Arrival.

So.... we had a great send off from Glasgow.

We went to the People’s Palace and sat in the tropically heated greenhouse (acclimatisation?) and many of Will’s friends from the Steiner school and his time in Glasgow turned up to spend the afternoon with us. We had a lovely meal at Ichiban (Japanese Cuisine...a favourite haunt of ours when we were in Glasgow) .

Monday morning 7^th Oct we lugged our 6 bags through the city to catch the bus to the airport. We arrived just before the check-in desk opened and had time to quickly add a few extra layers of clothing and stuff our pockets with small but heavy items from our hand luggage to make sure we stayed under the baggage allowance. We saw a few people turned away from check-in because their bags were too heavy and we started to sweat a little, though that was probably due to the extra clothing we were wearing. They did not seem to be weighing hand luggage but when we were called forward, the first thing the woman asked for was our hand luggage. We were allowed 7kg each. I put mine on and the scale read 7.6kg. Yikes!....but she waved it off. Will’s weighed 7.1kg. Next it was the big bags. Again we were slightly over the allowance of 30kg but she said nothing. We handed over our 2 British passports and she looked at them and then said to me “Do you have an Australian passport?”

I said “No, but Will has” and got it out and handed it to her.

“I don’t seem to be able to find your visa” she said.

I told her I had received one. She wanted to see it. So I had to get my laptop out, log into the airport wifi and find it in my emails. “Is this a new passport?” she asked. It was. I had just renewed it because the old one ran out next year and I wanted to get it sorted before leaving.

“Do you think you applied for your visa on your old passport?” she asked.

I didn’t see how as I had received my new passport before I applied for the visitor visa. She called over her supervisor who looked at my online visa and said “We’ll have to phone Canberra.”

Off she went as I felt more and more sick. I did not look at the long queue of waiting passengers behind us but I could feel them staring at us. Finally the supervisor came back still on the phone to read some reference number off my online visa. She looked at me, nodded and then ended her phone call.

“All sorted” she said, “You applied for it on your old passport but it’s been transferred over now.” I was very relieved as we collected our tickets but wondered what would happen when we reached Australian Immigration.

Before we went through the security check we removed our layers and repacked our hand luggage with all the heavy items from our pockets. I bet they weighed twice the allowance now. I got through security fine but they pulled Will’s bag to one side...he’d forgotten to remove his laptop. It was checked over by the most glamorous looking customs guard ever...all black eyeliner and false lashes! There were no more dramas before we got on the plane.

It left on time at 2.15 and I looked out from my window seat as the UK slipped away below us before we were in the clouds. I wondered when I would be back again. It felt a bit strange not knowing the answer to that question. I caught a glimpse of the coastline somewhere north of Newcastle and then we were off over the sea. Will started to watch ‘World War Z’. My earphones were not working but I got some more and I chose to watch ‘Man of Steel’ but about halfway through it kept on freezing until it got too annoying so I switched it off. We crossed over Denmark near Copenhagen and then on over the Baltic to Poland. We flew over the Ukraine to the Black Sea. I started to watch ‘The Way, Way Back’, which I had heard had good reviews until about halfway through it started to freeze again.

Flippin’ Heck!

By the time we were flying over Turkey it had gone dark. Will was sat next to a Scottish man who must have had 7 bottles of wine on that flight to Dubai. As we flew over Iraq you could see big fires burning way below...Will thought (romantically) that they were the fires in the camps of Bedouin nomads in the desert. I thought that perhaps they were the burning remains of some building blown up by Iraqi rebels...but in reality they were probably the burn off from oil wells.

We arrived at Dubai at 12.30 am (Dubai time). It was 30 degrees. As we entered the airport some guy was calling for passengers to Sydney. I shook my head and said ‘Brisbane’. We walked on past but he called after us.

‘Brisbane?’ We turned back.

‘I’ll take you a short cut’ he said.

He saved us a good 30 minutes of queuing to recheck our hand luggage with all the other passengers from the plane and a long walk to gate 123.

We went straight to the gate for the flight to Brisbane. It was due to leave at 2.30 am. We started boarding at 1.45 am. As we sat there waiting for it to fill up Will was saying, of the empty seat next to him, ‘Please! No fat person. Please! No fat person!’

He was lucky...very lucky! The person who came along was a young, slender chap and very good looking!!!! Will smiled wryly at me and I hit him!

“Do you want the window seat?’ I asked. He didn’t.

