Ok and now for the final part of the trip.
The hotel shuttle left at 6am getting to the airport about 25 minutes. Upon arrival there was a small queue at the QF desks but as I was travelling carry on only and had a mobile boarding pass it was straight through security and then passport control before upstairs to the departure area. It's very clear the departure wing of Palau's airport was both paid for and designed by the Japanese, if you've been through Narita Terminal 3 it looks very similar in design.
At this time of morning, the QF flight is the only departure so plenty of seating, two coffee shops (one of which sold basic food), two shops and a lounge (the lounge not open right at 6:30am but did open closer to 7am) exist. QF don't pay for the lounge, the only airline that does is China Airlines and it's not part of priority pass instead a .
Not long after the engineer arrived solo and the plane was towed to the gate (oddly from the next gate over) and then around 7:30am the crew arrived. Boarding was scheduled for 7:45am but ended up being a little late and just a few minute before boarding was due to commence I got this lovely text:
The Qantas app then updated with the following:
It wasn't explained in the terminal but I think most people knew thanks to the texts and they did call a few people to the gate handing them new onward boarding passes. Boarding started at ~8am with a "Boarding Qantas First Class rows 1-5", an odd one for sure but I guess the United ground crew are too familiar to calling United flights.
Once onboard the crew were very friendly and also greeted to this rare sight:
Boarding finished in ~20 mins (with an empty seat next to me) and then the welcome announcement was made also explaining that due to the total weight of all checked luggage calculated after check in had closed they'd need to either offload bags or stop in Cairns for fuel, they also explained that it might take a while before pushback as they need to get departure clearance over high frequency radio from San Francisco.
Sure enough we ended up pushing back around 15-20 mins late for a short taxi to the end of the runway. All ready to go the take off roll started and then a low speed rejected take off before we pulled in to the ramp on the north of the runway, once again the crew were excellent at announcements and explained they had a warning light with the air conditioning so were just calling for advice, this took 20 mins then another announcement that the departure clearance had expired so another 20 min wait for a new clearance to once again be solved over high frequency radio. It's rather wild to think that this comes from air traffic control 10,000km away but I guess that's just how it works in this remote part of the world. Luckily the wifi worked on the ground (despite the QF app prior to the flight saying no wifi onboard).
Finally a tad over an hour late we jetted off bound for Cairns, the departure was amazing out of Palau.
The main town:
Next up the crew came through the cabin handing out the food for the entire flight. These were handed out in an oversized zip lock bag:
I was seated in Row 5 and it appears whilst the J cabin didn't get the zip lock bag they instead got these snacks handed to them on a J tray with usual cutlery/glasses (J champagne/wine etc).
Drinks service was as per normal with beer/wine loaded onboard but limited ice meant very few things were cold (I suspect most that effort went into the J wines).
The Wifi dropped out just after take off but came back about 10 minutes later and as per the current QF wifi map it did drop out just over PNG returning once crossed over the top of top of mainland Australia (which is worse than the dark red in the map), my terrible drawing of the route below in dark blue:
It was also somewhat clear over PNG:
Finally down over the Great Barrier Reef:
The crew came through a couple of times with left over snacks and water but having heard of the limited catering I'd bought some instant ramen noodles onboard to which they happily added hot water.
Another interesting thing was probably 30-40% of passengers were ending the journey in Brisbane with the remaining connecting a lot onto SYD/MEL but also other international flights, with the delayed departure out of Palau plus the stop in Cairns we were scheduled to land into Brisbane around 2 hours late so that meant a lot of missed connections including quite a few on seperate tickets. Amazingly the CSM made an announcement half way through the flight that if anyone had a connecting flight on a QF/JQ seperate ticket to push their call bell and they'd come around to collect PNRs and pass them on to see if they could be rebooked. This did indeed happen as someone behind me had a seperate QF ticket flying long haul but was rebooked despite being a seperate ticket and everyone onboard had onwards flight information before landing in Brisbane thanks to the wifi working and also amazing crew who went above and beyond here.
We landed into Cairns at 2:32pm QLD time (1 hour ahead of Palau) and 10 mins later arrived at the gate. Upon landing they announced they'd requested more food, drinks and more importantly ice to be loaded however the Australian Border Force had rejected such request so instead we were left with the very limited remains and most importantly warm drinks.
Fuelling was very quick (total 10 mins), and a jet bridge was attached for the crew to do a quick walk around so about 25-30 mins after arrival we were once again taxing for take off. The IFE and wifi had been reset on the ground plus the safety video played once again before take off.
It was a quick and smooth 1hr 50min flight down the QLD coast with the crew doing a drinks run of the left over options but amazingly red wine still available.
Rockhampton:
Finally touching down in Brisbane 2 hours late at 5:05pm and at the gate about 15 minutes later disembarking not long after.
Passing the loop, Only Plane Network spotted spotting:
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The fun wasn't over yet, I was able to get a smart gate ticket from the machines however the next gate didn't work and I ended up at the assistance desk, using the online travel deceleration via the QF app made this interesting so I ended up with a paper arrival card and a big stamped "ATD" stamp and my passport number written on it. As I walked past the manned I could hear them yelling at each other trying to figure out "was that flight cleared in Cairns" so my guess is that the diversion to Cairns messed with the system hence the smart gates not working, I guess one last surprise from the Palau flight, a remote island the 4th smallest population in the world.
They did hand out express paths on the flight to J and WP something still used in Brisbane at the baggage hall exit but not needed today as I was first through and we were the only arrival at the time and not long after in an Uber home!
All in all a good flight given the remoteness plus the "direct" connection. The flight was a cheap US$286 oneway from Palau to Brisbane (about AU$450) for what should have been a 5hr 45min flight. Given we boarded at 8am Palau time 9am QLD time and I didn't step off the aircraft until 5:20pm it was a long 8 and a bit hour day stuck onboard a Qantas 737 and thankfully Economy plus along with the spare seat made it somewhat bearable.
Thanks for following along.
Good don't need to waste money getting an IDP....given we are there so long, will hire a car to explore island 
. The hotel shuttle from the airport to the hotel costs US$25 and takes around 20mins so I ended up in the room not long after 10pm. This is one of the un renovated rooms but still perfectly fine, the upkeep was good and even had a USB C charger by the bed.
pmapacific.org
