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Arrived in Melbourne after a short flight from Sydney, managed to find our way out of the airport and for convenience got a taxi to the Bayview on the Park hotel.

When we booked, it had said twin/double room, which I had taken to mean one or the other. The reality was that it meant our room had twin double beds, possibly the most comfortable bed Ive ever slept in with the thickest pillows I’ve ever used!! (I was tempted to buy a suitcase to smuggle a couple of them out.)

The view out over Albert Park and the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit would have been great was it not obscured by trees, so we decided to perambulate along St Kilda beach and back along the “famous” Fitzroy Street (Judging by the number of bars and nghtclubs along here I’d guess infamous is more likely)

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If you like to sleep in late, then Australia probably isn’t for you, dawn chorus kicks off at around 4am and comparing it to the early morning twitterings back home is like comparing a string quartet with a Kiss concert (albeit without the fireworks)

Foremost amongst the cacophony is the Kookaburra, sitting in the old gum tree, noisiest bastard of the bush is he. His raucous laugh shattering the silence. There’s another bird out here that seems to have learned the first couple of bars of the Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba, but tails off when it realises that it can’t remember what the next bit is.

Small red and green parakeets jockey for position in the sky like a Battle of Britain dogfight, arguing amongst themselves and the harsh call of the Sulphur Cockatoo as it drifts across the sky like a Lancaster Bomber.

We’ve got one bird calling out like a rusty gate, one that sounds like a chicken on helium and another that seems to run out of willpower before it gets too far into it’s call “Wah Wah, Wah, wuh, w…” then occasionally, you have the sci-fi call of the lyre bird adding a surreal note to the proceedings.

Finally landed in Sydney a little later than expected after the plane ran out of electricity at Singapore airport. Had to get someone with a Nissan and some jump leads to get the engines going.

The journey didn’t seem as long this time, I suppose that’s the advantage of a seat that will recline fully allowing some proper sleep.

Top tip for travelling, get a wheelchair (Barbara’s back started playing up), that way the airport staff fall over themselves to get you from one place to another in plenty of time, and then take you past all the queues (even the short ones you get as a priority customer)

Flying business class this time is definately the way to go, as with all international flights, check-in is 3 hours before departure, usually a miserable time sat in the departure lounge on plastic seats that make broken glass seem comfortable.

This time I’m sat in the executive lounge at Manchester Airport, free bar, free food watching the world go by.

Wouldn’t be too much of a hardship if the flight was delayed.