Port Douglas back to Sydney

Well everybody got lots of sleep last night. After the big day on the reef, everyone was ready for bed. Today we travel back to Sydney for one last night in Australia before we head off to China. This morning we enjoyed a long walk on the beach, a big breakfast buffet and packed our suite cases for our flight from Cairns back to Sydney.

Abey, Kristen and Jacob getting ready for our morning walk along the beach in Cairns. The beach is called "Four Mile Beach", I wonder why? You can see the mountain range in the distance that is home to  the Daintree Cape Tribulation Rainforest.

Looking for rocks for Miss Tracy! We found a few beauties!

Kristen has her "smiley face" shirt on!

Our surfing pose! Kowabunga Dudes and Dudettes!

Upon arriving at the Cairns Airport, we grabbed a Coffee at Skybury Coffee, it is not Starbucks but the hot chocolate comes with huge marshmallows.

Abey giving me the "I can't believe we are going to be on an airplane on my birthday" look. Tomorrow is Abey's 10th birthday and we are traveling to Hong Kong, China.

When we received our boarding passes, we were in Row 53, A, B, D, E, F almost the back of the bus! We boarded our 767-300 to Sydney, to my surprise the seats were roomy.

To our surprise, each seat had an iPad 4 in the seat back pocket. Qantas offers a system called Q-Streaming which is the entertainment system on it's 767's. (http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/wireless-inflight-entertainment/au/en)

Each iPad slips into a slot on the seat in front of you...the cover is used to hold it in the sleeve and also acts as the security chip for the iPad so nobody walks off with them. If you try to leave the plane with it, an alarm goes off.

Kristen getting setup!

Automatic Baggage Collection in Sydney....impressive!

In order to get back downtown to the Westin, we hopped onto the subway....here is the Sydney Bridge behind Kristen at the Circular Quay Station. One more station to our stop, Wynyard.

Time to pack for our flights tomorrow, we are flying Thai Airlines. The Westin is great, we are on the executive floor in connecting suites...the rooms are in Abey's words "Awesome"....

Miles Travelled to date: 12,354 (Total Hours of Travel - 26 hrs in the air)

Time Delayed in Airport - 3.5 hrs (LAX)

US Airways - Flight 2508 - Charleston (CHS) to Charlotte (CLT) - 168 miles - CRJ700
US Airways - Flight 721 - Charlotte (CLT) to Los Angeles (LAX) - 2,120 miles - A321
United - Flight 839 - Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) - 7,516 miles - 747-400

Qantas - Flight 922 - Sydney (SYD) to Cairns (CNS) - 1,275 miles - 737-800

Qantas - Flight 925 - Cairns (CNS) to Sydney (SYD) - 1,275 miles - 767-300