Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I’m off to spend a week in the new client’s offices – in Brisbane! Let’s see… That’ll be:

• 3 to 4 hours drive to Perth. It’s very foggy here this morning, so the trip may be even longer; time spent in Perth getting to the airport will depend on traffic.
• 1 to 2 hours airport ‘hang time’ waiting for the VirginBlue flight to leave. They still say 30 minutes on the ticketing info, but the reality these days is to arrive at least an hour before your flight time to get through the security checks. That’s domestic. With international, you have to allow 3 hours.
• 3 to 4 hour flight to Sydney
• 1.5 hours ‘hang time’ at Sydney airport
• 1.5 to 2 hours flight to Brisbane
• 30 minute wait for luggage
• 30 minute taxi drive to hotel

By my reckoning, I’ll leave here around 7am and not get to the hotel until close to 11pm tonight. That’s about 16 hours of travel and ‘hang around time’. Oops, make that 14 hours. 11pm Queensland time is 9pm Perth time…

The next four days are in Brisbane with the rest of the Perth crew who took the same flights yesterday (Sunday). We have a packed work agenda every day and every night except Wednesday. On Friday, we’ll work all day, then catch the 7:30pm Qantas flight back to Perth. At least that’s a direct flight! I think the flight is about 5 hours. I know we get in to Perth around 11pm Perth time. I’ll then be staying overnight at a city hotel, and driving back on Saturday.

There’s no way I’ll drive back Friday night – 8 hour work day + 5 hour flight + couple of hours ‘hang time’ between work and flight departure = 15 hours. Add to that a 3 to 4 hour drive home – in the dark, possibly in fog, with kangaroos around on the latter sections of the trip. Nope. No way.

So I’m out of here in about an hour. If I’m quiet all week, you’ll know why!