Northern Territory to Queensland in 2 hours - 6 August

Up late (well 7.45m felt like a huge sleep in).

Kids managed to suppress complaints about breakfast (UHT milk only as we were travelling) and Jim nipped into Alice to fill up hire car with petrol and secure a birthday present for Katherine.

Then it was off to the airport - just 12km in the hire car, reflecting that we wished we had hired it for an extra day. The cost of the airport shuttle bus is an outrageous 19 dollars per person. Instead we took a taxi in - but this was an outrageous 49 dollars. There are no service buses that run between Alice and the airport (Cartel somewhere?) - and we worked out in retrospect that it would have been cheaper for us to have hired a car from the airport to take us into Alice when we arrived a few days ago!

Very smooth check in at the airport, and 50 minutes or so until our flight was called. In fact all flights seemed to be coming in / getting off early - with the exception of the flight due to arrive in from Darwin and carry onto Perth. This was due to depart to Perth at 9.55am - but was delayed to 16.15 - so glad we were not on that one.

Very smooth trip to Brisbane, 2 hours - with great views over the Simpson desert.

We were very kindly met by Jeff and Sarah in two cars and driven the 15Kms or so to Jeff's house.

Jeff lives in a fantastic 1940s house - an ex farm house, although in the 1970s, the farmer sold up and the land around it has been built into an executive type estate.

Kids eyes bulged out at the pool - although in all probability it will be too cold to swim unless we are brave.

Quick walk around the vicinity, and checked out that there is a bakery that sells cakes down the road which is open on Sunday.

Also bought a couple of bottles at the bottle store and drank my first Australian beer (XXXX bitter) courtesy of Jeff and a delicious roast to go with it.

We were pretty exhausted - so quick read of the paper having been out of the loop for a while on stock market fluctuations and USA credit ratings then were all grateful to flop into comfortable beds.

Jeff has warned the kids that a possum is a regular visitor to the roof outside their bedroom - here's hoping we catch a glimpse.

Stayed with Jeff and Cecilia Moore, 51 Jalom St, Boodall, Brisbane 4024, QLD

Jeff and Cecilia's house

 

Jeff and Cecilia's house (not showing the additional half acre where they plan to build themselves a new house!)