Thursday, February 3, 2005 (Adelaide [Willunga] - Australia)
Wish we could have stayed here longer. The
chipped windscreen. Problems today would include: check-in; security checks;
something to eat; a broken plane and nowhere to stay. Other than that,
everything works our perfectly.
Day 332 (142). We liked Perth but the bad
experience we had with that bitch that threw us out into the street has sort of
taken the edge off of the overall experience for us. We liked Fremantle a lot
more and I now wish that we could have stayed for another day or two.
Unfortunately, we had a plane to catch and so were packed and on the road before
the traffic wardens were able to find our car parked overnight in the two-hour
parking slot just in front of the
hostel.
I wanted to drop the car off
and get checked-in as quickly as possible, just in case the
have-not-paid-the-hostel-bill police were waiting to cart me away. I was hoping
nobody was going to want to inspect the car either, just in case they found and
made an issue of the stone chip in the windscreen. I could of just handed in the
keys but I thought it best to get a receipt that shows the final bill having
been paid. That way I’d at least have a shot at disputing any subsequent
charges they might want to add to my credit card in the event they found the
chipped windscreen. ‘Oh, you need a receipt sir?’ said the clerk at
the rental car desk. ‘Just one moment then.’ At that point, the
clerk gave what I thought was my car key to another staff member who walked out
of the building with it. Buggar! It looked like an inspection might be on the
cards after all. They’ll spot the crack and I just know they are going to
charge me AU$250 (€150) or some other outrageous figure for a windscreen
repair. She then continued to tap various things into her computer. Any moment
now, I thought, that shifty sideways glance would come and I would be asked to
‘wait just a moment please sir’ whilst the SWAT team with attack
dogs and machine guns were summoned. I was starting to wonder whether or not it
was a good idea after all to ask for a receipt when I had the chance to just
drop on the keys and make a quick getaway. She then handed me a copy of my
receipt (all that tapping was apparently nothing more than her printing it out)
and bid me farewell with a pleasant smile (those keys she’d handed off
weren’t mine after all). Phew! Made it. I can now blissfully bury my head
in the sand on the whole windscreen chip thing and pretend like it never
happened. It will be another month or more before I see my next credit card
statement so I’ll be able to relax at least until
then.
We next went to check-in and it
was at this moment that the first of several bad omens of the day was to hit us.
After queuing for fifteen minutes in the cattle-class queue, we arrived at one
of the many counters and handed over our passports. Unfortunately, however, the
check-in clerk could not seem to find any reference to us in the computer for
today’s flight. She asked us for our tickets. No good, they are paperless
E-tickets. Any confirmation numbers or resource locators? Nope, just the time
and date of this next flight along with the flight number. This is the last in a
series of legs around the country on what’s called a Boomerang Pass.
We’ve had no problems with any of the previous flights so I was at a loss
to understand what today’s problem was. As much as I persisted that we
were definitely on this flight, she could not check us in and suggested I go
over to the ticket desk to get it all sorted out, which I reluctantly did,
leaving Sandy there at the desk with all the bags. The woman at the main ticket
desk found us straight away and gave me a bemused look as if to ask what on
earth was up with the check-in staff. At that point, her phone went and it was
the check-in clerk now telling her that she had found us in the system after
all. Apparently, she had picked up Sandy’s passport first and was looking
under Sandy’s maiden name instead of our family name. Okay, a bit of
inconvenience but at least we would be checked in and onto the flight. Surely
there wouldn’t be any more problems today?
Ha!
Next up were the security checks
and metal detectors. No problems there, I thought, since we’ve already
been through several of these over the past couple of weeks with no problems at
all. Sure, I would have to whip out the laptop, since they like to put that
through on it own, but that’s no big deal. We made it through the metal
detectors and I was in the process of collecting my small backpack to replace
the laptop when one of the security staff noticed my wooden boomerang that
I’ve had in there since Cairns. ‘Sorry sir, you’ll have to
check that in as it’s considered a weapon!’ Clearly they are
concerned about people throwing boomerangs around the cabin of a Boeing 737 and
I must not be allowed to proceed any further for fear of me hijacking the plane
armed with a piece of soft plywood. Great! Our backpacks have already been sent
through to the plane and I’m now being sent back out to the check-in desks
to somehow check in a foot long and flat boomerang made out of soft and fragile
plywood. I was sent straight to the next available check-in desk, which rather
upset the next in line customer who was apparently very late for her flight
already, but was swiftly told that all they could do was to put a tag on it and
send it through in the hope that it arrives in one piece on the luggage belt in
Adelaide. Now, it’s just a plywood boomerang at the end of the day but
this one has particular sentimental value to me. It was awarded to me in Cairns
for taking part in an Aborigine fire-lighting ceremony in Tjapukai and was
signed by all the performing Aborigines. I didn’t want to risk it getting
broken so I asked, nee begged, if they could put it into a box or some temporary
packing just for the trip. The check-in clerk was initially at a loss as to how
to pack it but she could see my pain and somehow managed to find a couple of
small empty boxes, a plastic bag and a roll of tape for me to fashion a
makeshift container from, which I did and we sent it merrily on its way into the
great black hole at the end of the conveyor belt behind the counters. Hopefully
I would see it again. Another problem solved. What else could go wrong now?
Ha!
