Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hi all, as this will be the last post for this trip, cut short due to a medical issue I had, I thought I would let you know about our trip back home.
We caught the 36 seat Dash 8 Dehavilland plane out of Birdsville which stopped at Windorah, Quilpie, Charlieville and Towoomba before finally reaching our destination of Brisbane: 5.5 hours, 3 refuelling stops, 1423 kms and 33 passengers on board. It actually was a good flight even if a long one! The hostess (Robyn) was lovely and we struck up quite a conversation on the plane as she originally came from Melbourne and lived in Moe at one stage. Her husband was the coach of the Moe Football team some years back.
She had only just taken up stewarding in the last 18 months and did say the Birdsville flight was the one they sent their more junior staff on, as with 5 take-off and landings it was a great way to learn the protocols of the airways.
The flight as I said was good as the air was cloudless and the changing landscapes made for interesting viewing. Firstly we had red sand country, then grey channel country, some interesting tapestry of colours when the patchwork of Towoomba and the Darling Downs came into view and lastly the fairyland lights of Brisbane with its tiny beads of lights weaving their magic over the land.
Next we had to catch a flight to Melbourne and after asking a few people and paying some more dollars we caught a flight on Qantas through to Tullamarine at 7:10pm, landing in Melbourne by 9:30pm.
An overnight stop at the motel at the airport and it was up early to cacth the SkyBus into the city for a connecting train ride to Traralgon.
The whole experience of a train station, airport, MYKI cards etc was enough for this little country kid and her side-kick. By the time we collapsed into the train carriage we had had enough.
Little did we realise we had caught a train to Traralgon, where Nick was to pick us up, that was also a "stop-at-all-places" train. Places I had forgotten even had a train station - Garfield, Tynong, Longwarry etc all made it an eventful, if not a long ride.
Finally the smile on Nick's face made all the events of the past 24hours seem a distant past - it was actually nice to be home (albeit very sad we couldn't continue on our ultimate journey).
Ces la vie!

PS - Actually uploaded some photos for you to view - enjoy. Check under "Photos too" page.

One of the sights out our plane window from Birdsville