Our arrival - Down Under

Well, we had a great 3 weeks in Australia. I'll attempt to get all of our adventures updated here, but it will definitely take some time!

We flew from Honolulu to Sydney on Qantas, which is a nine and a half hour flight. Qantas took good care of us, though with 2 meals, snacks, free drinks, hot chocolate, and tea (nothing like our interisland or mainland flights, that is for sure...

Gabbi and Jacqui entertaining themselves in the Honolulu airport.

It was Gabbi and Jacqui's first trip across the equator and the international date line! Since we crossed the dateline, we arrived on Monday after leaving Honolulu Sunday morning. We arrived too late in the afternoon to pick up our campervan, so we stayed in an inexpensive hotel near the airport...it worked (for one night). We were awake bright and early on Tuesday and walked to the rental company and picked up our transportation and home for the next 2 weeks!

After picking up our luggage at the hotel, we headed off to find a supermarket. So, we were driving through Sydney on the wrong side of the road in an oversized vehicle, with the steering wheel on the "wrong" side of the car, the blinker and windshield wiper levers switched. Woo hoo! We were off.

Our luxury accommodations.

After a rather confusing trip to the natural foods market that Danielle had found on-line (produce by the kilogram?, how much is the Australian dollar worth? what the heck is a sultana? or a capsicum?) we were headed to the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney.