Australia and Vietnam Revisited 2025 – Sydney

Luckily, the sick lady on the plane appeared to survive the night as we didn’t have to turn tail back to Vietnam.

Unluckily the premium economy seats this time were nowhere near as comfortable as our previous flight. Furthermore, the strength required to adjust the chair and footrest was that of an athlete and I saw plenty of women getting their husbands to wrestle the seats into position. Also, getting the meal tray out of its hidey hole was a Mensa level logic puzzle. It was a little bent when I eventually got it out. It could’ve been me or a similarly frustrated Mensa failure.

Anyway, it all passed the time, and before we knew it, we had arrived in Sydney. Next stop Sunshine Coast Airport to meet up with Ian and Kylie.

We were greeted by chaos at the domestic flight terminal. Queues that snaked back to the entrance doors were not what we wanted to see. Our plan had been to try and get on an earlier flight if possible but we were out of luck. However, we were able to check our bags in and as we had 5 hours to kill before our flight to the Sunshine Coast, we decided to take the airport train and have a wander around the Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

The train is amazing- you catch it directly from the terminal and in 15 minutes you are in the heart of Sydney.

We were disappointed to hear that the fruit bats had been “moved on” from the Palm Grove but we spent some happy hours wandering around with a bit of time for a leisurely lunch.

The only downside was S being pooped on by a cockatoo directly above the bench he was sitting on. In its defence it did do a lot of warning squawking before it let rip, we just didn’t listen.

We got back to the airport in time for a much needed seated snooze before our flight. We were so tired we both struggled keeping awake and I had visions of us waking up in the domestic terminal at 3am with the shutters down and our flight missed. As it was, we got o n the plane in a sleep fug and drifted in and out of sleep until a nice air stewardess gave us coffee.

On landing, we collected our bags and went outside to find Kylie and Ian.

Together again – let the good times roll!