Seat 27B

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Blog Day 800 and something, will have to check

It was all going swimmingly well, Caroline had packed, and I was up early just putting my stuff in my case.

We were both excited, today Tuesday 11 January we were both off on business to Christmas island, Caroline for a couple of weeks and me for slightly longer. It had been a rush to put this trip together, it was all business related and quite urgent, so the flights had been booked, and everything was green to go.

I took Caroline her tea at 6.00 am, she politely grunted at me when I took it in, and as I set her tea down beside her, she picked up her Blackberry, as I had turned on my heels and was heading for a shave.

Caroline called out to me, “I’m not going to Christmas island, I'm needed here in Canberra.

I went back to her, she looked so disappointed, but I tactfully said, hey he knows he can rely on you so it must be important if he wants you to stay back, that was little comfort at the time. We were in the office by 07.15 we had loads to do, and my packing wasn’t even finished.

My flight was due out of Canberra at 19.30 flying direct to Perth where I would stay a couple of nights as I had business in Perth on Wednesday, then I would fly out to CI on Thursday.

I need to go back a couple of days, then couple of weeks in this blog to explain something.

When we were both crossing Sydney last Friday and were sitting in the back of a cab, as I have blogged before on come fly with me, Our boss called and asked if we could both go to Christmas island, which was fine for me except for one thing, well two really.

My British Passport was sent to New Zealand last week as it is just about to run out, which wasn’t too much of a drama, but whilst I was on CI before Christmas, I had decided to change my driving licence to a Christmas Island driving licence, as I thought, how cool it would be to have a driving licence issued on Christmas Island, I bet not many people would have one of those and I am spending a lot of time there.

So all the paper work was done, and I had left my Australian driving licence with some colleagues on the Island so they could pick my new one up and surrender the old one, but not forgetting this was well before I decided to renew my passport.

So when my boss said can I go to CI, I said there could be a bit of a problem, I don’t have a British Passport as it has been sent off to New Zealand for renewal. My boss said it wouldn’t be a problem as I could travel on my Australian driving licence, and I had to explain that it was back on CI, followed by the whole story.

Monday came, and was on the phone to the British High Commission, well that was a waste of time, thank god we were not in trouble, they are about as much help as a button on a sock.

My next port of call was to Australian Customs who confirmed I could not leave mainland Australia, to Christmas Island without an Australian Commonwealth document such as an Australian driving licence and a British one would not suffice.

Sh*t, sh*t and double sh*t, I was fast, running out of options, but I had a plan.

Technically, I would not be “leaving Australia” until Thursday at mid day, today was only Monday and Perth is the usual starting point when going to CI.

As they are 4 Hours behind Canberra time, I called one of my colleagues on the Island and explained my predicament.

Nasher said he could get my licence to Perth by Tuesday night which should be just fine, we agreed where it would be delivered and I specifically said, make sure the deliverer, does not forget the envelope or just how important this document is, or else I will be standing at customs on Thursday with a stupid look on my face, when they tell me that I can not leave the country.

Rob called me back a couple of hours later and said there was a medivac flight leaving the Island and one of the escorts was dispatched with my envelope.

I went home and packed leaving Caroline in the office, and was back just before 5.00pm all packed and ready to go. My plane leaves at 7.30 Canberra time, but I don’t fly out to CI until 1.20pm on Thursday.

About ¾ on an hour before we touched down, the lady on the end of my row said, hey, it was lucky to have an empty seat in the middle of us, it gave us o much more room.
I explained that the seat 27B should have been occupied by my “favourite wife” and this poor lady, apologised profusely.

This lady traveller asked me where I was off to whilst she explained, her and her family had lived in Canberra or a few years and loved it, know they live in Perth as her husband I an aircraft fitter for Cobham’s, which I think may be a British company.

I explained where I was off to and she asked me if I knew the chap Peter XXX and it was the guy, I was due to have dinner with the next night, how crazy was that.

We landed in Perth about 9.30pm Perth time to a beautifly warm summer evening about 30 degrees.

I had two days in Perth, but was flat out, and Wednesday evening i had a dinner invitation, so there was no spare space for social pleasantries with friends. (Sorry, Cliff and Sue)

The weather in Perth was absolutely beautiful, and soon I was heading across town in a Taxi to the international airport, where I checked my bags, went through security and had the luxury of 20 spare minutes so had time to have a coffee.
My flight was called and I got on the big silver Sausage, and usually when you take off, its only a few minutes before we are flying over the sea, but this time, we did not turn out to sea, but contoured the Western coast of Australia, all the way up to Karratha, which took about 2 ½ hours, then banked to the left for another 1.1/2 flight to CI.
The reason for this was simple, the flight planners had scheduled this flight to try to miss Cyclone Rachael.

The weather on the flight was beautiful with fascinating cloud structures, but about 10 Kilometres away from Christmas Island, there was a wall of water, that was quite obvious, which just looked amazing.

The plane touched down in the foulest of weathers, but it was great to be back, some of my colleagues were there to meet other people and there was loads of shaking hands to do.

I collected my car, once I found it and whizzed across the island to my chalet room, which had been organised for me.

Getting to my place, it was completely different to the ones I had had before, it had a great view and was a big place, one bedroom but so much more space to make untidy.

I emptied my case, put everything away, and soon my phone was ringing with dinner invitations, from old friends.

To be continued,

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