Rewind Part 2: LA to Cairns

So I last left off with the story at the Los Angeles Airport.

          As it turned out our plane, which was scheduled to depart slightly before midnight finally pushed off at about 1:30. I had to gate check my guitar (though for some reason Logan was able to keep his) and off we went. The flight was about 13 hours, and it went a lot faster than I expected it to. The food was decent and I was able to catch a fair bit of sleep.
          About three hours out of Sydney, it started to dawn on us that we may have an issue making our connection. According to the original plan, the international flight would get in slightly before 7:30 am Sydney time, we would collect our bags, clear customs, and make our way to the domestic terminal for the connection to  Cairns, scheduled to depart at 9:05. Tighter than we would have liked, but doable.
       Even making up some time en route, we were scheduled to land at 8:45. Not much time there. The flight crew announced some changes in connections for other destinations, and said that everyone headed to Cairns should talk to the attendant at the gate in Sydney. So no worries, we were going to be find.
        The gate attendant had some very simple advice for us: don't worry about your bags, just run and catch the flight. Everything else is filled for the next 3 days. So we took off through the airport, and at some point the hero of the day appeared. It was a (very loud) Qantas flight attendant, yelling "Connecting to Cairns, this way!" She must have moved through the airport via a system of secret tunnels, because she seemed to be everywhere at the same time. When we got to customs, the officer that was inspecting my bag tried to mess with me by saying I could not enter the country with the 10-kilo banana he found in my backpack. I did my best to be good natured, but I must have sent him some really nasty look because he quickly became very quiet. I think we all cleared customs in record time, and with the help of the loud flight attendant, breezed through security. Luckily, they had held the plane for us and we boarded about 9:15 and took off shortly thereafter. It really was amazing how runway construction at JFK that had delayed our first flight managed to delay a flight from Sydney to Cairns. The flight was only about 2 and a half hours, a quick hop compared to the international flight, and we arrived in Cairns about noon. I suppose it did us some good that we knew our bags hadn't a prayer of arriving with us. We still cast a glance toward the carousel to make sure some baggage miracle had not occurred. Even without our bags, we were still in great spirits, we had finally made it to Australia. By the time we got to the hostel in Cairns, I had been traveling for just shy of 36 hours. It's pretty amazing you can make it halfway around the world in a day and a half.