Must...Get...Home...

There's more, you ask? But of course there's more! Who would I be if I simply left it at that last post and didn't add in a little more? I would be ordinary, something a categorically refuse to do. So here's more fun (or lack thereof) for you to enjoy.

Getting home was, shall we say, interesting. Normally, you have your flights booked, you get on them, and you get home. Sometimes with, sometimes without your luggage. But at least you physically get home. Well, we didn't. But let's start at the beginning so I don't confuse the living crap out of you.

We arrived at the Sydney airport via train bright and early, about 3 1/2 hours before our flight. Yes, I am one of those anal-retentive people who religiously shows up far too early for their flights. We made it through customs and security all right-for those that haven't been, in Australia you get to go through customs on the way out of the country as well. I'm not sure why this is, but I have 2 stamps in my passport to prove it. We found some decent breakfast and our gate and parked ourselves in some seats so we could await boarding for our flight. At some point in there, I decided to get up and ended up buying some booze at the duty-free to take back with us. This is when karma finally decided to barf all over us. The airport lost power. And I mean the entire airport. Including customs and security. So guess what? Half the people on our flight couldn't get through customs or security, which meant our flight wasn't going anywhere until the power came back on and they started processing people again. It took them an hour and a half to get the power back on, which meant our flight was delayed by 4 hours.

Given that we had basically already missed our connecting flight in Los Angeles (we'd be landing 2 hours after it had left), I went to the desk before we boarded to ask what we should do about getting a connecting flight. I was told that crews at LAX knew about what was happening, and that our flight, which was in fact booked with a partner airline, was being re-booked and we'd be fine once we reached Los Angeles. So we got on the plane and happily went along with what we were told.

It's a long flight, made even longer by the fact that we spent 4 extra hours in the Sydney airport. So by the time we reached LA we were exhausted and more than a little pungent, and we really, really wanted to get home. Just before we landed, we were informed by the captain that because of the power outage, a large number of the luggage people had checked hadn't made it on the aircraft. Why? Apparently because the power was off, the computers were down, and the luggage couldn't be processed in a timely fashion. According to the announcement, if the crew had waited even 10 more minutes on the ground, the flight crew would have been on duty too long, and that would have caused them to cancel the flight completely. Thus they decided to leave before all the luggage was on board. I completely understand this decision. As far as the airline was concerned, canceling the flight would've meant they'd have to re-book almost 400 people onto new flights. And given that it was summer, most flights were probably full, meaning that would've been a serious pain in the arse for them. As a passenger, I'd really rather have made it to my destination and not have my luggage, than be stuck were I was leaving from for what could've been a week or more, just because my luggage couldn't make it on the plane. Well, apparently when they said "some" luggage, what they really meant was "most". I think there was maybe 30 bags that came off that plane. But we figured that was fine, given that we'd be home in a few hours anyways, and we didn't really need our bags. We were told to file our missing luggage claim in Vancouver, as that was our final destination, and they had been tagged all the way there.

When we finally got off the plane we were again told by another V Australia employee that our flights had been re-booked, and that Alaska Airlines would have our new flight all ready to go, we just needed to get to their counter. So we went there, and they had no idea what we were talking about. We were told all the flights were full, and the best they could do was let us fly standby. So, thinking there was a good chance we could still get on a plane that day, we took the standby.

There were still 3 flights leaving LAX that day for Vancouver, we thought our chances were good. That is, until we sat through 2 flights and didn't get on either. When we asked at the desk, we were told that all the flights to Vancouver had been overbooked by 7-10 people, and there was little chance we'd actually get the remaining flight out. We asked when the next flight was that actually had available seats, and were told it was 9pm the next day. We took it, because it at least meant we were going to get home eventually.

I should mention that, in the meantime, we had actually had to check Glen's carryon backpack, because of the duty free liquor we had bought. We had no checked baggage to put it into, thus we had no choice but to check something in order to get it home. Well, evidently his backpack did make it on the first flight out, without us, because when we asked at the end of the night if we could get it back, they couldn't find it.