The guy turned out to be a journalist on his way to Queensland for a wildlife tour. He was only going for the week. It sounded like some kind of tourist drive by the Queensland government. me

We were delayed leaving Dubai because they had to recheck all the hand luggage. It seems someone had to be taken off the plane for some reason and as a security check all the luggage racks were opened and all the passengers had to identify their hand luggage to the cabin crew. Will said he was expecting the plane to explode on take –off because the security check was far from thorough. Thank goodness he never said anything to me about that until we landed safely. That sort of thing never crossed my mind.

I was able to finish off watching ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘ The Way, Way Back’ as this time the monitor did not freeze on me. I also watched ‘The Croods.’ You had to put the window blinds down on this leg of the journey as many passengers went to sleep. I just can’t sleep on a plane. I peeped out as we passed over India and saw a very brown river snaking away across the land below us. We had breakfast somewhere over the Andaman Islands but missed out on drinks due to turbulence as we approached Singapore.

We had about an hour at Singapore and then re-boarded for the last leg to Brisbane. We flew alongside Sumatra and just before the second sunset of the journey, saw a volcano poking above the clouds on Java. Looking out, as we flew over Australia at night, there is absolutely nothing to see. Occasionally a few tiny orange lights twinkle far below but mostly just blackness. Still I could not sleep even though I tried. I might have nodded off for about 15 minutes but that was it.

Finally we arrived in Brisbane, an hour late, Weds 9th 1.40 am. In the UK it was 4.40pm on Tuesday 8^th Oct.  We had to fill in strict landing cards that list a vast array of things that are forbidden to be taken into the country. The Journalist guy was getting pretty paranoid about his boots as the card said you had to declare if you had been on any farms recently. He had been to some music festival. We said no one had ever checked our shoes or boots before on entry but I think he was going to mention it.

Will and I both had wooden items in our hand luggage which we decided to declare. Will’s was a wooden pestle for a Tibetan singing bowl! (Typical Will!). Mine was a wooden humming bird that had hung on the mirror of my car. Mum and dad had brought it back from Cuba for me as a gift. I decided not to say anything about it coming from Cuba!

I was worried about Immigration after the palaver at Glasgow. Will went off with his Australian passport to the automatic e-passport gate. I noticed a sign that said British passport holders with e-passports could also use the e-passport gates. I had a new e-passport! I tried it 3 times and 3 times it said ‘There is a problem reading this passport.’

Oh Great! Let the drama begin!

I joined the queue with everyone else and looked at all the immigration officers in their booths and picked out the one who seemed most amenable and friendly, a woman in the end booth. She had been dealing and stamping with returning Australian passports but the queue of nationals had cleared so she called me forward. She took my passport, held it over some scanner and then peered at her computer screen. I was smiling on the outside but inside I was wailing. I felt my smile falter and thought, crikey, surely it must look as false as it really is. She removed the passport from the scanner, stamped it and handed it back with a smile as false as mine had been.

They let me in! Such a relief!

We collected our baggage and headed off to customs with our landing cards in hand. Will had already had his ‘Tibetan pestle’ given the all clear by some random customs person that I had missed but I was pulled out of line and sent to another queue with my ‘hummingbird’. When I got to the front of the queue the woman asked what I had to declare and I reached into my jacket pocket. I thought of the many films I had seen where someone does that and the officers pull a gun out and tell you to Freeze! I had no concealed weapon. She didn’t seem fazed as I pulled out a wooden hummingbird missing its beak. She smiled and took it from me. I said ‘It does have a beak.’ She pointed at my bags and finished off what I was going to say...’but it’s somewhere in there.’

She smiled a genuine smile! ‘It’s fine.’

They let my humming bird in! I wonder if they were as kind to the journalist or if he was dragged off to decontamination?!

We were met by our friend Ros. She knew we were delayed an hour because she had checked online. It was about 2.15 am at this point and she had to be at work later. She drove us to Will’s mums about 30 mins away. We looked for the key, in the slipper, under the planter, on the verandah that Will’s mum said she would leave for us but it was not there! We wondered what to do. It was now about 3.00 am. Ros said we could go back to hers to sleep but we decided to ring and see if we could wake Will’s mum. She is a good sleeper and sleeps 12 hours at least every night!

The phone rang and rang and rang and just when we were about to hang up a light went on. She answered.

‘Hello Ma!’

‘Is that you Bill? Where are you darlin’?’

‘On the verandah Ma!’

‘Good God!’ she said.

