Goodbye Australia!

Sunday, November 7 and we leave Hobart, Tasmania and fly to Melbourne. We had to retrieve our luggage and then WAIT and WAIT for a little over 3 hours before we could check in with VAustralia for the international flight home. Then the last two hours went pretty fast because we stood in line to check in and then had to go through immigration and then customs before heading to the gate to catch the flight that left at 9:30 pm.

Our last Australian sunset

The flight was smooth and the flight attendants did everything possible to make us all comfortable. We had a nice dinner and then lights out in hopes of sleeping a bit before the airplane reached sunshine. Each seat had its own tv screen where we could pick from a variety of tv shows, movies, games, etc. So after giving up trying to sleep we each watched a couple of movies and some tv shows before landing in LAX about 4:30 pm on Sunday, November 7, the same day that we left Australia.

Australia currency does not have any paper bills under $5. We usually had a collection of $50, 20, 10, 5 bills and assorted coin. The coins are: $2 small gold coin; $1 bigger gold coin; 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, and 5 cents. Unlike US currency, there is no 25 cents and the 5 cent coin is smaller than the 10 cent coin. While in Australia, the AUD currency hit a 28 year high against the USD, exchanging just about even dollar for dollar. We were fortunate that we had paid for everything except for $$ needed for daily expenses (food, souveniers) when the exchange was lower (1 AUD = .90 USD) so that saved us some money. Things are expensive in Australia. I've mentioned before that a cup of coffee (and that is just ONE cup..no refills) was anywhere from $4-5.50 a cup. Most meals were $25-$35+ per person and everything ala carte. We often shared a main meal--that helped the money stretch and the waistline not stretch. LOL

Australian currency

By the time we reached the airport, we didn't have much Australian currency left. After a purchase of a (small) bag of chips and a bottle of water, we were down to this:

Now we're home and dealing with a little bit of jet lag and a mountain of laundry and mail.

6 weeks' worth of mail

The trip was awesome and we loved every minute of our cruise and our travels down under. We met some wonderful people, learned lots about travelling, and experienced cultures and countries totally new to us. It was a dream trip come true! Now, where should we go next???!!!