Time to move on. Like The Littlest Hobo, every stop we make, we make a new friend, but can't stay for long, just turn around and we're gone again. Except he was, essentially, just a stray dog and we is people. Mind you, it's times like these that you appreciate his nomadic lifestlye and, to an extent, his ability to wash his balls with his tongue. But I digress.
Mrs V had done her usual, sterling job of packing our numerous, voluminous cases and after one last breakfast up in the Club Lounge it was time to meet our taxi to the airport (which, incidentally, was about a third of the price of the car that picked us up from there earlier in the week). We'd really enjoyed Sydney; the Intercontinental was a very pleasant hotel and the city itself had a good feel to it. But it was time to head north, to Cairns and the heat and humidity of the tropics!
The domestic terminal at Sydney Airport was refreshingly quiet, check-in and security were a breeze and we were at the gate, sipping coffee, with only 40 minutes or so to kill. However, my relaxed exterior belied the internal disquiet I was experiencing at the prospect of being transported to our destination in Cattle Class.
It was going to be a two and half hour flight up to Cairns and I felt I could just about handle that long in economy. Even a Business Class junky like me couldn't justify the price of an upgrade on this one - it was working out something like eight times more than an economy ticket, which is plain crazy (or should that be plane crazy - geddit?) , especially when you see what Qantas domestic Business Class is actually like. We were in the first row of Cattle Class, so got a good vantage point to see what delights the ambrosia sipping, quail's egg scoffing types get up front (cripes, listen to me, it's like I fly economy all the time - up the workers, down with the bourgeoisie!).
Excuse my while I pause here to enlighten you with interesting Oz fact No. 2 (No. 1 was the one about the echinda laying eggs. Remember?). Qantas - note the lack of a 'U' after the 'Q'? - is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service. There you go, that's another one for the pub quiz.
Anyhoo, Qantas Business Class takes up the first three rows of a standard 737 with four seats across rather than six in Cattle. Passengers got a glass of sparkling stuff when they boarded, free headphones (oh, the luxury!), a decent enough looking lunch - kind of Premium Economy style, for those of you who know what that means - and complimentary wine throughout. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have been up there then where we were, but I didn't see much that to justify the astronomical cost of the upgrade, which was reassuring in its own little way.
Qantas crew are a queer bunch, by the way (in more ways than one, might I suggest). Generally pleasant, but much older than, say, Virgin crew. Often the way on domestic routes I think. Lunch (the first economy in-flight meal I've had in the best part of a decade) was some kind of lamb stew and couscous concoction which was vaguely palatable and filled a gap. Can't remember what Mrs V had, but I do remember she hated it.
Anyway, I got my Mac out - once the aging and vaguely camp steward finally cleared my greasy little metal tray from in front of me - and started a bit of this 'ere post. Then in no time at all we were coming in to land in Cairns. It all looked terribly tropical and rainforested out of the window, which is probably just a well, this was tropical Queensland after all. We landed, the doors opened and we got that wonderful warm 'n' wet smell so redolent of these climes. I love it; I'm a loud shirt, shorts and flip-flops kind of guy and a temperature set somewhere in the high 80s, predominantly sunny with the occasional downpour to keep the palm trees green is just ideal for me.
We picked up our luggage, got temprorarily lost on the way to collect the hire car, but were soon on the road (Mrs V driving, me map-reading - do you think I'd let a woman loose with a map?) and heading north through some stunning countryside. We were driving up the Cook Highway, lined by trees full of bright red and yellow blossoms, with the blue coral sea being revealed intermittantly to our right and lush, forest covered mountains rising to our left. Our destination was the Thala Beach Lodge, a hotel a few miles south of Port Douglas, which is a little town based around a marina from where various trips to the Great Barrier Reef depart. The hotel is slap bang in the middle of rainforest, with wooden bungalows on stilts scattered up the hillside.
We arrived, stepped from the air-conditioned car and realised that every pore on our bodies was instantly and profusely leaking. Boy, it was hot, not that you'll hear me complain; all I have to do is imagine people back home scraping ice from their windscreens and suddenly everything seems just fine. A very nice chap called Daryl transfered our luggage onto a groovy little golf cart and whisked us off through the forest to our bungalow. He even came back ten minutes later with a bottle of champagne after learning it was our honeymoon.
The bungalow is great; bags of space with a huge balcony looking out over the treetops to the sea. Mrs V's being a bit iffy with the bugs, however, which can't be helped, phobias being what they are. We've got some bloody huge green ants on the balcony which - so Daryl informs us - can give you a nasty bite, but other than them, the mossies (for which we're dowsing ourselves liberally in repellent) and the truly massive cane toads, I'm not too sure what she's stressing about. Oh, and Tizer's decided that she doesn't like sleeping anymore, which meant she sat and winged at us all the way through dinner last night - and this was at nearly 10 o' clock when she'd normally be well away in her buggy. It's pretty much out of character for her and I can only assume that it's the travelling and heat that's got to a her a bit. She'll adjust, or we'll give her away to gypsies. One or the other.
