So….stuff as promised.

Some stuff I promised before before my brief hiatus:

• At least 2 celebrity spottings

Spotted at Coolangatta Airport: Fatty Vaughtan and Vince Colosimo. I have to say I was more excited to see Vince.

• Maybe more

I may have lied about that point.

• Me making fun of NTB

Too hard to choose what about!

• A post about Ice cream (who doesn’t love ice cream?)

My dad loves Ice-cream. A lot. I’m not sure I inherited that particular gene. I have a pretty low tolerance, really. I can only ever seem to eat a couple of spoonfuls before it all gets to be a bit much. Gelato is definitely the pinnacle of ice-creamy goodness, though. After I actually committed to posting this, I actually had a fantastic gelato experience the other night. New gelato shop on King St in Newtown. They seriously do the best bluberry sorbet I have ever tasted. I know that’s probably not the best story ever. I kind of threw that last bit in as I forget where I was going to go with the whole story. Sorry. Ahh..Ice cream is good. Yup. Time to stop now.

• Some less than ideal travel adventures
• The worst ever trip to Queensland travel diary

The last 2 are kind of the same thing. As you may have gleaned from some of the not-so-subtle references, our trip back from Byron Bay didn’t exactly go to plan. There was some pretty wild weather and we weren’t able to fly out of Ballina Airport (the closest local airstrip to Byron).

Instead, we had to collect our luggage from the carousel and queue endlessly for busses. We were then coached up to Coolangatta airport, just over the Queensland airport.

Once there, we had to queue for even longer. We finally arrived at the head of the queue and found ourselves checked onto another flight. We headed to the departure lounge. And waited. And waited. And waited. Well after our advertised boarding time they finally announced that our flight was delayed. And we waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally they admitted that our second flight for the day had been cancelled. Can you guess what came next?

So we headed back to the luggage carousel and got back in that delightful queue. And we waited and waited and waited.

Finally we were back at the head of the queue. We were offered the option of risking the last flight out (several hours later) or staying overnight. And because it was due to weather there was no offer of accommodation so we would have to find our own. And a huge number of flights had been cancelled out of that airport. We decided to take the risk. We did, however, hold off on checking the luggage back in – just in case – to save us having to collect from another carousel if this went horribly wrong. We assessed our options and then did the only thing sensible people can do in this sort of situation: we headed for the airport bar.

I could definitely string this out into further whingeing, but I think I’ll cover that in some of the points below. Suffice it so say, we were due to be home at lunchtime and we didn’t make it home until midnight. We were in transit (either airports or busses) a total of 14 hours. Aargh!

I did get to see Vince Colosimo, though. And coincidentally he’s just come on the TV as I’ve been typing this.

• The Tale of the Vegan and the Airport Bar

So can you imagine what the airport bar must have been like the evening of the multiple flight cancellations? Flat out. So ahead of me in the queue I had a vegan trying to order something wholesome and healthy and without any meat, dairy or egg products. I had intended on transcribing the entire conversation for your benefit, but I’m afrid it’s a bit long ago now for me (and I think I may have blacked out some of the trauma of the day). Suffice it to say, nobody was happy at the end of the conversation! I think he ended up with the calamari, chips and salad. Without the chips and salad.

• Probing question number 742 – how well do you have to know someone before you can ask for a bed for the night?

Clearly related to the previous points. Neither NTB nor myself really know anyone in the Gold Coast. Not very well, anyway. And at one point it really did look as though we may have to choose between begging a bed from virtual strangers, or sleeping on the floor of the airport. It did lead me to contemplate “how well do you have to know someone before you can ask for a bed for the night?”

The conclusion I came to when faced with the questions was: Not very! I have a theory that it’s inversely proportional to how desparate you are.

• Queuing friends

Isn’t it amazing how you can develop instant cameraderie with the people either side of you when you’re stuck in a queue for a long period of time? It doesn’t matter what sort of person they are or how different or similar to you they may be, or if you might hate each other if you’d met under different circumstances. There’s just something bonding about shared queuing.

• Advice to Virgins. Ummm – make that Advice to Virgin Airlines

Here’s a thought: how about actually letting your passengers know what’s going on when there’s chaos in an airport. A coupld of seconds on an intercom working on your communication skills wouldn’t do any harm!

• Back in the olden days musings

OK, I’m not sure where I was going with this. Sorry. Maybe it’ll come back to me another day.

Whew! Its been a big blogging day. I think that’s all I can manage for tonight. And that also brings us to the end of the holiday adventures!

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I should (finger’s crossed!) be back tomorrow.

J.