Finally leaving the cold behind

Early to rise 5 and to the airport.  Flew tiger and good thing we looked up where the terminal was.   It is like an add on away from the main terminal.  We checked in, no ID necessary because we had our itineries.  We waited for our flight to be called.  We noticed that instead of the gate 2 printed on our dockets the main board now was showing that our flight would be leaving from gate 3.  We checked and were told yes it had been changed so we trooped around the corner to gate 3.   That was about the only bit of trouble we had on our outbound trip.   The leg room was minimal but it was a budget airline.  You get what you pay for.   It wasn't long before we were flying well and truely above cloud covered land.  Eventually the cloud cover disappeared and we were flying over hundreds of k's of bare empty land, criss crossed only but roads and amazingly rivers.   Occasionally there were glimpses of small settlements of three or four buildings then nothing but vast expanses of land.  It is fascinating to see the land from above.  In less than 3 hours from take off we were landing in Cairns. Off with the jackets and on with the sunnies.