Rhonda Bracey: At Random

We were in no hurry to get anywhere today. No arrangements had been made to meet up with my husband’s brothers, despite us leaving our flights till as late as possible on this Sunday.

We had a late, leisurely breakfast at the Sir Stamford, then, because we had to check out of the hotel by 11 am, we decided to head to Sydney Airport where I could check email, read my book, and we could wait for our late afternoon flight in the Qantas Club lounge.

Susan the SatNav couldn’t pick up a satellite signal (too close to the high rise buildings of Sydney’s CBD?), so we stopped and asked a taxi driver for general directions to get to the airport. Once we were clear of the main CBD, Susan located a satellite and got us safely to the airport. I had rebooted her several times, but she just couldn’t link in to a satellite. Not very good if you need a SatNav to find your way around a city’s CBD!

Dropping off the car was a painless experience and took minutes, unlike the runaround we had in getting it in the first place. We checked in, were offered seats on the midday flight to Perth (which we refused as we had people meeting us and it would upset their plans for the day), then went through security and into the Qantas Club. Where we sat for about 6 hours…

I took advantage of some of the time to clear some 400 or so of my 650+ emails (that’s what a week away will do to you!), while my husband watched aircraft loading and unloading procedures…

Massive A380 being taken somewhere

The flight back to Perth was uneventful and on time. Dinner was a quite spicy lamb curry, with rice, peas and dhal, cheese and crackers, red wine, bread roll and butter, Toblerone chocolate, water, soft drinks, more red wine… and later an ice-cream. Even though it was dinner, it was more like lunch for us with the time zone changes.

We arrived at 6:45 pm and our friends picked us up and drove us to one of their local Chinese restaurants where we had dinner. It as lovely to see them both again and to have the opportunity to thank them for providing us with secure parking for our car and their ‘taxi’ service from the airport.

We stayed overnight at the Crowne Plaza on Terrace Rd, Perth ($168/night), as we have dental and medical specialist appointments scheduled for tomorrow.