I should say that at this point, it was early in the evening and we had been awake for nearly 36 hours straight. So, now armed with our boarding passes for a flight the next evening, we went back to the V Australia desk to demand satisfaction. Or probably sympathy. That's more what we were going for. At any rate, Glen literally walked up to the counter and started the conversation like this:
V Australia agent: Hi. How can I help you?
Glen:We've got a problem. We've been up for almost 36 hours and we missed our connecting flight...
Well, however we explained it, it got us a hotel room for the night. A hotel room with a sweet, sweet shower and a soft comfy bed for the night. Sure, we had no bags or clean underwear, but when faced with potentially spending all night in the airport, we'll take what we can get. The hotel she did manage to find, however, was literally an hour cab ride from the airport. But hey, what else have we got to do? So she got us a taxi voucher and away we went. I should also mention that we were also allowed to charge $100 to the room for food at the hotel, which was nice, given that we had zero American dollars with us. She even managed to secure us a couple toothbrushes so we could brush our teeth, given that ours were, at best guess, still sitting on the tarmac in Australia. It was a Hilton hotel, and the bed was lovely. Almost as lovely as the shower.

To get back to the airport we were to arrange our own transport, and then claim the amount from the airline afterwards, which seemed fine for us. We got a shuttle number from the hotel and booked our shuttle for the next day, quite early so we could check and see where our various bags had ended up and perhaps get our refund for the shuttle before the flight. We called in the morning to confirm the shuttle was coming, and all seemed well when they checked their bookings. Then came time to get back to the airport. We waited. And waited. 15 minutes after the shuttle should have been there, we called to check. Apparently they had made the booking for the next day and there was no one coming that day. Furious, Glen asked when we would be able to get a shuttle that day. The next time they could get one there was in another 45 minutes, which would mean we'd be cutting it pretty close. Unacceptable. So we canceled that shuttle and had the hotel call a cab. An hour and 10 minutes later we were finally at the airport, and feeling a little better because we knew we were finally going to get home.

Because we had a little time, we decided to check and see if they could find our bags. When they called the Vancouver airport, Glen's backpack had made it there (even though we hadn't flown yet), but our big bags were still MIA. The agent at the Alaska Airlines desk even called around at LAX and YVR (Vancouver) and no one seemed to know where they were. This, while a little perturbing, wasn't too worrying, given that were were going home, so even if they stayed lost for a few more days, we were going to be fine.

Finally we were on our flight home! At last, airborne for Vancouver! Shockingly, when we reached YVR, we found not only Glen's backpack, but our big bags waiting for us near the luggage carousel. It was a miracle! Our bags had made it home before we did! So we grabbed them and off we went. It was just after midnight at this point.

All was well again until we made it downtown, to waterfront station, only to discover that we had arrived so late the skytrain had stopped running out to our place. What to do? The nearest place we could catch a bus was a 20 minute walk. So we called a cab. We got home around 2 in the morning. Thankfully, I had called work from the hotel in California and managed to tell them I couldn't make it in for my Monday afternoon shift, which was a good thing given that we didn't get up until around 2 in the afternoon that day.

It took us a full day and a half longer than we anticipated, but we did finally make it home in one piece. I can't say it was the best experience I've ever had, and it's made me leery of every flying with Alaska Airlines again-seriously, you overbooked all your flights?!?-but it could have been much, much worse.

I still have a few little tidbits to add later, so keep your browser tuned to this URL. Hopefully it'll be up soon.

And they drove on...

My apologies for the lateness of this post. It's only now, over 2 weeks since we got back, that I've had time to actually sit down and finish it. And it's not even really done. There's still more! I know, you're at the edge of your seats! So here goes...

Now, let’s see…where did this intrepid traveler last leave you…Ahh, yes, Coolangatta. Well, it’s been an eventful couple of days, kids, so pull up a chair and a pack of your favorite Tim Tams-I’m currently munching on the Tim Tam Crush, which might just be my favorite so far.

