The Amazing Race: The Harrington Leg

Hello everyone!

So the four days in Australia with the parents were great except that we only had one day of sun. It poured the day we went out to Bondi beach so we really didn't get the true experience of that. We saw the Opera house and the Harbour Bridge on a ferry to the zoo, and also went to Manly which is a town on the other side of the harbour from Downtown.





A cutesy Red Panda! Aw

It was the process of getting to Bali that was our insane adventure. We got to the airport at Sydney and found out we were in the wrong terminal, and so had to catch a shuttle bus to domestic instead of international because we were being routed through Melbourne first. So we get there and get on our flight and were told that our baggage would be transferred to Bali for us.

Our flight to Melbourne was about an hour long but was delayed about half an hour, giving us only one hour in between landing and taking off again on our flight to Bali. We were told we had plenty of time. We wanted to make sure our baggage would be transferred because we heard an announcement on the plane that said it wouldn't. So we asked a guy coming off the plane and he said that Domestic flights don't get transferred but he wasn't sure about international so he sent us to the help desk. The help desk said they would, so we wandered off to go check in and get our boarding passes for the next flight. Dad went to wait at the baggage carousel to make sure he didn't see our bags. Mom and I asked at the check in counter to see if they knew, and we were told we were at the wrong terminal and that our flight was closed. He said, "Hopefully they're holding the flight for you, you should run."

So begins the amazing race. I took off back downstairs to get dad, and mom didn't realise I had done that. I find him and we start running back and find a distraught mom because she hadn't seen where I went. We all start running through the middle of the airport to get to the international terminal and as we were running we heard our names paged over the intercom. We get to the counter and I asked the woman if she could give us any confirmation about our bags, and she said they would be transferred. So then we try to rush through security and we get to our gate and found out the plane hadn't even started boarding yet! But it did shortly after that.

We had no time to grab anything to eat or anything so we paid out the nose to have a meal on the flight. We got to see the movie Stardust, and I finally had a window seat! Although the flight was mostly during the night, I did get to see the sunset from the plane.



We got to Bali at 10pm local time and Ryan met us at the terminal. So the whole family is together again for the first time in 1 year. We've been having a great time relaxing on the beach and catching up, despite constantly being pestered and asked if we need "transport?"

Dad, Ryan and I did a bit of surfing, and today we've been looking through the markets and saw the Memorial for the bombings that happened in Bali in 2002. Tomorrow we leave for Ubud where it will be a little less touristy and we're going to try and get mom out river rafting. We'll see how that goes.

That's all for now, unfortunately I don't have many pictures from Bali yet, but here's a picture from the sunset last night.



Who knows when I'll be able to update next, internet is slow and spotty here. I'll be sure to try though and put up lots of pictures of our travels.

Bye for now!