phase 2: Queensland
After a lovely few days in Sydney, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Cairns. Thankfully I'd thought to check the baggage allowances ahead of time, since we'd packed for international limits (70 lbs per bag, 2 bags each) but Virgin Blue only allows 23 kgs per person and charges $10/kg over. We ended up shipping one bag (with our circus and camping gear) to Melbourne for $25 and moving all the heavy stuff into our carry-on bags, leaving us one bag at exactly 23 kg and another at 24 kg, which they kindly overlooked. Thank goodness they didn't weigh our carry-ons (or care that we had all sorts of liquids on board with us).
Security checks in Australia are blessedly easy compared to the U.S. No shoes off, no 100 ml limits on liquids, just pull out the laptop and any aerosols. Of course, in moving all of our toiletries into the carry-ons, I neglected to note that my scissors were in one of the bags....and those are still not allowed on board. bye-bye, scissors.
Coach was.....cozy.....after our business class experience, but otherwise the flight was fine and we arrived in Cairns Monday afternoon. We exited through the rear door of the plane onto the tarmac, walking straight into a wall of humidity. Ah, the tropics! It managed to wait til we were almost at the car to start raining.
Normally the wet season starts here in late January, but this year it came early. In fact, a large part of Queensland is currently underwater - an area the size of France and Germany combined. That's south of where we are, but it's still pretty darned wet here - and the flooding is keeping supplies from making it through, so a lot of the stores are a bit bare. The worst of the flooding appears to be over, but it will be a while before life is back to normal for those folks. The news reports are pretty horrific.
We headed first to Holloway Beach, just north of Cairns, where my step-niece and her family live. There was a pause in the rain, so we thought we'd take a walk to the beach near their house....where we were promptly caught in a tropical deluge. And then the mosquitos came out. Welcone to Queensland!
Now we are happily ensconced at my sister's home in Malanda, with is southeast of Cairns in the Atherton Tablelands. It's gorgeous, verdant country, and their property borders a river where platypus live. There were cane toads on the deck with us as we had dinner tonight, and rainbow lorikeets flitting around the trees this afternoon.
I love it here, rain and all.
Security checks in Australia are blessedly easy compared to the U.S. No shoes off, no 100 ml limits on liquids, just pull out the laptop and any aerosols. Of course, in moving all of our toiletries into the carry-ons, I neglected to note that my scissors were in one of the bags....and those are still not allowed on board. bye-bye, scissors.
Coach was.....cozy.....after our business class experience, but otherwise the flight was fine and we arrived in Cairns Monday afternoon. We exited through the rear door of the plane onto the tarmac, walking straight into a wall of humidity. Ah, the tropics! It managed to wait til we were almost at the car to start raining.
Normally the wet season starts here in late January, but this year it came early. In fact, a large part of Queensland is currently underwater - an area the size of France and Germany combined. That's south of where we are, but it's still pretty darned wet here - and the flooding is keeping supplies from making it through, so a lot of the stores are a bit bare. The worst of the flooding appears to be over, but it will be a while before life is back to normal for those folks. The news reports are pretty horrific.
We headed first to Holloway Beach, just north of Cairns, where my step-niece and her family live. There was a pause in the rain, so we thought we'd take a walk to the beach near their house....where we were promptly caught in a tropical deluge. And then the mosquitos came out. Welcone to Queensland!
Now we are happily ensconced at my sister's home in Malanda, with is southeast of Cairns in the Atherton Tablelands. It's gorgeous, verdant country, and their property borders a river where platypus live. There were cane toads on the deck with us as we had dinner tonight, and rainbow lorikeets flitting around the trees this afternoon.
I love it here, rain and all.