The Horizon

Our first sighting of Australia this morning. The sun was coming up in the east over the continent. As we left Malaysia last night we saw fireworks below us, it was like a festive, little farewell for us.

The flight was good as far as flights go. We flew over in our favourite aircraft, the Boeing 777. There were zero small children on board and the ride was fine apart from the usual turbulance over Java.

Mum and my sister Karin preparing lunch.

Our friend Gianna was also at the airport, bright and early to greet us. My mum had a huge welcome sign that she was holding up and Gianna had brought gifts! Vincent received these diving shoes to complete his snorkeling outfit! Mum also bought Vincent another snorkel set! She actually got it before his work did and I'm happy because now I'll have one too!

Mum and Karin cooking a fabulous lunch!

Mason belongs to my sister Karin and her boyfriend Gavin. He's is half Stafford, half German Shepherd and 100% speedy muscle!

Outside in the garden looking at the apricot tree. It was a beautiful 29 degrees Celsius and that's pretty much the forecast, give or take a few degrees, for as far as the eye can see this week.

Mason on the lawn. I didn't take as many photos as I wished today because of sheer exhaustion. I wish I had taken one at the airport when we were greeted by everyone but it all went very fast. We managed to clear the plane, immigration and customs in 30 minutes. Amazing. As we were entering the baggage reclaim area our luggage was already on the belt! The people at immigration said "Welcome back!" to us, the lady at customs let me through with my wooden pepper mill that Mary gave me and we had no problems. There were people to help us load the luggage onto the quarantine x-ray belt and another person to help take the bags off, this sped up the process for everyone. The new Adelaide International Airport is well organised.