Anna's Aussie trip, Post 1: Visiting family

At almost midnight on Saturday, November 5th, I boarded my Air Canada flight to Sydney... bound for sunshine, loved ones, and Simon and Shell's wedding.

I landed in Sydney around 9:30am on Monday, November 7th, missed my connecting Qantas flight to Brisbane due to too tight a transfer margin, was put on another flight leaving one hour later, and as a result happened to run into our friends Vic and Joan at the gate! They live 40 minutes from us in Canada, and I hadn't known they were visiting Australia for 2 months, so it was a very pleasant surprise! We spent the rest of the time at the gate catching up on each other's news, and flew to Brisbane on the same flight.




Jim and Jenny (Ben's parents) met me at Brisbane airport, having been notified of my delayed arrival time thanks to a Skype call from Canada! We headed straight to Ben's sister Merity's place for a Red Rooster lunch.


The afternoon was spent playing with my nephew Leo, and cuddling my nephew Archer (whom I was meeting for the first time).




After Fraser (Merity's hubby) got home from work, we had a yummy dinner of burritos and then headed to Jim and Jenny's place, where I stayed the night.

The next morning, Tuesday, I was up bright and early to catch a Greyhound bus to Dalby (3 hours away), where I planned to spend one night with my grandparents and one night with my aunt and uncle and two little cousins.




This is what the countryside looks like where I grew up...


My uncle Owen met me off the bus in Dalby, and we went to Red Rooster for lunch. This wasn't just any old Red Rooster, though - it was the site of my first (and still longest held) job! I even had a chat with two old workmates.


We also went for a walk down Dalby's main street... which has been considerably "beautified", and had a 40-store shopping centre added to it since I last walked down it! I managed to catch up with an old school friend in the shop he now owns, run into two other friends out shopping with their baby girls, and leave a note for another school friend while she was dealing with a client at her work. Ah, small towns!

As to my accommodation plans, I ended up spending both nights with my grandparents due to my littlest cousin catching a tummy bug and ending up in hospital. He was kind enough to share the bug with his sister, parents, grandparents and me, though!

My two days on my grandparents' farm involved:

Lots of visits to the chook pen with Grandma and my cousin Lara...

Playing with the dogs, Cassie and Topaz...



Mealtimes and smoko...






...And lots of wandering around the farm just reminiscing about the many precious childhood memories made there.

On Thursday afternoon, before Grandma took me to the Greyhound bus that would transport me to Toowoomba (1 hour away) for the wedding weekend, I had a brief visit with my aunt Philippa and baby cousin Jarvis in the hospital. The poor little chap showed limited enthusiasm for meeting his big first cousin for the first time, and a bit over a day later I would come to appreciate (rather more than I would have liked to) how he felt!

Then, it was onto the bus and off to Toowoomba!