Monday, June 18, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Giraffe
G'day.
Yes, I imagine a lot of people will be looking twice at this point. "Could this be right? Could this actually be something new to read??? Is it really true????? " Yes... you are reading this. You don't need to pinch yourself, but if you would like to anyhow please be my guest.
No excuses this time, anyone who actually still reads this no doubt realises that I have a few distractions at the moment and getting time or energy to write anything worth reading is becoming a rare event. I got to the point of deciding that if I couldn't make it worth while, why do it at all... in reality it was an excuse to myself to justify just not writing anything at all.
So, back to the beginning. The year started with a bang. Literally, actually... they decided to let off a reasonable volume of fireworks down at Caroline bay. This was about the highlight of the evening really, Timaru unfortunately appears to have less and less appeal at times, the more time one spends away from it. Which reminds me of a yarn actually, about exactly that. Getting away from it, that is.
It all started about march last year, when I booked my tickets for my annual flight home. I was doing the typical "what's more convenient" thing, and decided that if I played my cards right an hour and a half should be more than enough time between flights in Brisbane on the return journey. Thinking no more of it, I continued on my way all year. Anyhow, time flies, and so do planes. And kites. And birds. Except perhaps emus. Eventually, along came time to fly to NZ. Which I did, no worries at all. Perfect timing between flights, not too much waiting around... all was going well. Then it was time to head back to Aus. No problem. Until the plane from Christchurch was delayed about 20 minutes. Which immediately reduced my slim window in Brisbane to an extremely slim one. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I saw no need to panic, and we merrily boarded the flight.
A few hours later, we landed in Brisbane. I had worked out if we managed to get to the domestic terminal within 15 minutes we would make it. Now, if anyone has been to Brisbane, the domestic terminal is approximately 10 minutes by shuttle bus from the international airport. Thus further compounding the potential for missing our flight. However, not one to be worried about such trivial matters, I swanned on over to the baggage carousal. 10 minutes went by, everyone else off the flight appeared to get their bags... and then finally out came my bag. Perhaps the last possible bag to have exited the plane of course. Murphy wouldn't have it any other way. It took another 5 minutes to get through customs, (which could well have gone a lot worse I might add), and we sprinted out of the front of the airport to find the shuttle bus about to leave. Luckily not everything was going pear shaped just yet. We jumped on the bus, and he hared it across toward the domestic terminal.
Finally, we exited the bus and ran to the automatic check in counter. "Sorry, check in for your flight has finished". Cock. Off toward the help desk, where we met some lovely young lady who seemed intent on getting us on that flight. Several hurried phone calls and radio conversations later, she whisked us down towards the domestic security point, checked luggage and all. Somewhat bewildered by all this, I enquired as to how I was supposed to get my luggage through a "carry on only" checkpoint, as I happened to have a leatherman and a screwdriver in my checked luggage, which normally would not be a problem. She replied "oh just give it a shot and see if you get through!" I was thinking "Yea, OK, but they have xrays and stuff..." and sure enough, beep beep "excuse me sir, can you step this way." Marvellous. So, over I went... "you can't carry a leatherman on this flight sir!" Long story short, I finally managed to get through what we were doing, and he informed me that I could send it back to myself in a courier bag. Which I proceeded to do. Only thing was, it was back on the unsecure side of the check point, so of course I then had to re-secure entry coming back to collect my bags. So, off with the belt, laptop, etc.... yet again. Anyhow, we finally talked our way through that, and made it to the boarding counter. "How the heck are we supposed to fit those bags on?" They ask... I felt like replying "buggered if I know... it's your plane!" But I decided against it and eventually managed to sweet talk them into letting us on. We wandered out across the tarmac and finally made it on to the plane... about 5 mins later it took off and we were back on our way to Gladstone.
Other than that... two weeks have gone past with relativity little incident. I shall leave you with some photographs... and not much else.
Yes, I imagine a lot of people will be looking twice at this point. "Could this be right? Could this actually be something new to read??? Is it really true????? " Yes... you are reading this. You don't need to pinch yourself, but if you would like to anyhow please be my guest.
No excuses this time, anyone who actually still reads this no doubt realises that I have a few distractions at the moment and getting time or energy to write anything worth reading is becoming a rare event. I got to the point of deciding that if I couldn't make it worth while, why do it at all... in reality it was an excuse to myself to justify just not writing anything at all.
So, back to the beginning. The year started with a bang. Literally, actually... they decided to let off a reasonable volume of fireworks down at Caroline bay. This was about the highlight of the evening really, Timaru unfortunately appears to have less and less appeal at times, the more time one spends away from it. Which reminds me of a yarn actually, about exactly that. Getting away from it, that is.
It all started about march last year, when I booked my tickets for my annual flight home. I was doing the typical "what's more convenient" thing, and decided that if I played my cards right an hour and a half should be more than enough time between flights in Brisbane on the return journey. Thinking no more of it, I continued on my way all year. Anyhow, time flies, and so do planes. And kites. And birds. Except perhaps emus. Eventually, along came time to fly to NZ. Which I did, no worries at all. Perfect timing between flights, not too much waiting around... all was going well. Then it was time to head back to Aus. No problem. Until the plane from Christchurch was delayed about 20 minutes. Which immediately reduced my slim window in Brisbane to an extremely slim one. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I saw no need to panic, and we merrily boarded the flight.
A few hours later, we landed in Brisbane. I had worked out if we managed to get to the domestic terminal within 15 minutes we would make it. Now, if anyone has been to Brisbane, the domestic terminal is approximately 10 minutes by shuttle bus from the international airport. Thus further compounding the potential for missing our flight. However, not one to be worried about such trivial matters, I swanned on over to the baggage carousal. 10 minutes went by, everyone else off the flight appeared to get their bags... and then finally out came my bag. Perhaps the last possible bag to have exited the plane of course. Murphy wouldn't have it any other way. It took another 5 minutes to get through customs, (which could well have gone a lot worse I might add), and we sprinted out of the front of the airport to find the shuttle bus about to leave. Luckily not everything was going pear shaped just yet. We jumped on the bus, and he hared it across toward the domestic terminal.
Finally, we exited the bus and ran to the automatic check in counter. "Sorry, check in for your flight has finished". Cock. Off toward the help desk, where we met some lovely young lady who seemed intent on getting us on that flight. Several hurried phone calls and radio conversations later, she whisked us down towards the domestic security point, checked luggage and all. Somewhat bewildered by all this, I enquired as to how I was supposed to get my luggage through a "carry on only" checkpoint, as I happened to have a leatherman and a screwdriver in my checked luggage, which normally would not be a problem. She replied "oh just give it a shot and see if you get through!" I was thinking "Yea, OK, but they have xrays and stuff..." and sure enough, beep beep "excuse me sir, can you step this way." Marvellous. So, over I went... "you can't carry a leatherman on this flight sir!" Long story short, I finally managed to get through what we were doing, and he informed me that I could send it back to myself in a courier bag. Which I proceeded to do. Only thing was, it was back on the unsecure side of the check point, so of course I then had to re-secure entry coming back to collect my bags. So, off with the belt, laptop, etc.... yet again. Anyhow, we finally talked our way through that, and made it to the boarding counter. "How the heck are we supposed to fit those bags on?" They ask... I felt like replying "buggered if I know... it's your plane!" But I decided against it and eventually managed to sweet talk them into letting us on. We wandered out across the tarmac and finally made it on to the plane... about 5 mins later it took off and we were back on our way to Gladstone.
Other than that... two weeks have gone past with relativity little incident. I shall leave you with some photographs... and not much else.
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