From Coolangatta we mercifully left the main highway and headed inland to explore Springbrook National Park. For my Canadian friends, the national parks here aren’t like they are in Canada. They’re tiny and numerous. Very tiny. Like, you can drive from one end of Springbrook to the other in about 15 minutes, and that’s going between 40-50 km/h. We went because the Lonely Planet guidebook promised us waterfalls and pretty views. And we weren’t disappointed. In fact, it’s probably been one of the best detours so far. I was determined to do at least a little hiking, and no amount of complaining from Glen could change my mind. On the way to the trail we decided to hike, we saw some pretty amazing views from the lookouts-we were quite far inland, and from some you could see clear to the coast. Finally something to look at other than endless fields of sugar cane. The hike we picked was a mere 4 km, but ended up taking us about 2 ½ hours to do. Why? Well, we had to stop and take pictures of the pretty waterfalls. There were three of them, if I remember right, and 2 of them you got to walk behind, which was awesome. There were also several caves/crevasses/cracks in the rock that we got to walk through and fiddle around in. So naturally some fun was had puttering around in them, seeing how far we could wedge ourselves up the walls. The rest of the hike was through rainforest, which was cool and looks pretty much like you’d expect rainforest to be. At one point we stumbled across some green birds with bright-and I mean vibrantly bright-red bodies that were hanging out in a couple of trees eating the leaves. They were the kind of birds that you’d see selling for a couple hundred bucks in a pet store in Canada. Overall it was an excellent day, and a welcome deviation from the major highways.

We spent the night just south of the hippie/surfing Mecca of Byron Bay, on a beach called Broken Head. This morning we were picked up by Krazy Kat’s surfing and plunged into the Pacific for a lesson. And it was excellent. They showed us how to get up on the board in a way that’s much, much easier than the way I was taught in the last lesson I took-which was eons ago in Tofino. We puttered around in the water for probably 2 hours, and I actually managed to get standing-and I mean fully standing, feet on the board, actually riding the wave-several times. Oh, if only we had more time, and we could stick around for a few days… But the nomadic life is calling.

We spent the afternoon wandering the patchouli-smelling streets of Byron Bay, checking out various shops and munching on some delicious doner kebabs-they’re actually just donairs, I don’t know why they call them kebabs if they’re not on a stick. Doner kebabs, by they way, are my new favorite food. They’re delicious, and have just enough vegetables that I can delude myself into believing they’re healthy.

Tonight we make camp-or park the hippie campervan-in a fantabulous caravan park just north of Ballina. Seriously, it’s the nicest caravan park yet. The showers have shower curtains, and they’re spotless! Cue angelic cherubs here…

Anyways, I should probably get to sleep now, as I believe we have some craziness with macadamia nuts and perhaps cliff diving planned for tomorrow.

Well, clearly this never got posted whilst we were in Ballina. If I remember right, it’s because blogger was giving me some issues and I didn’t feel like wrestling with the wifi connection any longer. So I’ll do my best to bring you up to speed on what’s gone on since then. From Ballina we again headed south, our first stop being the Macadamia Castle nearby. It’s set on a macadamia plantation and we weren’t sure exactly what it was, but we did know we both like eating macadamia nuts, so we figured we’d give it a go. We ended up going no further than the gift shop, because it was really just an amusement park for the kiddies, with mini golf, a petting zoo and a couple other things we weren’t really interested in doing. So instead we bought some nuts and hit the road again, headed for a tiny town called Angourie, where there was supposed to be a pool we could swim in, with cliffs we could jump off of. Well, we got there, and found the pool, but the water was a little sketchy and had a fair amount of scum in it. And we didn’t really feel like jumping into water from cliffs when we couldn’t tell how deep it was. The cliffs, by the way, were fairly little, and rather uninspiring-so not worth the hype the guidebook afforded them. But we did get some nice views of the ocean from there, so it wasn’t a total loss.

