Day 17 Wednesday March 3, 2010

View of our hotel courtyard in suburban Melbourne

The Hudson Fysh Qantas 380 that flew us home-note it is double-decker the entire length of the plane- seen here ready to load something through the side door

The sun setting through our plane window as we flew west from Chicago towards home.

Our trip home began at 7AM as we cleaned up and packed up ready for the last long road home. The Hotel van picked us up at 9 AM to shuttle us to the International terminal at Melbourne airport. We had a bit of trouble with boarding passes but were at the gate ready to leave more than 2 hours before takeoff. Our gate area was blocked off so we had to sit nearby. It soon became clear that we were going to have to go through another security check before boarding. They divided all those boarding by gender, called them into the gate area one at a time, emptied and went through all carry-ons, inspected shoes-even looking under linings, and gave each passenger a front and back pat down before we could clear security and sit in the gate area.

Anne needed to use the restroom and had to take her boarding pass and passport with her and get patted down again before being allowed to re-enter. They had a few agents working at this and added more as we neared boarding time. Despite the additional security hassle we were able to leave on-time.

We flew Qantas again to LA and for a 14+ hour flight it was very nice. The crew were polite and attentive. We were offered food and/or drink almost every half hour. We were offered hot chocolate with marshmallows or peppermint tea to help us sleep. The entertainment centers were on the seat backs and had many choices from movies, TV, video games, music, radio, flight information even audio books. We were so entertained it was hard to try to sleep!

The entire travel time from our hotel in Melbourne to Anne's home in Minnesota took 28 1/2 hours to complete. We were able to rest along the way and seem to have adjusted back to Central Standard Time without mishap. It truly was an adventure to travel down under to sunny Australia and is a trip we will never forget.

Thank you to all of our readers who gave us the chance to share our story and gave us the motivation to keep writing when we were tired and ready to be done. If you ever get an opportunity to travel to Australia, don't think twice just go and enjoy!