Week 51: The End

My last week in Australia kicked off in a similar way to many of the rest, doing some work, hopefully work that I am getting paid for! Looking at applying a wave exposure model to rock platforms in the Illawarra region. The rest of the day was spent sorting bits and bobs out with a view of starting to pack. In the evening we rearranged my unit and played an awesome game called True American, the floor is lava and you go from there. We didn’t get too wild but it was still great fun.

Tuesday, me, Jamie and Kim decided to head up to Sydney for the last time for me and Kim. We headed off for a 9am train and was in Sydney for 10.30am. We spent the day walking around the city, heading to circular quay and the opera house first. We took some snaps and came across a massive line which we found out was for a Games of Thrones exhibition, unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to queue. We walked over to the bridge and went through the rocks… although they were closed K (a recurring theme of the day). After this we headed up to look in some outdoors shops and went up to Paddy’s markets which were also closedK. So my souvenir shopping did not go as smoothly as I had wanted. We stopped off at a pub and got a jug of beer while we waited for the train. 

All tuckered out :P

By the time we got back I was heading off to my last touch game. We were playing a Div 1 team and got trounced despite having more players. They were seriously good. Personally I went out on a bit of a high, I picked the ball up about 5m from my try line and sprinted the length of the pitch for a try! Very chuffed! The evening was relatively quiet because we had an early start on Wednesday.

After mistakingly getting up at 4.50am instead of 5.50am I met Kim and Nina to walk down to see the sunrise over the ocean for the last time. It was absolutely stunning and I hope the photos do it justice. We even managed a quick dip which was refreshing, but still not freezing. 

I said some more goodbyes in the morning and spent some time packing up. A group of us from KB headed down to town for a few bits and pieces. We grabbed some food down there and I had the most amazing strawberry and Nutella crepe… perhaps the best crepe I have ever had. 

We hit some shops, I bought a lot of tim tams and then headed back. Upon arriving at Uni we were invited to UniBar so we headed down there and had a really great time just chatting with a few peeps. I spent more time packing in the evening and cracked open a bottle of wine for my last night. We just chilled around KB chatting and saying goodbyes to people. Somehow I managed to stay awake to watch a movie til 2am. Just a casual 21 hour day K and its not like I was going to get much more.

My last full day kicked off by saying a goodbye L. I spent the rest of the morning packing and then headed to uni for a meeting to show how the GREMO model works for a lecturer. 

I said my goodbyes to some people in my department and came back for lunch. We headed off to the beach for a chill session, but didn’t go for a swim as everything was packed lol. It was great fun just chilling out down there with seriously cool people. By the time we were back it was my time to leave.

 So 5pm I left KB to embark on a very long journey home. I was dropped off at the station and said some very teary goodbyes to Jamie and Kim. I probably got some funny looks on the train but I wasn’t bothered. My first destination was to Sutherland to meet up with my global buddy Sarah for dinner. We headed to a cool pub and had some delicious chicken shnitty, it was good having a catch up. 

We stopped off for me to say bye to her family because they have been so great to me whilst being away, they have treated me like an adopted son and I am so appreciative. My flight was to leave at 6am, which meant checking in at 3am and public transport doesn’t run at that time so I was dropped off at the airport at 10pm the night before and chilled in the airport waiting area for 5 hours. It was nice and peaceful and I got lots of sleep….. NOT! Maintenance decided to rock up and build a partition wall making a racked with drills and that then to top it off they started testing the alarm system. It’s safe to say I just sat there and watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother. 3am came around and I headed up to check in… whilst in the queue I had a MAJOR panic about the weights of my bags. So as far as I was aware I was allowed 30kg checked and 7kg cabin, but they had screens telling a whole different story. So the 5 minutes I was panicing about having to repack and chuck out a heap of stuff. But once I got to the counter there were no problems at all. Security didn’t open til 4am so I sat around for a bit and then headed down to my gate. I wandered around a bit there before boarding for my flight. Somehow I managed to get an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Talk about good luck! Although that luck quickly changed when the captain comes over the tannoy saying:

“we have ice on the wings so will have to wait until the sun rises to melt it off”

A very strange announcement, especially when the outside temperature was 8 degrees according to the screens. So we sat on the plane for about an hour before departing. Eventually we did get on our way. During the flight I have watched a few movies and tv shows, as expected the food had been really good. I have really tried to sleep but I have no managed more than a minute or two micro-naps. For some reason my body doesn’t want to let me sleep if im not lying down. Because of the date 4th July, I thought it would be appropriate to watch the movie Independence Day and few other movies. I arrived to Dubai a bit late to 45 degree heat... ouch. I made a quick dash across the airport to my connecting flight to Heathrow and made it with a bit of time to spare. I enjoyed some more red label and coke for this flight and watched the Avengers. By this time my ears were hurting having to have headphones on all the time :|. I also played a lot of the game 2048 which some of you may know lol. It was eventually time to land and customs was pretty quick with my E-passport thingy mabob. I decided to skip duty free and headed straight out of departures. I was greeted by mum, dad and michael :). 

It was great to be back with my family! From here we made the 1hr or so journey back home to Dunstable. It was an extremely weird feeling being back home, it  felt so familiar but so different at the same time. So that was my journey home. I worked out that I was awake for 48 hours straight and it felt like it! I think lots of sleep over this weekend are definitely in order. Its hard to comprehend that that is my Australian adventure over and done with, perhaps it will sink in soon.