Tuesday 6th November.

34 days to go.

Today is Melbourne Cup day. I front up at the Office at the usual time with Tweety. Go through my emails and make sure everything is up to date. When I return to the King Sol, Mrs gotg is sorting through all her gear ready to pack. We then get in our bathers and head down to the pool. The pool is closed. They are trimming back some trees and have just placed chlorine in it. Come back in about an hour we are told. We go back to the room and get changed. We go down to a local handicraft shop and then to the local market. Mrs gotg gets the chance to buy a coconut to drink too.

The pool is ready by this time and we have a swim for about an hour. Go back to the room and head off to the Lime Lounge for lunch. I then need to do some shopping as my cupboard is bare. We head out to Panatina, do some shopping and then drop it off. All the packing is complete and it is off to the Airport to hand over the luggage and pay the departure tax.

There is 45 minutes to go until boarding. To stay in the air-conditioning We go for a drive along the road to the East of the airport. This area is flatter and they have market gardens etc, it is quite different to the hills in the West. We return to go through to departures.
There is the inevitable hold up at x-ray. We venture into the Duty Free shop, they have some reasonable carvings if you like that sort of thing. As we wander through the shop they start boarding. We walk out to the plane. It is an Air Vanuatu lease. It is a more modern version of the OzJet 737. Mrs gotg is aboard at 1655, the door closes at 1700 and the flight is in the air at 1705.

I hope she enjoyed her short stay, the time here in Honiara and the time at fatboys, even if she did have to spend it with me.

So it is back to the room to do this update and a lonely night for me again. Still it is only 5 weeks to go.