We were on the late flight (3:25pm) over to Sydney. We started with a few drinks in the Qantas Club, where we saw Ian 'Dicko' Dickson, former host of Australian Idol and current host of My Restaurant Rules. I'm not a fan of either of those shows, but there was one thing I noticed about seeing Dicko in person - he looks fatter than he does on TV.

The flight over was fine. Someone's phone was ringing five minutes after take-off. That's always funny. The food was surprisingly good - I chose the fish with shallots and ginger. I've only seen it on the menu once before, and enjoyed it then as well. Our initial pleasure at seeing the scheduled movie Shall We Dance chewed up by their machine soon turned to dismay once we realised how incredibly bad Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was. The only good point was that it put me to sleep.

Since it was 11pm by the time we arrived, we just squeezed in a couple of drinks at the hotel bar before they shut.

Wednesday

We decided to sleep in and didn't get down to work until about 8:45. We spent most of the day in the lab, where we were reasonably productive, plus we got some new ID cards. After only 17 trips I'm no longer considered a visitor!

We left work around 5:15pm, went to the free Priority Club drinks in the hotel lobby, then headed off to I'm Angus at Darling Harbour for dinner. It's an excellent place to go for steak. You can watch the chefs at work; the guy who was on the grill when we arrived was particularly entertaining. The expression on his face seemed to suggest that he was very concerned that the meat had to be absolutely perfect when he was finished with it. The other guys had the giant ribs (which were pretty damn big) and partially regretted it later, but I stuck with the sirloin steak. Tasty.

Thursday

Everyone was on the ship by 7:40am. They gave a quick safety brief then showed us to our quarters. My bunk was somewhat funny because it was so rediculous. The clearance was about elbow to wrist, and to make matters worse it was the top of three bunks. If you stood near the bunks long enough you could hear and smell the nearby toilets.

We got underway about 8:30am and started up our software. By 9:00 I was feeling a bit queezy and by 9:15 I was throwing up. I wasn't the first from our group of three either. It turned out that as I was busy vomiting, they were doing an evacuation drill. Then I got lost. Brilliant.

Around 10:00am it was time for the second round for vomiting followed by an hour of lying down. I tried to go back to work, but the ops room (where we were based) had a strange effect of making me feel worse. I think it was the lack of light, because when they turned the white lights on later it seemed a lot better. After a bit I gave up and went for another lie down.

Eventually the ship anchored at Jervis Bay for the night which provided a respite from the seas. I had lasagne for dinner, spent a couple more hours in the ops room, and went to "bed". During daylight I did a practise run of trying to get into the bunk, but it didn't work then so I wasn't going to try it in the dark when there were people around me trying to sleep. Instead, I slept on the floor of the other guys' relatively luxurious cabin. It was loud and uncomfortable, but spacious and accessible.

Friday

We started in the ops room around 8 after skipping breakfast, and I managed to stay in there most of the day feeling a bit queezy but not too bad. The work itself was quite pointless; I did nothing that I couldn't have done in the lab. Our main purpose for being there was to put on a good show to the customer, but that's difficult when you feel like you want to curl up and die in a corner.

I took frequent breaks to go for a walk and get out of that horrible room. I skipped lunch, and eventually 4pm came around and we got off the ship in Sydney Harbour by climbing down a rope ladder onto a smaller boat. Climbing off the frigate was the best part of the whole experience.

We didn't linger long and went straight to the airport. This time we saw The Doors and Groove Terminator in the Qantas Club, but it was the party pies and wedges that really excited me.

On the plane I had a good aisle seat up the front with an empty seat next to me. The only downside was the screaming child in the row in front. His mother had a middle seat, and asked people on both sides whether she could swap with their aisle seats. But justice prevailed, and they both refused. I don't know why she didn't just ask for an aisle on check-in, they would have given her one.

We had a Michael Palin documentary to watch, followed by Alfie. I'd already seen it, but it wasn't too bad for the second time. I ate basmati chicken, which was not the usual rubbery kind Qantas seem to serve. The flight dragged on for agest, but getting home felt good.

Now I just need to decide what I should spend my $60 bonus on. Makes you wonder if it's worth it.