Ros went off for what little sleep she could get and we sat up till 4.00am chatting to Will’s mum who was pleased to see us but had expected us the next evening.

We went to bed and were up about 10 am!

In the afternoon we caught a bus to Garden City, a big shopping mall in a suburb of Brisbane. We were hoping to sort out some mobile internet. Will had checked out some deal online so we found an internet booth and ordered the sim online. We hoped it would arrive the next day (Thursday). We went to the bank and the money we had transferred from the UK had also arrived.

Wills mum always goes to bed about 7.00pm and we were not far behind her and had a good nights sleep.

Thursday.

We had our first game of canasta, which paused only for a lunch of ‘corned beef’. Not from a tin, oh no! Will’s mum had corned the beef herself! It’s a beef joint that you boil in water, I think.

Will won the canasta game. Heck! I felt like a numpty...not really understanding what I was doing.

The postie came but no sim!

We had a walk along to the local supermarket later in the afternoon. I really love the Jacaranda trees which are completely purple at the moment with their flowers. I keep asking Will, ‘What’s that bird call?’  and ‘What’s that bird?’.

It was about 26 degrees but not that uncomfortable. Watching TV in the evening the news was warning about snakes that were coming out early due to the above seasonal temperatures, and the weather was predicting temperatures of 37 degrees the next day. Then an advert came on...”Get Ready Queensland!” It was warning everyone to be prepared for summer showing scenes of floods, lightning, destroyed houses...it did not exactly fill me with excitement and joy!

Friday.

Will got up at 5.00am having been awake since 1.00am. I got up at 7.00am which is VERY unusual for me! The air conditioning went on in readiness for the scorcher!

We needed to go and look at cars but decided against it with the predicted heat. So we had another game of canasta, again pausing for a corned beef sandwich lunch. Then a miracle happened! I won the game of canasta!  “Good God!” said Will’s mum. It was definitely luck...no skill involved at all!

 It was pretty chilly in the house with the air conditioning on. At one point Will went to put on a jumper. I think it got to about 34 degrees outside and I did venture out to see what it was like but it did not feel that bad to me.

We waited for the postie. Surely the sim would arrive today?...but he rode right past. Damn!

We were having serious internet withdrawal symptoms; sweating, weariness but unable to sleep, corned beef déjà vu, unexplained bouts of luck, cold flushes when passing under the air conditioning!

We’d had enough. We could take it no longer,  so early evening we caught a bus into the city to get another internet sim to put us on until the other sim finally arrived! Waiting at the bus stop in the twilight fruit bats passed overhead on the hunt for.......fruit?

The city was buzzing! It was late night shopping. We found the mobile shop we wanted and waited to be served. The chap was very helpful and explained our best options and even registered the new sim card for us . We put the sim in Will’s phone because mine was ‘locked’ to 3 and Will had fiddled about with his before we came out to Oz and had unlocked his....or had he? By the time we got back to the bus stop Will’s phone was asking ominously for an unlock code!!!!

We were told we would receive a text message when the sim was activated...it never came. By the time we got back home we were in despair! Luckily, my phone allowed me 1gb internet browsing  (but we could not tether it  for our laptops). Due to 3’s new ‘Feel at Home’ policy, calls, texts and internet browsing cost just the same in Australia as it does in the UK. Using my phone and the internet Will discovered that yes, indeed, his phone was not unlocked as he had thought. (For those that don’t know, a phone is locked when it can only use sim cards from the company you bought it from and any other sim card you put in will not work!)

It was a blow! He rang 3 for the unlock code but the recorded message said that they do not give out unlock codes over the phone and that they have to be applied for over the internet ( talk about twisting the knife!) and usually take up to 7 days! That almost tipped him over the edge! I don’t think it helped that I was laughing hysterically at this point as the situation was getting worse and worse. I left him and went to bed just as he had discovered an APP that supposedly unlocked your phone for you!

Sometime later he crawled into bed...somehow he had managed to finally unlock his phone, got the sim working and finally got the internet access we needed!

Saturday

Today we have been out and about looking at buying a car. We walked miles and miles visiting dodgy car dealerships where practically everything was out of our price range! I have never felt so poor! It is quite scary how expensive everything is here from buses to coleslaw! We finally wandered into the unfortunately named ‘Mike Hunt’ car lot and found a Ford KA exactly like the one Will had sold in the UK...it is even the same colour! Is it a sign?

We didn’t buy it but it’s an option to consider.