Bye Bye Australia

(written by Brian, edited by Kat)
Waking with a start from my 3rd dream of over sleeping and missing our flight, I look at my watch and see that I still have 45 minutes before the 1st alarm of 3:15 am, goes off. Paranoid, we have set 3 different alarms, fully testing each a couple of times. Fat chance of falling back to sleep now.
Our task for today was to be at the airport 2-3 hours before our Virgin flight to Thailand left. V Australia is a bloodhound at finding ways of extra charging you, and checking later than 2 hours before a flight will get you barred.
Things were looking good, as we had spent the previous day sorting and sifting down our camper van of equipment to something we could carry. Kat had cooked up a huge dinner using all the leftover food the night before and were fully travel ready at 3:40 am. 20 minutes to travel and a 7:00 am flight, we were over coming the dreams.
Every airport in the world has some kind of construction going on that involves moving important directional signs, and Brisbane was right up there, so when we pulled up to the International Terminal at 4:05 am without an error we were stoked. A feeling that was not to last...
Kat standing on the curb outside the international terminal and screaming at me while I’m in the long term parking garage about 500m away, wasn’t a good sign. Sorting through the reasons I could hear her voice from so faraway made me realize she wasn’t in trouble, we were. Our international flight was leaving out of the domestic terminal and there was nothing open to provide the ride over. Rushing back to the van I could fell the dreams creeping closer. Trying to start the van, I broke the accelerator cable. With the tools handy and the parking structure lights, it was a quick fix. Cursing the luck I fumbled for coins at the prepaid both and lurched out into the airport maze without my co driver and sign reader. Kat, standing on the curb, heard the noisy van pass one roadway below her as I had blown a turn and was at arrivals. On the next lap, the cable fell free again. This time, in the pitch dark, the repair took much longer. Kat saw the van appear at 4:39 and chucked the luggage while hopping in as we gentle roared off, dreams right on our heels. Like an ant at a picnic we somehow found the terminal in short order. Kat again ejects out ahead to the line while I try to park amidst the construction. Jogging the ¼ mile from parking, I was feeling good about over coming the event and my pace of stride. It was at the terminal that it dawn on me that I had forgotten my day bag with ID and computer, and now had to sprint back for it. I arrived at the terminal just as Kat was walking up to the counter and we were most gracefully checked in at 4:59. With 2 hours to kill we recounted the things that had been forgotten, like pre-cooked breakfast and universal power adapter. Good thing we had some leftover AUS dollars ‘cuz airport prices are rock bottom! Not.
It is with great joy that we arrive in Melbourne a few minutes early. We can have a sit down “breakky” and relax until our next flight. Having just out run the dreams, I still had a quick pace in the airport to our next check-in. Luck would have it that we needed every spare minute. Dear old Virgin Australia raised her ugly head and cast us away from check in because we had no proof of a Thailand departure. US residents don’t need to provide evidence of return flight in Thailand, but Commonwealth (British affiliates) residents do, so we had to jump online and book a quick flight to Malaysia. Of course it’s not as quick, as immigration info must be filled out. The counter people knew what we were up against, as they put us in this spot. Concurrently, we were being paged over the airport by the same person who denied us our boarding passes. Yeah, not funny. We finished booking a throw away flight and took a digital picture of the conformation. Presenting the new info at the desk we were now informed that our luggage, previously checked in, was over weight and we must pay $ 10/lbs. Of course you must pay the cashier/supervisor, not the gate agent helping you. The line was empty behind us, but 3 people were on the phone ordering paging instructions and gate holds instead of helping us. Our flight was to board at 10:00 am. We left the desk hearing our names being paged and still having to check out of Australia at 10:05 am. After proving we weren’t Koala smugglers, we ran up the terminal, hoping to make the flight. The overwhelming stench of perfume blocked our patch as we stumbled into the duty free section that was a house of mirrors. It turns out the V Australia announces early boarding time so you can $pend some time in the duty free maze and not be late to the plane. Following the tiled signs like the yellow brick road, we escaped from the maze with only a couple of $8 sandwiches for damage, and arrived at the gate to see everyone sitting around bored senseless as the plane was being delayed until 11:20 am. Our helpful agents had released our seats on the window and stuck us in the back without our veggie meal requests, while not informing us of the plane's delay. On arrive to Thailand immigration told us that US citizen need only a passport to stay 30 days. Nothing more.
THANK YOU VIRGIN AUSTRALIA.
Bye bye!