Day 1 - 7th September - Flying

Okay...so this Godly trip started at some UNgodly hour of the morning, preparing for our 6.10am flight from Hobart to Sydney. This all went according to schedule, until we proceeded to attempt to check in for our onward flight to Darwin. Apparently Jetstar have an international check-in desk at their domestic terminal (is this weird, or is it just me?) - so we were at the wrong desk and had some trouble until our kind hostess called in one of the international staff who checked us in with what seemed (oh, retrospect is a great thing) to be relatively little fuss. Excepting the facts that 6 people with 9 bags to be checked in slightly confused her, and the randomly assigned luggage items, we appeared to be moving in good time.

But the problems with this were to become evident later in the day!

We boarded our flight, only to have to wait an extra 30 minutes due to some baggage problems (do you hear the alarm bells???). We were told that an item of baggage was missing and that, once they had retrieved it, it was realised that the luggage had been stowed incorrectly, and that the ground crew "had to remove a part of the plane and stow it elsewhere". I don't know about you - but I don't like the sound of 'removing a part of the plane'. My brain was imagining the wing being removed and reattached on the nose. Or the landing gear being moved to the top of the plane so we had to land upside down...

Finally, the plane left the tarmac and after more than five hours of tedium, we landed in Darwin, about 40 minutes late.

We were rushed through customs to make our next flight, which again all happened with little fuss. Well, when I say 'little', I mean with Fiona having to remove copious amounts of liquids and gels and stow them in little plastic bags (because these are terrorist-proof, and everyone knows you can't make bombs with liquids once they have been put in little ziplock bags!).

So we were leaving the country.

This flight went pretty smoothly, landing in Singapore after 4 hours of loud, raucous conversation in the two rows in front of us. There is something that people say about Italians and talking. I can't remember what it is, exactly, but on that flight it would have involved quite a few expletives. But after being politely asked by yours truly to quieten down, we had one minute of respite before the main culprit started up again.

Eventually, she got tired from all her banter, and decided to have short kip - about 15 minutes before touchdown... I feel like calling her all manner of names here, but shall refrain.

We disembarked, went to get our baggage, and here is where the BIG problems began...