Day  0

The alarm rang at half past 3 in the morning. Our fantastic neighbour Peter dropped us at Landvetter Airport for the first leg to Frankfurt. It was pitch dark and a couple of degrees below zero, not something we felt we would miss. The fact that we were not accompanied by Mathilda’s Martin put a dampener on the occasion. Unfortunately Martin’s visa did not come through on time so he couldn’t leave with us.

In Frankfurt we boarded a Singapore Airlines A380 for the 11 and a half hour flight to Singapore. Plenty of time to eat, watch movies, sleep, eat, watch movies, sleep, eat… A couple of hours meandering around Chiangi Airport before boarding the final flight to Brisbane, only 7 hours and 50 minutes this time.

In Brisbane the rain was pouring down and it was dark when we picked up the rental car and headed to the Airbnb with GPS guidance. Nice, comfortable place and we managed a pretty good nights sleep.

Day 1

Cloudy but no rain. 30°C and very humid. Drove to a café we were recommended by our host called the Brown Dog Café and sat in the shade on the sidewalk and enjoyed a great breakfast.

Surfers Paradise is about an hours drive south of Brisbane in the area known as Gold Coast. Drove past Griffith University where Nicolina studied for a year back in 2013 before heading downtown to see where she lived and partied at the time.

We drove up the Split past Sea World to join Michael and Deb on their sailing yacht Stella where we will spend a couple of nights. It was overcast but no rain but very warm and humid. Tried to cool off with a swim but it was probably 24° in the water, hardly “cooling”.

Fought off jetlag whilst enjoying some fabulous food prepared by Deb, an absolutely amazing cook. Thai cooked to perfection in the boat’s small but well equipped galley and washed down with some nice Aussie wines.