Traveling to Western Australia with Friendship Force

Off into the friendly skies we went on Wednesday, October 15th, from Tampa, FL airport!  It was a short 2-hour flight to Dallas-Fort Worth airport.  What to do when we got there?  We had a LONG layover so we headed for a Tex Mex restaurant, Cantina Laredo, where we had a great lunch and then over to kill time in the United Airlines lounge.  Finally, it was boarding time for the BIG hop, a 16-1/2 hour affair to Sydney.  This route is a new one, just started by Qantas Airlines.  Because it was the first month of service, we had free wine, lots of snacks and 2 wonderful meals.  We were also in Economy Plus with lots of leg room, which helped immensely!  We learned that this is the LONGEST route in the WORLD. 



At Perth Airport

Richard looking good after marathon flight
 

We managed to sleep a little, walk around a lot and somehow the time passed and as we landed, we caught glimpses of Sidney Harbor in the early morning sunshine.  We cleared Customs easily and since we had a short layover, we hurried over to another terminal and caught the next leg to Perth.  This was a 4-1/2 hr jaunt, where we ate our second airline breakfast meal of the day, snoozed and somehow made it to Perth.  Again, as we landed it was bright sunshine in the 70's with low humidity - very nice!   We had another LONG LAYOVER and took a free shower in the International Terminal.  Boy, that felt great.  We met more of the very friendly, Friendship Force Group from Fort Worth.  Randy, the ED (Exchange Director) and his wife gave us a warm welcome and we enjoyed chatting with some of the other members.  It's a diverse group and we also made friends with Dottie, from Vancouver, Washington who also joined the group.  We hopped the Virgin Australia plane for a short 1-1/2 hr trip south to Albany. Everyone was met by our hosts - and Maggie May Scott is ours.  She is a warm witty person who whisked us away to her home.  After a quick hot tea, we collapsed into her comfy bed and slept 11 hours - very good!

Today, we woke to a nice breakfast but the weather was overcast, cool and with intermittent rain.  We headed off to a wonderful local place - the Sandalwood.  We saw a movie about the sandalwood trees and their uses as healing creams, perfumes, etc.  Then, Maggie took us to a GONG experience there, where we laid down on yoga type mats with blankets and pillows.  Then, a lady comes in and plays gongs of different tones.  Both of us fell asleep because it was so restful - a really unique experience!   We went to a wonderful welcome lunch with lots of great food.  As I write this, we just finished a light dinner and are settling in.  Tomorrow we are scheduled for a Wilderness Cruise and a Picnic Lunch!  We hope it warms up a bit for these activities.  More later!