Australia-2025

FIRST STOP – CAIRNS

Australia is a very, very long way from the United States, and there is no escaping that reality. Upon waking up the day before we were to leave, there was a message that our direct flight from Los Angeles to Sydney was canceled! Before panic set in, there came a follow-up message that had us rescheduled. That was both good and bad news. We flew from Seattle to Los Angeles late Sunday morning wanting to assure ourselves that we had plenty of time to catch our connecting flight. After changing terminals via the terminal connector, we still had hours to spare. so, we entertained ourselves at the Centurion Club.

Finally it was time to board our Qantas flight from LAX to Brisbane, Australia. About 14 hours later we arrived in Brisbane, now Tuesday morning having missed Monday because of crossing the International Date Line. We went through the immigration and customs ritual, retrieved our luggage and rechecked it, changed terminals again, went through security again and shortly thereafter boarded the connecting Qantas Air flight to Sydney. Finally arriving in Sydney, one more time we retrieved our luggage, changed terminals via the connector bus, checked our luggage, went through security again (where they took my small nail scissors that had gone through three previous screening) and were finally on our way to Cairns via Virgin Australia.

This photo is just an ordinary airport scene, right? Yes, but it is not the usual photo as I took it from the ladies’ restroom in the Sydney airport!

We finally arrived in Cairns about 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon! Onward to the Cairns Hilton via taxi with all bags. Our first reward was the view from our hotel room.

Cairns is the popular city from which to visit the Great Barrier Reef, which was on the agenda for the next day. To get into the Aussie frame of mind, we had dinner at Dundee’s on the Waterfront, all of a three-minute walk away. We both had the barramundi, a mild white fish and just enjoyed the view while marveling that we actually made it to Cairns for our dinner reservation!