From the scungy pool we headed a ways up the road known as the “Waterfall Way”, and you can probably guess why it’s called that. We ended up spending the night at a “rustic” caravan park in Dorrigo, which is a town so small I literally ran all the way around it in half an hour. In the morning we headed out for a view of Dangar Falls, which are quite impressive, then went down to the rainforest center in Dorrigo National Park and walked out on the skywalk, which hovers above the rainforest with a good view of the valley. We also did a little walk through the rainforest nearby and saw a couple pretty waterfalls and some birds. After that we headed back to the highway and went south, where we ended up driving straight into the pouring rain and freezing cold. We spent the night near Halliday’s Point, and ended up cooking dinner under and awning near the BBQ area, with our fingers wrapped around warm mugs of hot chocolate to keep them from freezing. That night we slept with the accompaniment of torrential downpour on the roof of the Hippie Camper off and on all night.

In the morning we headed south again and made a stop in Newcastle at Nobby’s Point, which is a spit that comes off the mainland fairly far. Because the wind was still screaming and it was still raining on and off, the surf was huge and completely whitewashed, and at points farther out on the spit it was actually coming up and over the walkway. Along one side of the spit the waves were breaking in perfect curls, so there were probably a dozen guys out there with fins and boogie boards actually catching the waves. I reckon they had to be a few bricks short of a load to even attempt that, because at that point on the spit it had changed from sand to large, pointy boulders that could probably have turned them into hamburger if they didn’t kick hard enough to get away from them. I admit I’m a little nuts sometimes, but I’m pretty sure it’s not something I would have tried. As we were standing there, watching the waves crash up over the spit farther down, Glen turned to me and said, “You know what? I’ve got dry clothes in the van.” At which point he grabbed the waterproof camera from me and proceeded to walk down the spit directly into where the waves were coming up. He came back looking like a drowned rat, but a drowned rat with a big silly grin on his face. The one thing he did forget, though, was that even though he had dry clothes in the van, he didn’t have dry shoes in the van. And thus the socks and sandals combination was born yet again.

Next on our itinerary was Sydney, and the hostel we had booked. Just as we were checking in, our friend Charlene-Slacker-happened to show up in the lobby, so after we dropped off our stuff and finally figured out where to park our van-with zero help from the hostel staff-we ended up next door at the Winking Lizard for a few beers and dinner. The next day was the International Tree Climbing Competition out in Paramatta. For those who haven’t seen a real arborist work, it’s pretty impressive. It’s almost like Cirque de Soleil, except with ropes and climbing equipment. There are several different categories that climbers compete in, and they’re awarded points based on time, speed, and technique. If you’d like to know more I’d suggest checking out the International Society of Arborists website, mostly because I don’t really understand everything completely. We went because Slacker is an arborist, and she competes in the competitions. She literally missed competing in Australia by one spot and a bit of bad luck, but she wanted to come and see the event anyways, so we decided to go with her. It was a chilly day, but we still had a fair amount of fun watching.

That night we got back to the hostel early enough to head downtown to Circular Quay and see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, the two big landmarks in Sydney. And yes, they are that impressive in person. The Harbor Bridge is, quite simply, a massive steel structure that, by looking at it, you swear looks far too heavy to be suspended above anything. But there it is, in all it’s glory. And the Sydneysiders-the residents of Sydney-are definitely proud of it. The Opera House is also an impressive building. It’s quite beautiful, especially right around sunset when the orange hits it. It’s not a white as in the pictures when you see it up close, though. It’s more of a beige color, and actually, I think rather than paint, the outside is actually tiled. At least it looks like it when you get up closer.

