Day 12 - Sunday 9th October 2022

Today we'd be flying out of Bali. Nicky, John and Harry have a Jetstar flight at 1:40pm to Perth and then they get a Qantas flight on Monday morning to Sydney.

I'm booked on a Jetstar flight close to midnight from Bali to Melbourne and then another flight from Melbourne to Sydney on Monday morning.

We got a message from Graham saying that he is home. He didn't get much sleep on the plane and is still not feeling well.

Nicky, John and Harry caught a Grab car at about 10:15am and mine came at 11am. I reached the Hilton Hotel at the airport at about 11:30. Luckily my room was ready.

I was feeling a little fragile and wasn't hungry, so I forgot about lunch. Because I was tired and it would be a long night of travel, I took advantage of the hotel bed to have a rest. I set the alarm for 5pm just in case I fell asleep. Then I went down to the hotel restaurant to have some dinner.

At about 6:45pm, I checked out of the hotel and caught a Grab car for the short trip to the airport. I was the only person in the business class queue for check-in. The various security and passport checks went smoothly and I found the Premier lounge which caters for various airlines including Qantas (and therefore Jetstar).

Although the flight was not due to depart until 11:15pm, I left the lounge at 10pm so I could find the gate. Just as well I did because it was a long walk and they started boarding business class passengers soon after I reached the gate.

Boarding went to smoothly that, despite it being a full flight, everyone was onboard before the scheduled departure time. Jetstar has had a reputation recently of delays and cancellations. It looked like we were going to leave early rather than late.

Then there was a flash of light. While we were wondering if it was lightning, there was another followed by thunder and then lots more. Then the window was flooded with water - like a waterfall. Quite a storm.

One of the reasons for Jetstar's recent cancellations was lightning strikes. Several aircraft had been hit by lightning and put out of service. Perhaps it was about to happen again. It was getting scary.

However, the pilot taxied out to the runway and then waited there until the storm had passed. Instead of leaving early, we ended up taking off almost an hour late because of the thunderstorm.

They served a nice dinner after take-off. Mine was fish with a glass or two of shiraz finished off with a delicious dessert..

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