Few and Far between

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Blog Day 833


Well, we had had the most fantastic week away with the T-Van, it had been great spending a bit of time with my favourite wife (my only wife actually!), those times seem to be so few and far between at the moment.

No sooner as we were back, it was getting ready to go again, as I was off to Weipa in far Northern Queensland and then off the Darwin. As it was Caroline’s fist day back, I didn’t think it fair for her to get up extra early and take me to the airport, so I just booked a cab to pick me up.

As usual, I left my packing until 4.00am the next morning, so all done, I kissed my beautiful wife and with my case in tow, slipped out of the flat and in to the cool Canberra air, to await my ride.

Am I just showing my age? But these taxi drivers just piss me off, his first question, was “which way do you want to go to the airport”. Do I look like I care? “What ever way you decide is fine by me, I have plenty of time, should you get it wrong.”

When we get to the airport, I paid my charge, he couldn’t even be bothered to get out and help me with my bags, so I have made a pledge that I will not tip any taxi drivers any more, unless their enthusiasm for the job catches my attention.

Into the terminal and the plane is supposed to leave at 07.30 but doesn’t get away until just after eight, so by the time I get to Sydney, it was all going horribly wrong. I get off the Sydney aircraft and have to run to the other end of the terminal to catch my flight to Cairns.

Twenty minutes before landing, the trolley dolly, announces over the intercom, “anyone travelling on to Weipa, can they make themselves known to the cabin crew. This I duly do, I find out that they are behind schedule and I have to go and sit in business class for the last 20 minutes of the flight so we can get off the plane early and once again, “leg” it to meet the next flight.

Soon I am sitting on the Dash 8 climbing out of Cairns and on to Weipa. I shudder to think that last time, which was my very first time in Weipa, Qantas managed to loose my luggage, which became nothing short of a night mare.

The plane is full of people off to the Rio Tinto mine workers, geologists, surveyors, truck drivers are all (Fifo) fly in fly out, en route for another shift.

We touch down, and disembark, the heat of the day hits you, like a punch in the face, and luckily I have some suitable clothing with me, for this trip.

The little tractors arrives with everyone’s luggage on, I wait patiently for my case, but again, it seems to have gone on its own journey, I go and see the same lady as last time, when my luggage was lost and she actually remembers my name. She tells me, that we were parted at Sydney, as the flight connection was too short and it will be in at 7.05 tonight, oh well not too long to wait., hopefully.

This time, I have had a vehicle hired for me, so I go and queue to collect it. I pick up a Nissan Patrol, which has only 67000 K’s on it and its an absolute wreck, the conditions in the Far North, have really taken their toll on this vehicle. I get to my hotel, strip down to my under crackers and try to cool down, its just baking outside.

I do my workey stuff, then the following day I find myself back at Cairns airport for a 7.15 pm flight to Darwin and yes, my luggage did catch up with me.

I am with a colleague who has been advised that there is a cyclone heading for Darwin, he is off to Perth, so wishes me a good safe flight, I don’t take that much notice of the cyclone warning.

We were due to touch down in Darwin at 9.25pm, but about half and hour before the plane touches down, I look out of the window and see the weather is atrocious, the plane is rocking backwards and forwards and side to side like a bucking bronco.

With gear down, and seat belts fastened the pilot tries to make his landing, but it’s just too windy, he stuffs the throttles forwards and we climb back into the darkness from whence we came.

After doing a circuit for half an hour the pilot has advised us that he will make a second attempt, basically a category 1 cyclone has parked its *rse right over Darwin and we have to some how try and tame the beast.

For the second time, we are descending towards the ground, the rain is torrential and can be seen by the lighting on the wings, gear down, I peer of my window of seat 13a, I can see the run way whizzing past, the only thing that goes through my mind as the plane violently rocks from side to side is, shit, I bet Caroline hasn’t spoke to the company about the insurance, if the wing clips the ground they will be picking us all up with a spoon and a straw.

Again the pilot accelerates away, and notifies us that we will now be off to RAAF Tindal to refuel and it should only take a couple of hours, as they have to organise a Qantas fuel tanker, from somewhere.

We touch down at Tindal, its an active RAAF base and thus we are not allowed off the plane, Military police are whizzing around in the cars with the Blue and Red lights on, I was just waiting to see if they positioned a marksman, aiming his weapon at the Cabin door, ready to shoot if someone opened the door, what a laugh.

It was about 11.30 and I must have briefly nodded off to sleep, because when I woke, I looked across the aircraft to the outside world and another two Qantas jets had rocked up.

It had taken about 2 hours to refuel, we were all done and there we were at the front of the queue, the Pilot had announced that we were heading back to Cairns you could hear the groans bellow around the cabin, but then soon announced Qantas Operations centre in Adelaide have now decided that we were now going to Fly to Alice Springs.

I was chuckling to myself, Caroline would be spitting chips, me in Alice Springs, without her, she will be “mad as a cut snake”.

The Qantas flight, thundered down Tindal’s runway, the weather was clear and I would assume warm, but would soon be at our final destination. It was 3.05 am when we touched down at Alice Springs and was dog tired, just over 8 hours is enough.

Walking in to the terminal, we were greeted by a Qantas representative, who announced to everyone that a coach had been laid on to take everyone off the flight to hotels that were organised for everyone. The only problem was that not everyone would fit on to the coach, so people could get a taxi. I got to my hotel at 3.30 in the morning and was definitely ready for my bed; I lay on the bed with the AC on and drifted off.

The next day, after breakfast, I now needed to formulate a plan of my next move, Darwin airport was closed until Friday (today is Wednesday) so that option was out, I decided that I had to make my plans to get back to Canberra.

After 53 minutes and 2 seconds on the phone to Qantas, my tickets were changed and I would be flying back to Canberra via Melbourne. The customer care lady tried to put up a fight by saying I was not due to fly back until tomorrow, and after some direct negotiating, she lost the argument and I got what I needed, I wouldn’t have minded flying back to Canberra tomorrow, but I am not in Darwin, there is no point in me being in Alice!.

If I had have to have stayed here, then I would have paid for the flight and fly up to Uluru, (Ayres Rock) to have a look, so I have to thank my lucky stars, that I didn’t as I could imagine saying to Caroline that I went up and saw one of the natural worlds greatest icons without her.

I had told Caroline that I would be back in Canberra at about 5.30pm and Caroline had asked me to get a cab as she is really busy and could not pick me up. (note from Caroline: this does sound mean but I am working more than flat out at the moment which means I am not even getting that much spare time!)

I had 2 days back in the office this week, instead of one which was good, travelling so much is hard work, its hard to get the opportunity to work, usually I just take notes and do them with my one day in the office.

It was great to see Caroline, as always and would be great to be in my own bed tonight.

Until next time.

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Photos

Hire Car
Due to the mine influence around Weipa, all cars need to be of a certain standard, we have to cross roads, where mining trucks weighing 225 tonnes are running, so they have to be seen.

Just an image
Of far Northern Queensland

A normal site
Bitumen roads are few and far between, so the red dirt is everywhere. if you are precious about your car, don't take it.

The blistered dash board
This is the dash board of my hired Patrol.
The sun is so hot that it has blistered the dash board

Now this is a Ute
A Rolls Royce Ute at Alice Springs airport