Flight Home

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After our adventures on Lady Elliot Island it's time to say good bye to Australia and head home to the sunny weather of June in Ontario. It's winter in Australia and, even though many tell us it's the best time of year to be in QLD, we miss our home.

There were only a few passengers on our Saturday afternoon flight back from LEI to the Redcliffe Aerodrome (2:30pm - 4:00pm) where we had left our rental car. On the way we had stopped in Hervey Bay but this time it's direct to Redcliffe. The pilot was the same young lady who gives the same safety instructions and gets us on board. She is the soul master of all things on this short one and a half hour flight. Her home base, the base for Seair Pacific, is the Coolangatta airport on the Gold Coast just south of Brisbane.

Our car was still there waiting for us as were the contents. We had decided to leave the car at the Redcliffe Aerodrome rather than deal with Uber and store our luggage. It's very limited baggage on the flight to LEI. We had thought about leaving our excess bags at the Pullman Brisbane Airport hotel, dropping off the car, and using Uber but it would have involved several Uber trips (back to New Farm, then out to Redcliffe and back to the airport). Keeping the car worked well enough; although, by the end it amounted to about $100/day for the rental. And that's without the extra collision damage waiver. We had reserved the Pullman with AirBnB, got a better price that way.

From Redcliffe, we drove back to the Brisbane Domestic airport, it's just a half hour away. On the way we gassed up the car, I dropped Kate off at the Pullman Brisbane Airport hotel where we had stayed on arrival, and I then dropped the car off at the rental counter in the parking garage which is only a short walk from our hotel. We grabbed a pizza from the restaurant at the Ibis for dinner. Ross and Bev would have liked to spend the last night with us but we begged off. It's a big day ahead of us and much to do to prepare.

Our return flight on Sunday morning has us taking a short cab ride to the International Terminal where we bumped into the same fellow from the Air Canada ground support crew who helped Kate around in her wheel chair on our arrival a month ago. With her recent ankle injury she's in worse shape than before and we need all the help we can get. We are grateful for ground crew who help us here, in Vancouver, in Edmonton and finally in Toronto. We are flying business class and take advantage of the lounges in Brisbane and Vancouver. Our luggage, apart from carry on, is checked all the way through to Toronto. That's a bit odd as we enter Canada in Vancouver, I would have thought they might want to see our luggage there but apparently not.

Our flight, AC 36, over the Pacific is a very long ride to Vancouver — it's 14 hours! We experienced a sunset and the end of day on one side of the pond and then a sunrise several hours later on the other side. We left Brisbane around 10am on Sunday morning and arrived in Vancouver around 6:30am on the same Sunday! That date line, where you lose a day one way and gain a day the other, is very confusing.

Over the Pacific we are wined and dined in business class. There was lots of entertainment to watch, we didn't need to use the Netflix movies we had downloaded on our tablets. We both watched "Sing Street" (2016). It's a charming story of some very young kids in Dublin who form a band — mostly to impress the girls. Set in the mid 1980's there's lots of music that we remember — some punk (e.g. The Jam) and new wave (e.g. Duran Duran) by famous acts of the time. If you have a chance, it's well worth watching. We both tried to sleep in our pods and arrived in Canada pretty well rested. The trick on these long flights is sleep when you can and to not go nuts over free booze. Tired and hung over is not a fun way to travel. Kate was sleeping when the breakfast service came around. The steward asked if they should wake her and I said no. She's not a breakfast person and sleep is more important than food. A drawback of these pods is that, even when close, you're not able to easily talk to one another. Of course, that might not be a drawback (LoL)!

The flight plan we are on from Vancouver has us stop briefly in Edmonton where Oiler fans are obvious — they're in the finals of the Stanley Cup competing against the Florida Panthers. Neither Kate or I are hockey fans but it is a thing for many people. We would have much rather flown direct to Toronto but this was the route assigned. Over the Pacific we had private pods where we could stretch out and get some sleep. Over Canada the business class seating was comfy seating with a bit more leg room. There's a picture of Reg napping on the flight. Pods on the over night leg of this trip make it bearable.

In Toronto we meet up with the Stratford Airporter (a small van shuttle service) at 7:30pm in the very lowest level of the airport (I had to ask and was surprised to discover there's a floor below). It's a short wait, our flight landed at 5:45, we have to go through customs and immigration, pick up our luggage and then find their desk. The driver gets us home in a couple of hours where we find our house in good shape and our cats pleased to see us. Chandell, our pet/house sitter, has done a great job.

Barry has been tending the lawns; our gardener, Wendy, has tended the flower beds, weeded and turned the soil in the vegetable gardens. Sadly we have missed the poppy blooming season. There's much work to do to get plants in the ground. We had left too early to plant our veggies and have come back late in the planting season. Plants we had moved outside are doing well enough, some are, of course very sun burned. Chandel, our house sitter, has done a great job with the cats, our home and the house plants. We are grateful for these many friends who have taken care of things.

Nevertheless, it's good to be home and to sleep in our own beds. Recovery from the time zone changes will take time.