The Road to OZ

Its here, its finally here! Instead of the moans and groans that usually greets the sound of the alarm beckoning us to get up for work, we are up smiling and sprightly and making a cup of tea in a flash. Why? Because, today the wait is over. Today is the day our dreams come true. Today we're off to Australia. Dad and Rosie turn up early which throws us out abit, but it somehow adds to the excitement as we rush to finish packing our bags, so that they can whisk us off to Heathrow airport. After a final check around the house to make sure all is safe and secure, we are finally on our way. A typical autumnal morning of driving wind and rain greets us as we drive up the motorway but it does not hinder our progress as we arrive in plenty of time at terminal 3. We all fancied a cup of tea and a bacon bap at the airport but after ordering our tea, we were told that the microwave wasn't working and the bacon baps were off the menu. Major disappointment! Oh well! After downing the tea, we traipsed the short distance over to Burger King where we found our craving for a bacon bap satisfied. Finally, it was time to leave Dad and Rosie and walk through to the departure lounge.

(Jacqui's Thoughts) - Just over two hours into our flight and my left leg is starting to cramp up. It's very stuffy in here and I'm desperately waiting for them to collect our dinner trays so I can relax and get some shut eye. At the same time its wonderful to look out the window across at the blue sky and clouds as we fly north of Istanbul. Yes! The dinner trays have been cleared and I can relax and try and enjoy the rest of the flight. What an adventure we are about to have. I'm finally on my way to my dream destination and I don't think it will really sink in until we wake up in Sydney on Monday morning and stroll down to Darling Harbour and through the city to stand beside the Sydney Opera House and see it in all it's glory.With most standard holiday flights our flight would be just coming to an end but not this time, we've still got another 6 hours to go!! (And that's just to reach the halfway mark of Bangkok). We have just watched Zorro, which was quite good. I wouldn't normally have been too bothered to watch it under normal circumstances but I'm glad I did. To further pass the time, Zorro was followed immediately by the film Godzilla , which is now on as I write so I think I will probably enjoy watching it. The only problem is that Thai airlines are not too hot on considering positions of televisions and screens. I'm getting neck ache having to turn my head to the right in order to see anything. It doesn't really matter as I'm too tired for the film anyway so I think I'll get some sleep.

We woke up an hour before landing in Bangkok and Keefys drew my attention to a beautiful eastern sunrise. As it slowly got lighter and the plane descended, we strained to see the new landscape as it approached. Not knowing what to expect we were quiet surprised to find that the land was very very flat and seemed to be about 80% covered with paddy fields. We landed at Bangkok, at about 07.00am local time and wondered around the airport for an hour before boarding the plane for the next leg of our journey to Sydney. (We hope they don't start feeding us straight away again) (Oh no! They've served up the same breakfast we just had on the last flight!)The cloud formations are out of this world! We've never seen anything like it before. The shapes they form are fantastic. We reckon we even saw a huge fluffy white rabbit! The formations are totally inconsistent. One minute you're passing small scattered fluffy clouds and the next you see huge white ones looming over you. After a while the clouds started thinning and we saw the strangest of sights. A small cloud was omitting some rain and with the sun shinning into it, and us being 35,000 feet up, it gave a kind of upside down rainbow effect. As we continued to stare excitedly out of the window, we saw our first sight of a desert Island, with its sandy beaches and turquoise shores showing the coral reefs just below the surface. We didn't expect to see such detail from this height. Imagine how beautiful those Islands must be when you're actually stood on them.

I knew I'd make it here one I knew I'd make it here one day but I didn't think I'd actually be the first of the Roughtons to return to their roots. I feel quite a sense of pride and totally in awe of this vast and wonderful country I see below me.For the last hour our noses have been stuck to the window, staring at miles and miles of red nothing. Could they be opal mine s below us? Or is it just formations in the bush? After a while, we got chatting to a lovely lady sat next to us called Maria. She's Greek Australian. Her family are Greek but she's lived in Australia for years. It made a pleasant change chatting to her after the grumpy man we had sat next to us on the Heathrow to Bangkok leg of our flight. Totally unreal! We've now been travelling over Australia for two hours. Looking at the map, we seem to be over the centre of Australia and theres just a never-e ending sea of red sanded desert. A short while later, we decided to end our self-imposed alcohol ban to celebrate our arrival in Australia. We had several glasses of red wine and a can of beer. Hey hey hey, Sydney here we come!(As Maria was sat drinking a glass of beer, we decided to blame her for our lapse in self-control) It was dark now as the plane descended towards Sydney. We watched as the lights came into view, as we prepared for landing. We were told that you didn't really see much of Sydney when you flew in so you can imagine our surprise as the most amazing view came into sight. There in all its glory, all lit up, was the Sydney Harbour Bridge. With a back drop of the glorious Sydney skyline, high-rises etc beside it and tucked just behind was the famous Sydney Opera House. It was at that moment that the sheer scale of the journey we had made hit us full in the face and the emotion of it all almost over came us. We both had to fight back the tears of joy. It was just the most amazing and unexplainable feeling either of us had ever had. After landing and collecting our luggage, we caught a bus from the airport to the hotel where all of a sudden we felt very posh when a concierge greeted us from the bus and took our baggage into the hotel l. After checking in we decided to have a drink at the bar and carry on the celebrations where we had left of on the plane. The bar shut unfortunately, and as we were still quite lively we decided to take the half hour walk down to the harbour to see the Opera House, even though it was gone 11.00pm, local time. According to our bodies it was only 1.00pm. Our plans were scuttled when just 20 yards down the road the heavens opened as if Australia was saying to us it was time for bed, you came begin exploring tomorrow. We finally got to bed at about 12.30am local time and tiredness from the journey over took us and we drifted off to sleep.