Saturday, February 05, 2005

In the beginning...

I announced to the beer o'clock crew that i would start a blog of my 8 day tour. Who knows what i would get up to on the sun-laden shores of Australia's Gold Coast, whatever it was, it would at least beat the confines of a sweltering incubator. Although eating melting chocolate and basking on the sundeck on a broken couch with a few lagers and the usual crew was always good times.
New co boy and Digit Sam were in their usual fine form, their weird sense of humour kept us all amused.

The preamble...you know what its like, trying to cram as much in before you go away so you can return to as much a 'clear desk' as possible. Clocking up 75 hours in just 5 working days was no great joy. At 130am i finally decide to crash, leaving my work in as much a disorganised state of confusion as possible so that it would give me a reality check on my return.

So an early start, a quarter to 5 shuttle to the airport had me reaching for my passport and thongs at the eleventh hour. The smoke chamber ride in the 'super' shuttle slowly woke/choke me up. Blurs of the CBD drunken 7's patrons went by as we cruised down ghuznee, past the incubus on the way to Fog City! Thats right, the crazy phenonemon was about to make itself known for a 5th day in a row.

Our fight on DJ-11 got checked in, but were told our plane never made in from Brisbane the night before, so a replacement would be flown up from Christchurch. The 3 other international flights got out but then the fog really started to set in and it looked like we would be stranded. The scrambled eggs and bacon at the airport cafe were very average, the orange juice was ok, a quick skip through the paper telling me about the big one, and then the announcment...

The holiday was on hold. Our flight had been cancelled. Either try a diversion to Christchurch at our own expense or a 11pm flight via christchurch or a flight via Sydney tomorrow afternoon.

So it was back off home, ready to try again tomorrow.