Now nearly lunchtime, we went to
see about something to eat. We hit a snag here too. The departure lounge in
Perth is quite a small one and the food pickings are limited and expensive. In
the hope of finding more options back out in the check-in area, we went back out
there but found that the options there were completely non-existent. We asked at
the information desk about where we could get a bite to eat but her best
suggestion was a taxi into town and back. Buggar! ‘What about over at the
International terminal?’ I asked. ‘Sure,’ she said ‘the
one-way transfer between terminal buildings is AU$10 (€6,10) each.’
What!? Buggar! Oh well, manky sausage rolls from the snack shop it was, then.
But at least we had something to eat. Nothing else could possible happen now?
Ha!
The boarding call came and we
were all shuffled onto the plane. We sat and made ourselves comfortable whist
several engineer type people wearing those high visibility, fluorescent jackets
were up the front of the plane talking to the captain in the cockpit. After
about thirty minutes, they were still there and this couldn’t be a good
thing, I thought to myself. An announcement was made that we would soon be
underway, once they figured out what the strange error codes were that the
flight computers were indicating. Oh, very comforting! Another fifteen minutes
go past and another announcement is made. They hadn’t resolved the problem
with the error codes but were working on it with engineers in both Melbourne and
Sydney. The options were to either fix the problem with this plane or find
another one to take us to Adelaide. I’m sure they have planes just lying
around on the tarmac for just this sort of problem, I thought to myself somewhat
stupidly optimistically. In the meantime, the captain wanted us all to disembark
the plane – for our own comfort. Buggar! As we disembarked, we were told
that we would be able to get some free refreshments from the snack shop simply
by waving our boarding passes at them. We tried this to get something to eat and
drink but ‘free refreshments’ apparently only means tea or coffee
and a biscuit. All the stresses of the day so far were interacting with
Sandy’s hormones and she was not having a good time of things. No amount
of pleading to the ‘caring’ snack shop or Qantas staff did me any
good in trying to secure something decent for my pregnant wife. Bastards! Today
surely couldn’t get any worse?
Ha!
With a little extra time now on
our hands (we had no idea how long it would be before, or indeed if, we were to
be availed of a functional airplane to whisk us off to Adelaide, I whipped out
the guidebook and tried to look up some budget accommodation options. I have to
say that I’ve been quite disappointed with the lack of options as far as
budget places to stay provided to us by this guidebook. Lonely Planet is an
Australian company and you’d think they would go all out to cover their
own country in greater detail but we’ve found the Australian version to be
wanting several times now. Once again, the options it listed for our next
destination, Adelaide, were few and far between. To make matters worse, pretty
much every place I called was either fully booked or too expensive for our
budget. I had to keep looking progressively farther afield before I finally
found a place that was still a bit more expensive that we would normally pay but
at least still had a room available, even if it was an hour outside of town. I
explained our situation about being late on arrival in Adelaide and the nice man
was good enough to wait up for us to
arrive.
Well, they apparently fixed
the problem with the plane, shortly before Sandy was getting ready for a nervous
breakdown I might add, and we all got back on board. Fortunately, the flight was
an otherwise uneventful one. The steward did make a rather interesting
announcement during our final night time approach into Adelaide: ‘For your
added comfort, the captain has lowered the landing gear in preparation for
landing.’ Ho, how nice of
him!
With the time difference, we now
had very little time to collect the new rental car and somehow find our way to a
small town, an hour outside of Adelaide, in the dark and before the proprietors
of this our one and only place to stay for miles around closed up shop and went
to bed. Oh, and I had to somehow feed a now very grumpy and hormonal Sandy as
well. What a shit day I’m having! I called the hotel and spoke to the
owner about directions to the pub/hotel. Sandy and I did our best to navigate
using his vague directions and a rather out of date looking city map given to us
by the rental car clerk. We had to call back several times during the trip but
at least we stumbled into a Hungry Jack fast food joint along the way (Hungry
Jack is basically a Burger King – they are one and the same company). Just
the sort of nutritional goodness a pregnant woman needs at the end of an
exhausting day, I thought to
myself!
The owner had told me on at
least one occasion that we needed to get there before eleven, as that was his
bedtime. Now, I wasn't entirely sure if this was just a bit of jocularity on his
part or not, so we arrived half expecting to be gruffly greeted and sent
straight to our room with a look of distain for having inconvenienced them
enough already. That experience with the bitch back in Perth really has left its
mark on me, hasn’t it? What we found, however, could not have been a
warmer or friendlier welcome from the husband and wife owners of this charming
little pub in the middle of a very old and quaint little village. They showed us
around the place and to our room on the first floor. I was quoted AU$60
(€36,60) per night for the room and the woman told us not to expect
anything other than a very basic room before she opened the door to show it to
us. She seemed almost embarrassed and ashamed to even show us a room that was
surely to be beneath our standards. In fact, it’s a very comfortable room
and quite roomy too with a large enough sized double bed. The showers and
toilets are just down the hall and we will be very comfortable here. I spoke
briefly with John, the owner, about our plans and he assured me that we would
probably want to spend an extra day exploring this area some more before moving
onto the Great Ocean Road, after he’s done telling us all about it all
tomorrow morning. They both seem very enthusiastic and I’m already
thinking about making it two nights here to give us time to explore a bit before
moving on. We’ll see tomorrow morning. All in all, it was a good end to a
really shitty day. Let’s hope tomorrow will start as good as today
ended.
Posted: Thu - February 3, 2005 at 10:32 PM