Day 1: Brisbane > Melbourne

It seems that I am not very smart. Now I know that will come as a shock to those of you who think that I’m one of the smartest people you know.

Hey, some of you may think that I’m THE smartest person that you know. So this news may be distressing.

Sorry about that. I really am as dumb as a box of rocks.

Let me start at the start though.

The day started by being rudely awakened by MBW shaking me quite harshly at 2.30am. It seems that she had heard the alarm and been up and had a shower already, so she decided that it was my turn to get up.

So up, showered, and downstairs for a quick cold press coffee and Zach loaded us into his trusty steed to take us and our luggage to the airport. Today is the day that we fly to Melbourne to start our adventure – 2 days in Melbourne followed by 13 nights on a cruise to NZ.

Several weeks ago it seemed like a really good, prudent idea to book the 5.15am flight from Brisbane to Melbourne because it was cheap(er than later flights).

You know that there is something wrong though when the coffee shop at the airport isn’t open yet because it is not yet 4.00am 🙁

But we had coffee, and sat around at the airport gate until our flight was called. Row 17 meant that we had to go down the stairs and across the tarmac to the back entrance of the plane like the hired help.

We squeezed ourselves into 17A and 17B – knees jammed up against the seat in front and elbows firmly wedged by our sides. I’m certain that these plane seats are getting smaller!

Push back, take off, wheels up and before you knew it breakfast was being served. Orange juice and something hot and tasty, although I can’t be completely sure what it was. Ham and cheese and something with hollandaise sauce if I remember correctly.

Several things happened on the flight.

Firstly we were warned that ”smoking and vaping is always and never acceptable on the plane”. Always and never … that just left me confused.

What really impressed me was the lady sitting in front of me in 16C who was multi-tasking doing emails on her laptop while also watching a bunch of impossibly good-looking people on NCIS solve heinous crimes. That was a mystery to me, when I was just struggling to stay awake.

Flight QF605 to Melbourne was a … um, maybe a wide-bodied thing I think. Sorry, I’m not a plane guy 🙁

But it had WiFi. Not just “on the plane only” WiFi but full, high-speed internet access. How cool is that? I mean, I can’t get a decent internet connection on the train between Central and South Brisbane when I’m on my way home from work, but I can get full high-speed internet in a tin can, 8km above the surface of the Earth!

How cool is THAT?

When I wasn’t spying on the lady in 16C, I was doing some research on interesting and unusual Spotify playlists. And when I say ”interesting and unusual”, I actually mean “disturbing”.

There was a bunch of playlists that feature airline boarding announcements and music.

Then there was a podcast about a plane crash.

But the most disturbing of all is a musical group – I assume that they are a musical group – called ”Airline Food”. I can only imagine that they call themselves that because they don’t look very appealing. Sorry AF 🙁

We landed in Melbourne on time, found our way to the baggage collection area, and waited a very long time for our suitcases to make an appearance on the carousel.

Finally with all of our luggage present and accounted for, we set off to find the shuttle bus to take us to collect our car at some mysterious, off-airport location.

This is where it gets interesting.

When I booked the car, I had the choice of a Hyundai Ascent (“compact” class) for – don’t quote me – $115 for 2 days, or a Toyota Corolla (‘intermediate” class) for $132 for two days.

An intermediate class car has to be more comfortable that a compact – better for all that luggage too – so that was the choice. Paid, booked, good to go.

When we arrived at ”Bargain Rental Cars” (that should have been the first clue BTW), the transaction went swimmingly until the Bargain lady handed me my keys and announced that I was getting a Hyundai Ascent.

That then resulted in a short but robust discussion where I pointed out that if I’d wanted a Hyundai Ascent then I would have booked one for less money than I’d actually paid, but I had ordered a Toyota. The Bargain Lady (TBL) pointed out that you “don’t order a type of car, you order a class of car” and that the Hyundai and the Toyota are in the same class. Besides that, the only Toyota Corollas that they have are hybrids, and they cost waaay more than I’d paid.

