We are up before the crack of... 4.45am to be precise. A quick look out of the balcony and on the moonlit beach below what do you think we see... You guessed it, the sand plotter people. They were never there in the afternoon, but 4.45am is ridiculous dedication, it doesn't even get light til around 6.30 or 7am.
Our transport pick us up at 5.15am, our driver loads our massive heap of luggage into the van and off we set for the airport. We are flying Jetscar (not a typo) back to Sydney. Luckily we have been able to upgrade and we are flying Business Class. We are checking our luggage in and the check inn lady clearly goes by the book and try's telling us we are 14kg over. And it's $20 per kg. She picked the wrong travellers to try that one on with. The supervisor is summonsed, she worked her magic on her keyboard with a smile and a happy attitude and 'BOOM' she has us all booked in with no added charge. Then we had to head back to the cow who tried to sting us for an addition 14kg, she wasn't happy to have us back at her desk.
We make our way through security, immigration and wander the airport down to our gate. We are sitting there waiting and we hear over the loudspeaker "Mr Hamish Lee please can you make your way to the counter" you should have seen our eyes light up, for a brief second, we thought either Hamish Blake or Andy Lee of Hamish and Andy fame was going to be on our flight, our excitement was quickly squashed but. Mind you we never clapped eyes on Hamish Lee so we don't even know what he looks like.
We take our seats and strap in for the 10 hour flight back to Australia. It was a good flight.
In Sydney things start smoothly, but don't end that way. We are the first through immigration, Perfect!! We have 6 cases between us. The first couple of cases come out quite quickly and now this is where it all goes down hill.
We are sort of standing where the cases spit out onto the conveyer belt. Of course standing next to us are two kids, a girl probably 7 or 8 and her little brother about 5 or 6 I guess, at this point their parents didn't seem to be anywhere. The girl was just bearable, but that boy was that winey, obnoxious, look at me type. Look at me alright, us and others around us were ready to crack this kid (can I say that? - well I have). I was hoping that a suitcase would injur him as it spat out onto the conveyor. As I was lifting the cases off the conveyor I was trying to swing it about in the hope of taking this kid out, sadly I wasn't successful but. At some point the parents appeared, their luggage was picked up and off they went. All the other people left standing about in the vicinity had a full on bitch fest about this boy and more so his parents.
So, we have collected 5 cases and then the roller door to the conveyer belt comes down indicating that there are no more cases to come. It was one of Chrissy's cases that had gone AWOL.
Here is Shell waiting for the last case (that isn't the obnoxious boy in the background, he had already left by this point)
There were about 20 other people who hadn't received all of their luggage. Jetscar assured Chris that her case would be delivered to her house in Geraldton (and she did receive it about 4 days later all in tact). By the time we get to quarantine there is no queue and we get asked a few questions and then ushered right on through.
We find the seamless transfer counter and check into our final Qantas flight and take the transfer bus over to the domestic terminal. We make our way up to the business class lounge and rest up for about an hour and a half. Shells flight to Melbourne left half an hour before ours. It was sad saying our farewells. It seemed strange, it felt as if we should be catching the plane to our next adventure except we were splitting up and heading in our separate directions.
Chris and I headed to our QF flight, business class wasn't full and we had 2 of the most painful attendants that wouldn't leave us alone. Poor Chris was doing her best to sleep and these attendants kept coming by, talking, asking questions and bang / klang with their trolleys. Also the Neil Perry food in Business Class was just disgusting, Qantas should be mortified, it was terrible.
When we arrived in Perth Chris's husband Nigel and her two boys were at the airport to fetch her. It was lovely to watch, Chris was just so darn excited to see them all. Lucky me, Chris and Nigel nicely dropped me home too.
So there you go trip done, thanks for coming along for the ride.... Until next time
