Gold Coast - The Journey to Down Under (Part 2)

On board the night flight, I felt quite lousy overall. Perhaps it was because I hadn't fully recovered from my flu, tonsilitis etc. Perhaps it was because I was concerned about WY's fever. Maybe it was also because I was physically exhausted by all those rush in the day.

The plane we boarded had 3+3+3 seating blocks. R took a seat in the neighbouring block. I sat between the boys, with WY taking the isle seat and WF taking the window seat.

3 well-built Aussie women sat in front of us. And to our dismay, 2 of them had their chairs reclined all the way throughout the flight (except for the take-off and landing). This made the already-limited leg space even more restrictive, and I had to almost climb over our own seats when I needed the washroom. Sigh, some people are just so 'cannot-care-less' when it comes to this, angmo or otherwise.

Naturally, the boys indulged in their in-flight entertainment for a big part of the flight. But when the lights dimmed after supper, WF kept his deal and went off to sleep (we had earlier agreed that as a good passenger, he was expected to sleep when the lights dimmed, so that he could wake up well rested when we touched down). WY found himself wide awake, however, and I think he was rather restless. So he went back to his video games again.

R seemed comfortable as he sat a little further away next to an empty seat. I think he also chatted happily with another passenger along the way.

Meanwhile, I felt completely miserable trying to cope with the limited leg space. I tried to have my legs stretched one way and then another, but nothing worked. Sitting more upright didn't help and neither did slouching make anything feel better. Sigh...

When morning finally came, breakfast was served. WF reluctantly awoke to take some sips of the milk, then went off to sleep again. WY took his breakfast and finished everything on the tray.

And then, when the plane was eventually about to touch down, he started to doze off - yah lor, got to wake him up, lah!

As we disembarked, we saw that the Brisbane airport was very sparten. No frills, no potted plants. We only had to head for the conveyor belt and pick up our luggage before proceeding to join our tour leader at the meeting point. Whilst waiting for our luggage, I got sniffed at by the roaming Sniff Dog (luckily it didn't start barking or something).

Customs at the Brisbane airport was rather troublesome because we had been told that anything and everything that could be put into our mouth had to be declared. And some Aussie onboard the plane had earlier commented to R that medicines like paracetamol should/could be declared as 'food' rather than 'medicine' as 'medicine' is usually intended to mean 'more serious' medicines. *shrug* Whatever that meant??

Aiyah, whatever it was, it was all very confusing and very troublesome. Fortunately, I told the customs officer frankly about the prescriptive medicines which we have brought as standby medication etc and was cleared relatively smoothly. They didn't even ask to see the medicines.

Whilst waiting for the group to gather, R, WY, WF and I took our toilet breaks and grabbed some bottled water from the cafeteria. A 1.5 litre bottle cost A$4 or so.

Then I handed our 1st tip to our tour leader (she was very pleasantly surprised).

When everyone arrived, we proceeded to board the coach waiting in the car park. Given the almost-30 degree celsius temperature then, we were almost instantly baked alive right in the coach! Luckily the airconditioner managed to cool us down quite quickly after that.

The coach driver cum guide brought us on a brief city tour. As we were still trying to recover from the surge of heat wave, we merely looked on the sights. No pics were taken of this 'city tour'.

At about 11am, we headed for our 1st stop - the Paradise Country Farm.