four hours of flying time remaining. I thought back to our recent flights from the UK to the Canary Islands and also to Cyprus, which at the time felt to take so long as they both were around four hours. It was then that I began to realize how big Australia really is when compared to many parts of Europe, as we will fly over this country for about the same time as we flown clear across Europe.
About ninety minutes out of Melbourne, and as were flying across the last part of Central Australia, the Captain announced the time in Melbourne was just after 8.00pm, so we needed to advance our watches a further two hours forward. He also advised that the current temperature in Melbourne was 37C, which was some 30 degrees warmer than that of London which we had left the day before. Later as we were making our landing approach into Melbourne Airport, I was gazing out the window at the seemingly endless city street lights that lay before me, when all of a sudden my whole view went completely black! I rubbed my eyes but black it remained, so I shrugged my shoulders and decided that after almost 36 hours (on the clock that is, as it was only 26 hours of actual traveling time) without much sleep, I must be seeing things.
Our arrival into Melbourne (Tullamarine) Airport was smooth and seamless, and soon we were collecting our luggage from the carousal and heading towards the arrivals exit. Walking through the exit doors from the terminal into the familiar surroundings of Melbourne Airport we felt truly at home, and as our daughters Jacki and Cathy let out excited squeals as soon as they caught sight of us, we were soon all in one tight embrace, holding onto each other for the first time in over six months. It was here that we were introduced to Cathy's boyfriend, Grant for the very first time. Given that since we had left Australia, they had met, bought an apartment together, and into which they had recently moved, this only reinforced to us how long we had been away.
Walking out of the airport just after 10.00pm local time, we were hit with the still 35C temperatures, which reminded us of the conditions of our first arrival in Thailand some six months ago when we had left the Australian winter behind.
Jacki told us of the severe bush fires that were currently raging around Victoria, and coupled with the extremely hot weather conditions, the demands on the electricity systems were causing blackouts to occur around parts of Melbourne. This of course explained what I had witnessed when coming into land a little earlier.
PS: later I heard over the radio that the bushfires had now burned through almost 20% of the state of Victoria. Intrigued by this I looked up on the net to find that the land area of Victoria covered 227,420 square klms, so these fires have caused the destruction of over 45,000klm of bush land. Putting this into perspective for our UK friends and family, the combined land area of the two countries that make up Ireland, is 84,000 klm, so these fires represent the burning out of over half of that combined country! (For the real trivial minded, the entire land mass of Cyprus which we had recently visited, is only just over 9,000klm, so these fires have burnt out the equivalent of five Cyprus islands!)
Anyway, once home we sat up for several hours just chatting away and enjoying each others company again, before finally saying goodnight and making our way to bed. However this is when the frustration started. You see we were both still locked into UK time, and as tired as we were, we both could not get to sleep. We lay awake all night, only to doze off as the sun was coming up, and then we slept through till past lunchtime. This frustrating occurrence happened each night for the next week, where we would lay awake all night, and fall asleep in the morning and sleep most of the early daylight hours. It would not be until a week had passed before we fell back into the Aussie time zone, and where we could get to sleep each night before midnight. Of course during this first week, the above 30C temperatures did not help, and it is only in the past week that the daytime temperatures have fallen into the 20 to 30C region.
During the past two weeks, we have caught up with our daughters and their partners over many meals, and have loved the time we have spent with our beautiful granddaughters, Rainee and Cara. They have both grown up so much while we were away, and we are making the most of our time together, before Jacki, Sam, Cara and Rainee move out to their new home in mid March, a little under seven weeks time. Then, after having such a full house over the past few years, it will just be Gail and I, until of course Alan and Jordy return home from the UK, which they expect to be sometime around September this year.
So that's about all there is for our "excellent adventure", and as sorry as we are that it has come to an end, it is time for us both to "grow up", go out and get jobs, and become respectable and responsible citizens again. We had a great time over the past six months, and loved every minute of it, especially meeting all our friends and relatives from the other side of the world.
We had originally set this blog up as a diary of our travels for us to look back on, and as a way for our family and friends here in Aussie to stay in contact with us. However as we traveled around the UK, we added many others to our blog mailing list. There are our friends from Elland, Yorkshire, and my cousins and many other family relations in and around Northwich and Warrington, Cheshire. There is our son and other friends from Belper and Derby, in of course Derbyshire, along with an Aunt and Uncle down in Southampton, and another cousin also from the south of England. In addition to those in the UK, there is further cousin living in Malaga, Spain, along with her daughter who resides in Amsterdam in The Netherlands.
To all of you who gave of your time, friendship and hospitality, we thank you so very much, and we apologize to those we were unable to see, or to see as often as we would have liked.
With our soon to be partly vacant house, you are all most welcome to visit; where we hope to repay some of the kindness we have been shown.
For the benefit of those over there who were so interested in knowing more about Australia and the Australian way of life, if we should travel anywhere that we feel may be of interest to you, we will enter the occasional blog and forward to you an email so that we can stay in contact. For our Aussie friends and family that may be familiar with the places we visit here in Australia, there is always the delete button!
So long
Brian & Gail Little
