18th May 2011
From the back of beyond to the heart of the metropolis in four moves.
Taxi from our apartment to Alice Springs airport, a truly criminal $30 for a ten minute drive. Flight from Alice to Melbourne. Tiger Airways pushes the envelope even for budget airlines by having an Arrivals hall that is actually an outside shed with a wire fence around it and a baggage carousel. Check-in and onto another flight from Melbourne to Sydney. At Sydney we break the record for escape from a large international airport: the plane lands at 17:45 and we are in a rental car, with our luggage, leaving the car park at 18:05.
Drive to our lodgings in Newtown, settle down for a cuppa at 18:30. Our hosts keep us chatting until eight thirty. They’re really amazed at us ditching our jobs to travel for a year and their interest is jolly flattering. Finally hunger gets the better of us and we go out for a truly awful Thai meal at a nearby restaurant.
And I’ve finally got the excellent Echidna video uploaded and added to this blog.
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