The return trip from Sandringham to Limeburner's was awful, with bruised water and very fickle winds across Port Phillip Bay. I was glad to get there but it was a short stay as the following day we made our way to Geelong where Venture was to be moored for a month whilst Dave and I returned to Adelaide for the impending birth of our newest granddaughter.
The following day we did a real life “Planes, Trains and Auto-mobiles” as we made our way from Geelong to Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. We began by taking the dinghy to the jetty at the Western Beach Boat Club, then Dave attached one of the club dinghies to ours and went back to Venture. After raising our own dinghy back onto the davits, he then rowed the club dinghy back to the jetty. With me so far? Good!
So, with our hand luggage in tow, we then used Shanks' ponies to get to the Geelong railway station where we caught the rural V-Line train into Southern Cross Station, where we changed trains and went to Essendon. We then hoofed it to the nearest tram stop which took us to Airport West Shopping Centre where we had to catch a bus to the airport. That took us to Terminal 1, which was unfortunate because we had to be at Terminal 4, so it was walking again. After finally getting to the Tigerair Terminal (NEVER AGAIN!) we went straight through as I had already checked us in online and we had no luggage to check in.
Our flight was leaving from Gate 1, and so we took a seat along with all of our fellow Adelaide-bound passengers. Then something happened that I wasn't altogether surprised at.... the flight was delayed, apparently due to bad weather.
More than half an hour later a tinny voice announced that flight blah-blah to Adelaide was now boarding from Gate 3..... Gate 3??? Everyone rose as one and dragged their luggage across the terminal to Gate 3, which was also seemingly boarding a flight to Hobart according to the departure board, and the flight to Adelaide had completely disappeared. Seriously it was like a movie. Confusion abounded as the two apparent boarding parties merged and then separated when the people to Hobart were informed that we were first. Wow what a shambles!
We shuffled along in the boarding queue, getting closer and closer to the plane but upon showing our boarding passes, a red warning showed on the check-in woman's computer screen. She tried again and the same thing happened. Wait.... what???!! We were pulled out of the line (the only people to have this happen) . She asked if we'd booked in and I told her yes, of course we had (she was holding the printed boarding pass in her hand so this seemed like a stupid question). Ah... they'd given away our seats to a family. Uh...... WHAT?! Dave and I stood back and watched all of the other passengers pass by as the computer woman tried to find us a seat. Luckily it wasn't fully booked but wow, I couldn't believe what had happened and after the day we'd had, I wasn't happy to say the least and grumbling under my breath eventually became grumbling out loud.
We finally boarded the plane and took our allotted seats (luckily they were together) and waited for the plane to do its thing and get airborne. We were already quite delayed when a voice piped up and informed us that, due to poor weather conditions and the fact that all planes at Melbourne Airport were now all using just the one runway for both take-off and landing, there would be a further holdups on the runway of at least half an hour so people permitted to use their phones to call ahead about the delays. Inside the plane you could almost feel the air crackle as people whipped out their mobiles and called or messaged or played games or whatever else they were wont to do. I looked out of the window. There was just a little drizzly rain and the windsock hung as flaccid as a very flaccid thing. Weather huh? Wusses!
We finally made it to Adelaide more than an hour late, but at least we arrived. A car ride to finish off the multiple transport side of things and I was glad it had finished. Seven different modes in one day (if I included walking) was quite enough.
The next couple of weeks involved family stuff and babysitting and moving people and........ suffice to say I won't put much of that in this particular post apart from showing a photo of our newest family member, Ahlia Violet May Jamieson, born April 19th and weighing in at a respectable 7lb 14oz.... and so many congratulations and so much love to our daughter Sarah and her wonderful partner David and of course, Ahlia's big brother Reilley.
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| Ahlia and her big brother Reilley. |
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| Ahlia and Reilley again. |
We have a beautiful bunch of fabulous grandkids....
Isabell, Jayden and Peter (Reilley and Ahlia's cousins).... whose photos I can't resist putting in.
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Our gorgeous Isabell and handsome Jayden. xxx |
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| Sweet Peter, our littlest grandson |
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| Poppy and Reilley feeding ducks... baaawwwww |
Nana and Poppy love you all and will miss you so much until we see you
again. Same goes for Barb, Jason and Jennifer, Daniel and Georgie,
Jessie and Lauren and Petra and Chris. Big hugs and kisses to you
all!!!!
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