Home Sweet Home

We were up bright and early with the alarm set for 4.00am on the morning for our trip home from Oz.  A quick shower, dressed, including a pair of long compression socks each.  I was recycling my white  “hospital operation socks”, if they were good enough last year for surgery, they’ll certainly do for a three hour or so flight home.  With bags packed, a quick look around the hotel room to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind, we were waiting downstairs on the footpath to be collected for our shuttle ride to the airport at 5.00am.   After offloading our cases, we went through Customs and I was selected as a “random” for testing for explosives.  The flight over the sea was uneventful, with just a little turbulence, and soon we were flying into Wellington, looking out over the harbour as the plane swung around to make it’s approach.

We collected the car from the Long Term car-park, loaded the bags and headed for home.  We had a great holiday, but it’s always nice to return home safely.

My best buys of the holiday were bargain priced indeed.  Such as the pair of jandals I purchased at the Night Markets in Cairns, and my lovely blue sunhat, also from Cairns – neither items I had thought to take with me.  The hat was really necessary in the hot sunshine – it may have been winter over in Oz but the sun was rather fierce, and then I could squish it up to put in my bag between times.  And after walking all day, it was so nice to take my sandals off once we returned to our accommodation, and slip those cool jandals on my hot feet.  And Robin’s favourite purchase was his Akubra hat.

My new jandals and two new hats

I always need a book to read, even while on holiday, and I love nothing better than a book about the turbulent Tudor times.  Wolf Hall is all about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and all the other major players of the times.

Nothing beats a good book at bedtime

Although I never took any hand stitching with me, I did take my blocks made with Australian fabrics.  These may well look familiar, as I took them away last year to Australia when we went on the Ghan rail trip and only used half of them.  Each night I would get my Micron ink pen out and write down where we were staying, trips we had taken, and sights we had seen.  Even memorable meals – after all, a holiday is always about trying new and exciting food, isn’t it.  I can’t wait to get the blocks all stitched together

Australian quilt blocks

We had such fun, travelled to new places, saw all sorts of interesting things and had wonderful adventures.  Australia is such a vast country, so very different to New Zealand.  We had a wonderful holiday, but it’s great to be home again.