Mrs V had done her usual, sterling job of packing our numerous, voluminous cases and after one last breakfast up in the Club Lounge it was time to meet our taxi to the airport (which, incidentally, was about a third of the price of the car that picked us up from there earlier in the week). We'd really enjoyed Sydney; the Intercontinental was a very pleasant hotel and the city itself had a good feel to it. But it was time to head north, to Cairns and the heat and humidity of the tropics!
The domestic terminal at Sydney Airport was refreshingly quiet, check-in and security were a breeze and we were at the gate, sipping coffee, with only 40 minutes or so to kill. However, my relaxed exterior belied the internal disquiet I was experiencing at the prospect of being transported to our destination in Cattle Class.
It was going to be a two and half hour flight up to Cairns and I felt I could just about handle that long in economy. Even a Business Class junky like me couldn't justify the price of an upgrade on this one - it was working out something like eight times more than an economy ticket, which is plain crazy (or should that be plane crazy - geddit?) , especially when you see what Qantas domestic Business Class is actually like. We were in the first row of Cattle Class, so got a good vantage point to see what delights the ambrosia sipping, quail's egg scoffing types get up front (cripes, listen to me, it's like I fly economy all the time - up the workers, down with the bourgeoisie!).
Excuse my while I pause here to enlighten you with interesting Oz fact No. 2 (No. 1 was the one about the echinda laying eggs. Remember?). Qantas - note the lack of a 'U' after the 'Q'? - is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service. There you go, that's another one for the pub quiz.
Anyhoo, Qantas Business Class takes up the first three rows of a standard 737 with four seats across rather than six in Cattle. Passengers got a glass of sparkling stuff when they boarded, free headphones (oh, the luxury!), a decent enough looking lunch - kind of Premium Economy style, for those of you who know what that means - and complimentary wine throughout. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have been up there then where we were, but I didn't see much that to justify the astronomical cost of the upgrade, which was reassuring in its own little way.
Qantas crew are a queer bunch, by the way (in more ways than one, might I suggest). Generally pleasant, but much older than, say, Virgin crew. Often the way on domestic routes I think. Lunch (the first economy in-flight meal I've had in the best part of a decade) was some kind of lamb stew and couscous concoction which was vaguely palatable and filled a gap. Can't remember what Mrs V had, but I do remember she hated it.
Anyway, I got my Mac out - once the aging and vaguely camp steward finally cleared my greasy little metal tray from in front of me - and started a bit of this 'ere post. Then in no time at all we were coming in to land in Cairns. It all looked terribly tropical and rainforested out of the window, which is probably just a well, this was tropical Queensland after all. We landed, the doors opened and we got that wonderful warm 'n' wet smell so redolent of these climes. I love it; I'm a loud shirt, shorts and flip-flops kind of guy and a temperature set somewhere in the high 80s, predominantly sunny with the occasional downpour to keep the palm trees green is just ideal for me.
We picked up our luggage, got temprorarily lost on the way to collect the hire car, but were soon on the road (Mrs V driving, me map-reading - do you think I'd let a woman loose with a map?) and heading north through some stunning countryside. We were driving up the Cook Highway, lined by trees full of bright red and yellow blossoms, with the blue coral sea being revealed intermittantly to our right and lush, forest covered mountains rising to our left. Our destination was the Thala Beach Lodge, a hotel a few miles south of Port Douglas, which is a little town based around a marina from where various trips to the Great Barrier Reef depart. The hotel is slap bang in the middle of rainforest, with wooden bungalows on stilts scattered up the hillside.
We arrived, stepped from the air-conditioned car and realised that every pore on our bodies was instantly and profusely leaking. Boy, it was hot, not that you'll hear me complain; all I have to do is imagine people back home scraping ice from their windscreens and suddenly everything seems just fine. A very nice chap called Daryl transfered our luggage onto a groovy little golf cart and whisked us off through the forest to our bungalow. He even came back ten minutes later with a bottle of champagne after learning it was our honeymoon.
The bungalow is great; bags of space with a huge balcony looking out over the treetops to the sea. Mrs V's being a bit iffy with the bugs, however, which can't be helped, phobias being what they are. We've got some bloody huge green ants on the balcony which - so Daryl informs us - can give you a nasty bite, but other than them, the mossies (for which we're dowsing ourselves liberally in repellent) and the truly massive cane toads, I'm not too sure what she's stressing about. Oh, and Tizer's decided that she doesn't like sleeping anymore, which meant she sat and winged at us all the way through dinner last night - and this was at nearly 10 o' clock when she'd normally be well away in her buggy. It's pretty much out of character for her and I can only assume that it's the travelling and heat that's got to a her a bit. She'll adjust, or we'll give her away to gypsies. One or the other.
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