The next day was reserved completely for touristing. First we wandered out to Paddy’s Markets downtown, which feels a lot like Chinatown in any city, crowded and packed with too much stuff to even contemplate looking at all of it. It’s packed with everything from NBA jerseys to UGGs to supercheap souvenirs, all shoved into stalls inside a warehouse. I went to Oz fully expecting to come home with a cheap pair of UGGs, simply because that’s what you buy when you go there. Well, trying to find a pair that actually comes in my size was next to impossible. They did have a pair in my size, but they were the original plain ones, and they made my feet look huge. Normally I’m not very vain, but in this case, I didn’t feel like spending $100 on boots I can’t wear outside in the winter and I don’t really like that much. So I didn’t get any. But at least I know now that I don’t want them anymore. I did buy a couple things, and Slacker got a couple things as well. From the market we ended up at the Maritime Museum, which was wonderfully free to get into. Then we walked across the harbor and went into wildlife world, where Slacker got her first glimpse of Australian wildlife. Glen and I even got to see a few animals we hadn’t seen at the other zoos yet. It was a pretty good day, overall, though when we got back to the hostel we were exhausted and our feet were sore from walking all day. But a good kind f sore.

Monday morning Glen and I signed up for the Bridgeclimb, which was a very expensive way of getting up and actually onto the Sydney Harbor Bridge. They take you up the top arch of the bridge to the peak, so you get an excellent view of the city from there, and it’s not nearly as scary or exhilarating as it sounds. The exciting part is actually walking out to get to the arch, where you get to walk down a very narrow, rickety wooden walkway with nothing underneath it but space and water or ground-you are harnessed in, though, just in case. The top of the arch itself, though, is wide enough to drive a car over, solid steel, and you walk down the center of it with railing on either side, so it’s not nearly as extreme as it sounds. Good view though. It’s a pretty big buildup, because you literally spend an hour getting geared up, putting on a jumpsuit, getting pouches with a rain jacket and fleece jacket attached to your harness, and making sure there’s nothing loose dangling that could fall onto the bridge deck. Seriously, everything’s attached. If you wear glasses, you get a lanyard to attach to them, which is then clipped onto your jumpsuit. You get a handkerchief with an elastic that attaches to your wrist so you can’t drop it-no Kleenex allowed up there. And you get a radio so you can hear your guide as you’re going up. It was quite the experience. Though we did pay for it-just over $200 for a climb. Each. But we figured, when are we gonna be in Australia next? So we went for it.

After the bridge climb, we headed for the Blue Mountains, which are a very popular place to camp and hike in Oz. I’d guess it’s probably because of their proximity to Sydney. You can drive there in less than an hour from downtown. They’re beautiful, but in a way completely different from the mountains in Canada, especially the Rockies. I guess they get called mountains, but they’re really a series of plateaus and valleys, with the plateaus being separated from the valleys by large, almost completely vertical cliffs. Why are they called the Blue Mountains, you ask? Because of the Eucalyptus trees that grow there. The trees release a certain amount of oil into the atmosphere, and because of the density of the trees, and the amount of oil they release, the air in the valleys-at least on a clear day, we discovered-has a blue haze. Hence, Blue Mountains. The area is really fascinating, and we read all the signs we could but never did discover exactly what caused the seemingly uniform cliffs that occur everywhere in that one area. What we do know is that it was really, really fun to explore and hike there.

We spent three nights in the Blue Mountains. The first night was at a caravan park, with us in the van and Slacker in her next right next to the van. Well, kids, it’s winter in Oz. And even in Australia it still gets cold. Especially if you’re at a higher elevation. It froze that night. Being good Canadians, we all had toques (or beanies if you’re an Aussie), but Glen and I lacked mittens. We bought some at the first place we came to. The next two nights we ended up at a different caravan park, but this time in a little cabin we rented. Turned out the cabin was a mere $20/night more than simply parking our van and trying to sleep and cook in below zero temperatures, so for comfort’s sake-mostly my own-we got the cabin. And it had heaters in it, so it was-please excuse the expression-the cat’s ass.