Let’s just say that some words were said relating to the car, the class, and how much I paid, and none of this was helped by the fact that I’d been so rudely awoken at 2.30am and I was tired and grumpy.

Long story short, but she assured me that the Hyundai that I was getting was actually an ”intermediate” class vehicle because it has some added features like ”bluetooth and a reversing camera”.

So we went to the car – a rather beaten up, sad looking car with “added features” – only to find that it didn’t actually have a reversing camera.

Me: “Can you show me where the reversing camera is please?”

TBL: ”Oh, that particular model doesn’t have a reversing camera.”

Me: ”But you told me it has added features as it is an intermediate class.”

TBL: ”Yes that’s correct. It has features like Bluetooth and Google Play built in.”

Me: ”Can you show me how to set up Google Play?”

TBL: ”Oh, that particulate model doesn’t have Google Play.”

Huh? I mean, HUH?

Let’s just say that more words were spoken, and they suddenly realised that they had a near-new, only 14,000km on the clock, bright and shiny Toyota Corolla that ”just came in”.

Woohoo.

Call me stupid, but a car with no alleged features isn’t in the same class as one that does have the features, so either that ”idiot” light on my forehead was particularly bright today, or I am genuinely missing something.

Anyhow, let’s just say that we got what we wanted all along.

We had booked an AirBNB on Beach Road South Melbourne for a couple of nights before we get on the cruise on Friday. Dawn, the lovely and very obliging AirBNB host allowed us to come in early, so we swung by and dropped off our bags, then went exploring.

We wanted to go into the city and decided (rather stupidly) to drive in and try to find somewhere to park that wouldn’t cost a kidney. We found a 1 hour meter in Little … Something Street, paid our $7 and went for a maximum 1 hour walk.

A bite of lunch, jumper on, umbrella out, umbrella away, jumper off again … we walked the streets just trying to orient ourselves and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the car.

I mean, the last thing that we want is a parking ticket as a souvenir of our trip to Melbourne so we needed to be back quickly and on time.

Little … Something Street. Argh! I remember once that my mother couldn’t find her car and how distressed she was – although that was one of the initial signs that she was losing her memory. But this was genuinely scary.

All the streets looked the same, nothing matched our recollection of where we had left the car and we were walking in circles. It was raining and cold, then hot and sunny, then cold and sunny … jumper on, jumper off.

By this time we were almost 15 minutes past our time limit and having visions of never finding the car again – ever – because it had been towed away.

But we found it in Little Bourke Street! Just where we left it and with no obvious signs of a parking ticket.

Next stop was the Queen Victoria Markets (closed on Wednesdays!) so we decided to do a trip out to St Kilda instead.

We found a Macca’s coffee shop and had coffee then headed down further towards St Kilda.

St Kilda is one weird place.

From the huge rat that ran across the road in front of us, to the lady dressed as a unicorn eating KFC. Then there was the guy sitting on the footpath smoking a joint.

And don’t even get me started on trams in the middle of the road and hook turns.

Seriously messed up.

Back to our AirBNB and a quick walk out to Princes Pier to get the lay of the land in preparation for getting on the cruise on Friday.

That 2.30am start is catching up with me and I can feel my ability to behave rationally quickly slipping away, so we need to have some dinner and let off some ZZZZs.

We had planned to get something nice for dinner, but frankly the lack of sleep and difficulty determining the correct combination of clothing, umbrellas, jumpers, and wet weather gear is wearing us out. Plus it is 7.30pm and still bright sunshine … no wonder the curtains are faded!

It all got too hard and we had some breakfast cereal and yoghurt for dinner, but will try harder tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be a drive down the Mornington Peninsula, so that should be a fun day. Getting a satisfactory amount of sleep beforehand will only make me a much more pleasant travelling companion too 🙂

TTFN

#G&KDoNZ2022