Looking out my backdoor

Just got back from Illinois, left the front door open, oh boy...

We're home. And safe.

Update: So our trip home was.... interesting.

We arrived at O'Hare at about 10am and checked in with the Qantas partner in that part of the world, just some "American airline". Check-in amazingly took over an hour as the lady booked our seats, unbooked them, printed boarding passes, ripped them up, and started over again several times. The worst part of this was for the 3 flights OHA->LAX, LAX->MEL and MEL->ADL she split up the seats so the four members of our family weren't sitting together.

Not a huge problem until you realise we have 2 children under 4 years of age.

So getting through security went ok, and saying goodbye to Heather who had met us at the gate, we boarded the aircraft for our 1pm flight. S convinced a gentleman to give up his seat so the 4 of us could sit together, which was very nice of him.

Flight went well, with the kids did very well on flight #1. Arriving in Los Angeles meant we had an 8 hour stopover, since the booking system I had to use wouldn't let me choose more sensible flights. If you haven't been there, the international terminal at LAX, the Tom Bradley, has got to be one of the most boring terminals on the planet. No place for a family of 4 to spent 8 hours waiting for a flight.

We went to see the Qantas counter about the poor seat choices and they were wonderful. Honestly, given a choice I'll never fly international with anyone else. They fixed our seat allocations for the next 2 flights and apologised for their partner carrier's ineptness. Thanks Qantas.

Finally boarding QF094 bound for Melbourne, we had a long 15.5 hour flight ahead of us. With 2 small kids that's a long flight. The 747-400 had a small mechanical problem with 1 of the 16 wheel brakes reporting a fault, meaning we had to detour for repairs. This was because Melbourne airport is undergoing improvements to handle the new A380 aircraft joining the fleet soon. But this meant the remaining runway wasn't long enough for us to land on with one brake out of action.

So landing in Sydney was our fate. Unfortunately Qantas left us in the aircraft for about an hour while the brake was replaced. Normally not a problem, but quite tiring after being in the air for 14 or so hours already. Especially with no refreshmeants left. The air hostess was very kind in lending us her mobile phone so we could inform friends and family waiting for us at the airport that there would be a delay in our arrival.

Leaving Sydney we soon resumed our trek and arrived in Melbourne, albeit thoroughly sick of airports and planes by this stage. Local Qantas staff there were unhelpful with luggage, causing a slight ruckass with our heavy suitcases that had been accepted at O'Hare. The detour to Sydney meant we missed our connecting flight, and the need to go through security and check luggage again meant we missed a few more flight opportunities. Finally we boarded our last flight, arriving in Adelaide 2.5 hours later than expected. Glad to be home.

| 08 Apr 2005 | #