Glen still somehow had a bum knee from the half marathon at the beginning of the month, so for the most part he either sat in the van and read his book, or wandered around whilst Slacker and I hiked. The first day we were there we hiked out to the Three Sisters, which is a rock formation in Katoomba. From there we descended the Great Staircase, which had something like 900 very steep steps, so we were glad we decided to go down instead of up. Then we hiked along the cliff base to the boardwalks at Scenic World. Roughly translated, Scenic World translates as “Japanese tourist trap”, and it has something like a mile of boardwalks through the rainforest that, despite our best efforts, Slacker and I couldn’t figure out the reason for building. But getting up from the cliff base at scenic world was fun. They have the steepest railway in the world there. It literally goes straight down the cliff. We rode it up, because the one-way ride was way cheaper than the two way ride, and it allowed us to hike down but not have to go back up. It’s a pretty weird experience, going straight up a cliff with no safety belt on. Glen met us at the bottom and said the rail is only set at 52 degrees, but when you’re riding it feels damn near a 90 degree vertical.

Slacker and I also hiked down to Victoria Falls, which was a lot farther off the beaten path than the previous day’s hike. It started like any other hike in the Blue Mountains, by going straight down into the valley. Down in a big way. Only this one we knew we’d have to come back up. At the bottom we found the cascades, which at first we thought were the actual falls. But after checking them out, we decided to keep going a bit farther and found the actual falls themselves. The Australians really know how to build a waterfall, I’ll admit. Most of them come off cliff overhangs, so it’s free-falling and a lot prettier than if it flows down a slightly sloping cliff. But I suppose it’s easier to get a cliff overhang if you’ve got a cliff to start with, and they’ve got those in abundance. The nice thing about Victoria Falls was the complete lack of other tourists. We were the only ones there, so we got that wonderful feeling of isolation and discovery you get when you hike into remoter areas. From there we visited the info center and Govett’s Leap, which has another amazing and this time incredibly tall waterfall.

Our last hike was the day we left, and this one Glen actually came along for. We hiked over Wentworth Falls and down some steps that had been carved into the cliff opposite over 100 years ago. Yes, they were steep. Very steep. And given that they were cut into a cliff gave you that feeling of being right out on the edge. Well, because you were right out on the edge. The edge of the cliff. It was hard to get a really good view of the falls from anywhere, but the little glimpses we got of it were pretty much good enough. On the way back to the van we hiked along the undercliff trail, which is basically just what it’s called, a trail under the cliff. It followed along underneath a lot of rock overhangs and near the bottom of the sheer cliff of the valley, then back up and into the parking lot. It was a fairly quick and easy hike but worth it, I think.

From there we weren’t really sure where we wanted to go. Slacker, however, was very insistent that she needed to see the ocean, so we decided to head for the sea. We pretty much decided where to go once we were actually in the van, and heading east towards the coast again. We wanted something right on the beach if we could get it, and it ended up being a caravan park in a city called The Entrance (honestly, I’m not making this stuff up), just north of Sydney. It really was right on the beach. Sortof. It was right on the edge of a lake that was literally attached to the ocean. So technically it was a beach, just not an ocean beach. But the ocean was within walking distance. So we all went over there, and in regular Sara style, the shoes came off as quickly as possible. The water was surprisingly warm given how far south we were, actually. Slacker and I also managed to get the bottoms of our pants wet, ‘cause the waves came in a little more powerfully than expected every now and again.

That night Glen and Slacker set about to polish off as much of our food as they could, because this was to be the last night in our beloved Hippie Camper. ‘Twas a sad night, indeed. They did a pretty good job of it, too. There was still some stuff left, but we took that into the hostel and left it on the free food shelf. The next day we dropped all our stuff off at the hostel and managed to get the campervan back on time. You’ll all be pleased to note that we miraculously managed to not accrue any additional charges, despite picking up a few new widow chips along our one month journey. It was hard to leave our lovely van in that sad, empty lot, but all good things must come to an end, I believe.

Back at the hostel, Slacker did her best to find us a seafood restaurant to eat at, but when we went looking for it we couldn’t find it. So instead we ended up with pizza and kebabs. Ahh, one last kebab. I shall likely spend the rest of my days searching for a kebab place in Vancouver with a taste comparable.

The next morning it was on the train and off to the airport for the flight home. And there’s a saga that goes with that, but I’ll save that little morsel for now, since I’m guessing your eyes are getting tired of reading by now.