Safe Arrival

While I was sitting in the airport terminal in Hervey Bay, waiting to board my flight, I was watching a mother say goodbye to her young son (who's name I later found out was Oliver).  He was about 10 yrs old and was obviously feeling a bit sad to say goodbye, though he wasn't crying.

They gave each other a long squishy hug and the air hostess who was accompanying him, helped him carry his bags of food and drink.  Mum kept blowing kisses and Oliver kept turning around to wave goodbye and blew a few kisses too.

It made me feel warm and fuzzy watching them and she called out "I'll see you in a couple of weeks!"

He, along with a couple of elderly people and another person in a wheelchair were the first to board the plane and then it was announced that the rest of us could board.

Adoring Husband had checked me in the night before, online, and checked me into a window seat.

I was one of the last to board, and as I walked into the cabin and spotted my seat, which was the last seat on the plane, who should be sitting in it???  Oliver!

So, I sat in the aisle seat, without complaint and introduced myself to Oliver, who preferred to talk to himself, than this old lady.

The air hostess who was chaperoning, came up to me during the flight and said, with a big smile, "Thank you for letting Oliver have the window seat"

I thought to myself "I didn't 'LET' Oliver have the window seat!  You gave it to him, or he took it, without even asking me if it was ok!"  Of course, if Oliver, or the air hostess had asked me, as I boarded the plane, I wouldn't have even hesitated, but I was a bit annoyed that she 'thanked' me for doing something that I had no choice about!

The other thing that annoyed me a little bit, was that I was booked on a 'flexi' fare, which includes a meal on the flight.  The meal was pasta .. which I couldn't have because it's not gluten free.  The only thing they had on the flight that WAS gluten free, was a packet of two cookies .. which I also wouldn't normally have because they are full of sugar, but I was hungry!  So I ate them.  But they certainly were not a meal.

The third annoyance for the flight, was the terrible turbulence as we approached Sydney.  We were getting bounced all over the place and as we were coming down to land, I was bracing myself for a heavy landing, when all of a sudden, before the plane reached the ground, the engines roared and the plane took off very sharply and very steeply, back upwards!

The hostess announced that "it was deemed necessary to approach the landing from a different direction", so we flew out to sea, did a u-turn and landed from the opposite direction.  The pilot apologised to us upon landing, explaining that the wind had been the problem.

I must say, it was a bit off-putting!

(After we landed, I checked one of the weather sites, and it showed that the wind speed had increased by 20 kph in the twenty minutes it took for us to descend to landing point.  It went from 22 kph to 42 kph in that short time!)

So when we arrived in Sydney, I had to check in at the 'Rex Airline' counter.  My luggage had been booked right through, but I still had to check in.

There was a big flashing sign stating that all carry-on baggage had to be weighed and that the limit was 7kgs.

This made me panic slightly, because I knew that my bag (which contained my camera, three big lenses, my ipad, my purse and 3 prs of glasses), weighed 7.6 kgs, AND I was carrying my laptop separate to that.

The woman at the counter said to me "Do you have carry on baggage?"  I replied "Only my handbag and my laptop"  She asked "No dangerous items in your handbag?"  "No" I said.

She handed my boarding pass to me and said "Have a nice flight"

Whew!

Got through security ok, but then was pulled up for a bomb detection inspection!  Seriously?  Do I look like the type of person who would be making bombs?  So I got swiped - my hair, my pocket, my shirt, my shoes, my bag ... obviously, all clear.

When he finished, I said "You just picked me because I looked the easiest!"  He replied "No, I picked you because you were NEXT!" then he laughed and said "but you were pretty easy".

After that, the first thing I did was look for food.

Having been on this new eating regime .. it's quite alarming how much fake food is out there for the world to choose from and how little 'real' food is available .. especially at an airport food court!

My only option for gluten free and 'close to' real food was sushi.  Of the remaining 10 food sellers, not one of them had a gluten free food option.  Oh!  Except for MacDonald's fries .. blah.

I had almost 3 hours to wait for my next flight, so I found a comfortable seat and did some people-watching for a while, then got my ipad out for about an hour.  The time passed quite quickly.

Right on schedule, I boarded a half empty plane (very unusual) and it was a very smooth flight to firstly, Narrandera, where we landed among hundreds, if not, thousands of Galahs!

After a 20 minute stop, where 8 passengers alighted, we continued on to Griffith.

Our pilot was Irish - with a very strong accent and quite difficult to understand!  I saw passengers in front of me, look at each other quite befuddled because they too, didn't understand what he was saying.

I have now arrived safe n sound in Griffith and it's good to see BGWLBH and her Mum.  We will visit her Dad in hospital tomorrow and then leave on our road trip in a couple of days.

I am laying in bed listening to the soft rain outside and enjoying the very mild 22C temperature with no humidity.

Sorry if it's been a bit of a 'whinge fest', but they were only small annoyances, and I am happy :)

Time to sleep.

Nite all.