Day 1 - Thursday 30th June

Today we would be travelling to Port Douglass to start our adventure with APT to Far North Queensland.

Our flight to Brisbane was scheduled for 10am and we wanted to get to the airport by 8am because we'd heard there would be long queues. I set my alarm for 5:30am and I'd booked a taxi for 7:20am.

Although the taxi was more than 15 minutes late, we got to the airport just after 8am. Contrary to expectations, we were amazing to see there were no queues. In fact, we were the only people looking for the kiosks to check in our bags. A helpful staff member who helped us with our check-in seemed surprised and relieved about the absence of queues.

The security check was easy too because we no longer had to take our laptops out of our bags.

We relaxed in the Qantas business lounge waiting for our flight.

The plane left on time despite the fact that it was very full. There was WiFi available but we were unable to get an internet connection.

After take-off, we had an excellent view of the city. Suzy was sitting in the window seat and managed to get great photos with her iPhone. One photo had the opera house, harbour bridge and the harbour stretching out towards Parramatta. She also got photos of the northern beaches as we flew high above the Pacific.

After landing in Brisbane at about 11:30am, we went to the Qantas business club lounge.

Originally the flight from Brisbane to Cairns was to be business class but a few weeks ago they changed it to a plane that had no business class seats. We managed to convince them that we could still use the lounge.

Just as well because we had hours to wait for our next flight which was due to depart at 3:15pm.

Once again it was a very full flight. It left 30 minutes late because of some problem with a missing passenger and her baggage. It was a Boeing 717 with jet engines rather than propellers.

As you might expect, the seats were cramped and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, there were no screens, no movies, no headsets, no music, no wifi. No entertainment at all. They gave us a snack of cheese and biscuits. I enjoyed a glass of red wine.

In Brisbane, it had been cloudy but wasn't raining. However, as we approached Cairns, there were dark rain clouds.

It took ages to land because the plane circled around. The captain said the runway was blocked by another aircraft and he was told to head out to sea and try again. So it was after 6:15pm before we landed - about 45 minutes late.

The limo driver was waiting patiently for us. I was relieved when our bags came off the carousel.

The trip to the Sheraton Hotel in Port Douglass took about an hour. The driver was very personable but it would have been better if he had concentrated on the road ahead rather than turning around to talk to us because he kept drifting out of his lane or even onto the wrong side of the road. Anyway we arrived in one piece.

By that time, the restaurant was about to close and so we ordered room service for dinner - hamburgers and a nice bottle of Barossa shiraz.

The hotel covers a large area. Our room is in building 5. It was an adventure trying to find it at night. It is a spacious room on level 3 (the top level). WiFi speeds are amazing - more than 300Mb/s in both directions. We were in bed by 10:30pm.