Flight home

Well, it was a first for lots of things on my trip home from Gladstone last night.

So, driving to the Airport from the school was the first problem. The problem was that I didn't know where it was. Luckily Gladstone isn't very big, so it was a matter of left, left and right. But finding the entrance to the Airport was the tricky thing. There was a sign, but it was about the size of a bathmat. Not surprisingly I missed it, and had to do a U-turn. I know there are lots of other names for it but I'm a traditionalist at heart, and that's what it always has been for me. Anyway, drove in fine but couldn't find a park at the Avis rent-a-car spot (which, given I was driving an Avis car, was where it should go) I had to park in Hertz's space. Not a major problem I thought. I think went to find the cardboard slip they give you when you rent a car, only to discover it was missing. I spend 10 minutes or so having a look for it, but no luck. So. I figured I couldn't be the first person to do that, so I took the keys back to the desk. Sure enough, I'm not the first or the last person to do that, and as long as they have the keys they're happy.

So then I checked in. I assumed the flight would be delayed (it was on the way there due to the weather) and sure enough, boarding time was announced as 30 minutes late. Luckily I didn't believe that, because it wasn't true. In fact, not only was it delayed, it was delayed so late that another plane left before it. Luckily I didn't get on the wrong plane... So eventually the plane left, but we were meant to board at 420 for a 430 takeoff. I boarded around 515, and I'm sure we didn't take off until after 530. So the take-off was late but uneventful.

The flight back was interesting because of the weather. Due to the clouds there was a bit of turbulence, which I was fine with. What was more annoying was due to the fact we were late, we had to wait for other flights to land before us. I think that added an extra half hour to the flight. And it was still raining quite heavily at the time. So being a small plane, it got pushed around a bit by the wind. A very good landing under the circumstances though, full plane, rain with gusty wind, I've definitely had worse landings. The pilot did put a bit too much power into the brakes as I swear we skidded for a little bit but they got it under control easily enough. But then we had to sit on the tarmac for a bit while we waited for other bigger planes to get to the terminal. 2 went past before us, then we got going. Another Qantas jet cut us off at one point too, just to make things really interesting. But finally we were allowed out into the rain to board the bus back to the terminal. Which was nice, as normally they would have made us walk from that spot. So then it was just a matter of collecting the baggage and catching a cab home.

Well, for the first time ever my bag came out first, which was a bit of a thrill. Unfortunately that was 25 minutes after I'd gotten to the terminal when that happened. It took so long that at one point they even turned the power off to the carousel. But when I got a taxi (pretty quickly actually. But you'd hope so at that time of night) it was a business class taxi, which was pretty good. But the old guy driving the cab must have been an ex army guy because I have never heard anyone swear quite so much in my life. It rates up there as the second worst taxi experience I've ever had. The worst was the neo-nazi skinhead who drove us to a party once...he sped, listened to that crazy german band and basically made me fear for my safety.

But I'm alive and here to tell the tale. I hardly even got wet. But that was the trip back to Gladstone...an extra 2.5 hours ADO then expected. Still, that means 2.5 less hours I should work...and I will try very hard to make sure that's back to 0 by the time I finish up. 13 work days left :)