11th – 13th December

Navigating the Sydney Trains

I arrived back into Sydney airport and made my way back to Mark and Charlotte’s via the train. When I arrived at the centre, the train system totally baffled me at first and I had to ring Mark to check I was getting the right one! They have huge double decker trains too! It’s quite a long journey out to the suburbs where they live – I eventually made it and was picked up by Mark from the train station. I had to remember this journey in reverse for the following day to pick Tom up! I had a lovely evening at Mark and Charlotte’s just chillin out. I kept in touch with Tom as he reached Singapore, it was getting soooooooo close!! Eek!

TIP: It’s really expensive to get the train directly from the airport in Sydney – they charge a ridiculous random fee of around $15 just to get into the airport train station! If you want to save a bit of money (ie you’re a bit of a tight bitch like me 🙄) you can walk to the next closest train station, Mascot, and get the train from there for just the normal price of the train fare. It’s around a 25 minute walk from the domestic terminal, if you’re arriving from international and can be bothered, take the free bus to the domestic terminal and walk from there. Australia’s expensive! 😬

Tommy’s Arrival!!!!!! 😆😆😆

The 12th December – today was the day! After 3 and half months we were FINALLY to be reunited on the other side of the world 😄. I did a run in the morning – burn off some excitement, then got ready and set off back to the airport. I completely retraced my steps from the day before, adding in a bus journey to the train station. I was making perfect time! Of course I had neglected to factor in the fact that I had arrived into the domestic terminal the day before and Tom would be arriving into the international terminal, a few km away….. oops. Luckily there’s a regular free bus to the international terminal so I was able to catch that. But all in all with this time addition I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to catch Tom walking into the arrivals hall – bad girlfriend! And I was correct. At first I was hopeful, there were still people coming through, but it was now a far while after his flight had landed. I waited for a bit then got surprised by him as he snook up behind me, having already come through 🙈. Never mind, we were reunited! As much as in had caused somewhat of an anticlimax, it was still a vey special moment and a little to Tom’s embarrassment, I jumped on him and kissed his face all over. 😂🙌🥰

I gave Tom the choice about getting back to Mark & Charlotte’s, the longer cheapest way, or the shorter expensive way; turns out he’s a tight bastard too 😂. Off we went on the bus back to the domestic terminal etc etc. It was a long way and Tom was pooped, we had to wait a while for the bus too. We hit the bottle-o and grabbed some vino and beers. By this time it was home time from school, so we were surrounded by little Aussie kid shouting and being rowdy 🙄. Finally we got back and had a chill before the evening with the Swindell fam 😊. Tom met Alice & Oliver again for the first time since Oliver’s christening too, we had a lush bbq dinner outside, had a good catch up and chatted over some wine & beer. Mark and the kids went off to a swimming party for an hour or two whilst Tom & I had a fun time chatting with Charlotte.

The next morning Mark dropped me off to get my hair done – Charlotte has recommended her hair dressers and I was in desperate need of a colour! All blonded up, I made my way back and Tom & I got ready to head off. We made our way back across town, managing to wangle a free bus ride along the way as the bus didn’t take cash and we hadn’t bought an advanced ticket, to reach our Airbnb close to Sydney airport. I fully introduced Tom to my travellers world by making him a tea of microwave rice, tomatoey pasta source and tuna a needless to say he was least impressed with my failed effort to open up the purse strings for the second night of his holiday 😂🤣😂. Still, it filled a hole! And we were perfectly placed ready to start our Aussie adventure the next morning!