Some of the Company ( 3 of us...Suzanne, Robyn & Meg) were flying on to Perth a day early, so....confident with the plan, we headed up to the 6th floor of the carpark with our 10 bags (ranging in size from reasonable handbag to gigantic 24 kilo suitcase) in plenty of time to drive calmly to the airport, get petrol (from a Shell or Caltex station only!) return the hire car & check in for the flight.
So far, so good.
We had, of course, checked out and surrendered our Hotel keys, so getting INTO the carpark proved to be our first hurdle, as there was a locked door between us and the presumably waiting white station wagon - whose key I (Suzanne) was re-assuringly holding in my well organized handbag.
The door to the carpark would not open without a hotel key, so we found a helpful Asian hotel employee with enough English skills to understand our predicament, and he tried to open the door with his pass-key.
No good.
He then kindly went off to find a key that would work, as the precious minutes began to tick away.
Suddenly, the door to the highly desirable car-park opened (other hotel guests...hooray!) and we rushed frantically through the now opened door with enormous difficulty (the excessive luggage....) relieved to have successfully completed stage 1.
Dan, (our marvellous Tour Manager and Wise Group Leader) had told me the car key was for the WHITE station wagon. The car in front of us was silver. We pressed the beeper optimistically, but no sign of life, and no sign of a white car either.
We three and our ten bags headed over to the car-park lifts and pressed the button.
One minute, two minutes...three....no lift. Not working.
OK, now we were actually trapped on level 6 - no car, 10 bags, no key back into hotel, no working lift and the aforementioned precious minutes were REALLY whizzing by.
It was at this point that I began to lose my deep sense of calm. I was, in fact, a sweaty panicked wreck trapped like a rat in an unbelievably hot high rise car-park with a plane waiting at the airport about to take off without me.
I called Dan, who we later learnt was in the shower, so no joy there. Robyn & Meg began searching for the white car, and Robyn, peering though the decorative metal "walls" finally located it on the street way below outside the hotel.
More calls to Dan, with eventual success, and he said he would come up & rescue us.
Just then another hapless hotel guest emerged through the door, and once again we and our 10 bags/suitcases leapt upon them & struggled back towards the hotel lift, which opened to reveal freshly showered Dan holding the key to the silver car which was actually in the car-park.
Joy!
We loaded the 10 bags and ourselves, and with me driving, finally we were off to the airport.
B-R-E-A-T-H-E.
We estimated there was just enough time to make the check-in deadline, but certainly no time to go searching for the chosen petrol station, but we felt there was bound to be ONE of them on the drive to the airport.
We passed three BPs and 2 or 3 United.
Finally, at the last turn to the airport we saw a Caltex! Much relief in the car as I swerved skillfully across 3 lanes & pulled in to the petrol pumps to read the signs that alerted us to the fact that they had been hit by lightning and were not working.
Right. There would be no refilling for Avis.
Driving down the final approach with palpable anticipation, I dropped Robyn & Meg and nine of our bags at the door to check-in while I parked the hire car & returned the key.
When I met them again at the check-in counter, they were vaguely hysterical, after dealing with a deeply wonky luggage cart, and destroying most of the bollards in the baggage area.
I'll let one of them fill in the details....
One minute after we left with our seat allocation, we heard the call that the flight was closed for luggage.
Close....too close for a control freak.
Then, just to finish this fiasco appropriately, Robyn & I were relaxing in the cafe with a cool drink, Meg was in the toilet, and we hear our individual names called for final boarding!
Yet ANOTHER frantic dash, albeit with less luggage, onto the actual plane.
Thank God! We finally relaxed into our seats for what turned out to be a perfect flight (apart from the fat people which I won't go into at this stage.)
Signing off for now,
Suzanne
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