World Tour Update #6

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - A day that will live in infamy...

No, that's been used already.

Saturday, June 22, 2013 - A day from Hell...

Much better. More descriptive. Although technically things started going downhill Friday.

We've been blessed with absolutely gorgeous weather for most of our trip. That began to change Friday afternoon. The wind picked up, dark clouds started scudding across the sky, and bands of rain passed over us with increasing frequency.

That night the wind really howled and the rain came down in earnest. It rained so much and the wind blew so hard that water came in under our hotel balcony door - on the second floor (not a flood, just wind-driven rain).

We had to get up at 5:30 the next morning to catch the ferry from Kangaroo Island back to the mainland. The wind and rain had slowed somewhat, but both were still heavy. Driving in a storm on unfamiliar roads, on the left (wrong) side, in pitch black was an adventure I don't care to repeat. Not to mention the downed trees in the road.

We made it to the ferry in time. I'm not a sailor, but I figured we were in for a rough passage when the ferry was rocking and rolling while still tied up at the wharf, behind the jetty. It was a good sized ferry, capable of carrying 400 passengers and 50 vehicles, and it was still bouncing around like a rubber duck in a bath tub. Fortunately the lady at the ticket office told us to sit near the stern, where it was more stable, and gave us some ginger drops, which are supposed to help prevent sea-sickness.

Once we hit the open sea things got ... interesting. I'd read about ships corkscrewing through rough weather but never really understood what that was like. Now I know. We were pitching (up and down) and rolling (rocking from side to side) with some yawing thrown in for good measure. I've been on roller coaster rides that didn't move as much. And just for fun, every now and then we'd fall from the crest of a wave into the trough, landing with a resounding crash that shook the ship.

This went on for 45 long. long minutes...

The ginger must have helped, because no one got seasick, although it was a good thing the ferry ride ended when it did. I think if one person had gotten sick it would have started a chain reaction. Speaking with a deckhand as we were disembarking, he told me it was the roughest crossing he'd experienced in the past 10 years.

We were extremely relieved as we got on the bus for the two hour trip back to Adelaide. Stomachs settled down and we even squeezed in a short nap. Of course, the bus was late arriving, but we weren't worried because we had plenty of time to get from the bus station to the airport. Turns out we had even more time than we thought.

There are four of us traveling together with eight pieces of luggage. Most of the Adelaide cabs are small, fuel efficient compacts. No way we all fit on one of them, especially with our luggage. So we called for a station wagon or van. It took a while, but one finally showed up and off we went to the airport...

...where we found out our flight time had been changed from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Since we arrived at the airport around noon, that meant we had a six hour layover. Now the Adelaide airport is nice, but it's not high on my list of places to kill six hours.

We also found out there had been a snafu between our travel agent and the airline. We were booked on a super cheap fare. The reason it was so cheap is because it didn't allow the ticket holder to check luggage. Since we had the afore-mentioned eight pieces, we were in a quandary. Fortunately, however, Australia is like the U.S. in that most difficulties can be overcome with judicious expenditures of cash. In this case, we paid an excess baggage fee of $40 per bag (times 4, or $160 for the trip). That didn't sound too bad at first, but then we found out that we were booked on the same fare for the remaining three domestic Australian flights we're scheduled to take. For you non-math majors out there, that's $160 extra per flight time 4 flights, or an extra $640 unbudgeted expense.

Oh well, easy come, easy go. We'll just cut back on food and drink for the remainder of the trip.

Hah!

For the next part of this story, it is necessary to digress a bit in order to provide some background. The British and Irish Lions are an all-star rugby team from, you guessed it, Britain and Ireland. They are currently touring Australia playing the local rugby teams. This happens only once every twelve years, so it is a huge event. The fans are so passionate they travel with their team. That means there are around 50,000 fans from the UK here in Australia following the Lions from city to city. The Lions just happened to be playing a couple of games in Brisbane, which is where we were headed, during our time there. That means every hotel room has been booked for months in advance, the pubs are full from opening until closing with large burly men (and women!) wearing red jerseys, caps, and scarves, and periodically breaking into unintelligible chants. The locals put up with them because they bring in an incredible amount of tourist dollars. But as I said, they also take up all the available space at hotels and pubs.

To continue ... we arrived at the Brisbane airport around 9:00 at night. Keep in mind that our day started at 5:30 a.m. So all we wanted to do was check into our hotel, grab a quick bite, and crash.

When we got to the hotel we found out that a water pipe had burst earlier that day and flooded the elevator shaft and electrical closet. The pipe had been repaired, the power was back on, but the elevators weren't working.

Our room was on the 16th floor.

We had 8 pieces of luggage.

There were no other rooms available anywhere within a 50 mile radius.

It was either trudge up 16 flights of stairs with the luggage or sleep in the lobby.

We decided to trudge.

My son and I made one trip with the duffel bags - two bags each, each bag weighing about 50 pounds. At one time in my life I was accustomed to strapping on a ruck that weighed around 70 pounds and going up and down hills all day. That was, however, 40+ years, 50+ pounds, and three knee operations ago. It was a little tougher this time around.

We decided to put off the second trip until we had something to eat and drink. The pubs and restaurants were packed, but we found a convenience store and stocked up on chips, candy bars, and bottled water. So much for dinner.

Back to the hotel, grabbed the carry-ons, and went back up the stairs. Got settled in, only to find out that the water had shorted out the cable TV and Internet circuits. It didn't matter that night, because we hit the sack around midnight and slept the sleep of the dead...

...until the bells of the Catholic church across the street started ringing for the 6:00 a.m. Sunday mass.

Two days later everything is back in service - just in time for us to leave town. We have an early flight tomorrow for Heron Island, where we plan to get in some scuba diving.

Unless something goes wrong...