G’DAY FROM AUSTRALIA!!!
So Friday was spent in the air with the team split on two separate flights as you know. The team on Qantas and the Ila’s and Shannon Rediger on United. We arrived bright and early in two separate locations on Saturday morning. Both flights arrived around 6am in the morning, the team arriving in Brisbane and the Shannon and the Ila’s in Sydney. Connecting flights were the order of the day with Shannon and Teira taking the Virgin domestic flight together from Sydney to Brisbane, and the rest of the Ila’s taking Qantas domestic to Brisbane around the same time. The team, upon arrival in Brisbane was met by Aussie team member Samuel Vincent, and his dad Martin. The Vincent’s very good family friends of the Tabor’s and Ila’s hence the connection with Samuel. Shannon and the Ila’s finally reunited with the team around midday at the International terminal in Brisbane. It was good to be in Brisbane with some of Geoff’s long time friends making the time to come and see him and the family.
The timing was nothing short of impeccable as our bus driver Paul rolled up right as the team was reunited. We rolled our luggage down to the bus parking area and started loading the bus. Stories of the trip spilled out as we took our seats and the excitement of being in Australia put our weariness from traveling on pause. The bus drive took about 45 minutes as we arrived at the conference center in Mt. Tamborine. We were met by more long time friends of the Tabor’s and Ila’s, Gidget Buntrok and her daughter Kim. The Buntrok’s also had brought with them Jasmine Mileng one of our PNG team members. We unloaded the bus and Megan and David took the tour of the facility and sorted out where everyone would be sleeping. Shortly after, we were all assigned our rooms and aptly wheeled our bags to our designated rooms.
We took the rest of the day to rest but that didn’t last too long as it is not encouraged to sleep in the middle of the day when you have jet lag. We had a team meeting and ground rules were laid down and we also got to meet the facility manager Les who gave us the royal tour and explained some important things we needed to know about the facility. Gidget had made pumpkin and chicken vegetable soup for dinner with huge bread rolls and the team got “stuck into it” as they say here in Australia. After dinner we had showers and bedded down early, after an eventful day of traveling.
From Brisbane to Mt. Tamborine
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