I've had a few problems posting on the way due to wifi issues but we are now happily chilling in our hotel room at Sydney

The flight from Birmingham to Dubai was about 7 hours & the changeover in Dubai airport was brief, being just over one hour but that gave us enough time to find our connecting flight without any stress & the airport itself was much more laid back than I'd expected! The Dubai - Sydney flight was 13 hours & went by with the usual mix of talking/sleeping/eating/watching films/sleeping some more & listening to the inevitable crying babies but all in all it wasn't a bad experience with Emirates. We had nice individual screens on the head rests in front which were streaming loads of new films & the food was pretty good really (Despite opening a packet of what I thought was melon pieces & grapes only to discover on eating that it was potatoes & olives but that was probably due to removing my contact lenses!)

On the plane on the way to Sydney we'd had to fill in a form declaring any herbal & other drugs (legal or otherwise) on our possession, so having been recommended echinacea, these pills (along with paracetamol, ibuprofen, Imodium etc.) were in my bag, so being honest I ticked the box!

It was now time for baggage collection and after embarrassingly whipping off 2 cases that looked exactly the same as ours & then quickly throwing them back on after seeing a distinct lack of tinsel adorning the handles, we waited for what seemed like an age before Lee's case (complete with red tinsel) came hurtling down the shute - result! Over five minutes passed and still no sign of mine so just as I'd convinced myself that it was the Turkey experience all over again, my Samsonite appeared, minus its silver tinsel but luckily I'd filled in the name tag at the last minute so with baggage reclaimed we headed for Customs.

Security checked my form & seeing that I'd ticked aforementioned box, sent us down a row where I was briefly questioned by a customs man who basically said 'the exits that way' so, prison averted, we headed off to freedom! Apparently the ch 4 documentary 'Nothing to Declare' were filming today but an absence of cameras means that luckily my make up free face tinged with the guilt of echinacea possession will not be making it on to our Channel 4 screens any time soon, so I had 2 lucky escapes there!

Anyway, it's now 2.09am here and I am pretty shattered and need some quality sleep ready for our first proper day tomorrow when we'll be meeting up with Lees brother and family who've flown across from Perth to spend a couple of days with us before we set off on our epic drive to be with them for Christmas so I'll leave you with a few phone pics from today.

Love to all, especially those who are missing us & I hope you keep following our adventure xxx

Nearly at our destination (complete with time killing detour!)

First (very blurry!) glimpse of Sydney, hope to do better tomorrow:)