G’Day Mate

Our daughter recently moved to Australia and we miss her terribly. So…..we took the plunge and arranged a trip “down under.” At first glance, it seemed simple enough. After all, it’s a Commonwealth country, and they speak English. Perfect! What could possibly go wrong? Uh…apparently, quite a bit. (cue the scary music)😉

The Good, The Sort of Bad and The Ugly

We like to think we are seasoned travelers so we take a very methodical approach to planning our travel adventures. Of course task number one was confirming our dates with our daughter and booking flights. Done! So far so good. (Because we wanted to spend as much time as possible with our daughter, we planned for 20 days.) Did I mention that we are Seniors? In our world, 20 days is a looong time. Not to worry. We can do this! And we’re off…..

The Good

Let’s start right off the top with “The Good.”

The weather was lovely and sunny. Technically it was their late Fall, so we were expecting cooler weather.
Our hotel was minutes away from our daughter’s place and in a funky neighborhood with lots of interesting shops and restaurants.
We explored the southwest coast of Australia (The Great Ocean Road), saw some gorgeous scenery and learned a lot about the country.
Yes, we saw both Koala bears and kangaroos.
Our time spent with our daughter and her partner was wonderful. They were great hosts and conversation was easy and funny. Lots of laughter!
Most importantly, our daughter is very happy.

The Sort of Bad

Australia is several hours ahead of us. We left on May 1st and arrived on May 3rd. Not particularly a big deal, except that it was difficult to time my medications and I often forgot them altogether.The time difference also provided considerable jet lag. After landing, we didn’t surface for almost 12 hours and even then we weren’t our usual convivial selves

This is more of a challenge than a “sort of bad.” I wear hearing aids, and our daughter’s partner speaks quite quickly with what I would characterize as a strong Australian accent, which sets the stage for a perfect storm of misunderstanding. I often had to ask him to repeat things and/or pretend that I understood what he was saying. We slowly navigated the “gap” and by the end of our trip I was able to understand most of what he said. Whew!

Because we would be moving around a lot, we decided to take only carry on suitcases. (Remember we were gone for 20 days, and yes, I was worried about packing enough underwear!) In the end it was only sort of bad, but twice in lineups I had to be reminded by the people behind me that as I moved forward in the line, I might want to take my suitcase with me. This was mildly embarrassing. And the underwear issue? Well, fortunately we were able to access laundry facilities so it wasn’t an issue at all.😌

The Ugly

Thankfully, this list is rather short but that in no way diminishes the horror. (Okay, perhaps I exaggerate, but at the time, it was devastating.)

As we passed through an airport security checkpoint, I placed my passport face down on the scanner and it promptly sucked it in. Okay, no big deal. Except that the scanner wouldn’t regurgitate it, instead making a loud whirring noise, which of course drew the attention of everyone else in line, and security personnel, who quickly attended. The reason it was stuck? My Nexus card was clipped to the back of my passport and the clip wouldn’t allow the machine to release it. After what seemed like an eternity with a lot of gentle tugging and ultimately dismantling the machine, (yes, they actually took the machine apart!) I finally got my passport back. It was a little worse for the wear, but thankfully, still intact. This was very embarrassing.

Perhaps the most vivid memory which will likely resonate with me for a while, is the turbulence we encountered on our flight over. Our flying time was approximately 13 hours and I am convinced that we endured 12 hours of horrendous movement that I likened to bobbing up and down in a boat during a nasty storm. It was “turbulence hell.” I am not exaggerating when I say “I thought we were all going to die.” According to my husband, he slept through the whole thing….Whaaat?

And the final indignity? Hubby’s cell phone roaming charges were sky high, and even though we took great pains to turn our roaming off, and relentlessly searched for wifi wherever we went, our provider wasn’t the least bit interested in making any accommodation. Repeated requests to speak to a supervisor were deflected, which was beyond annoying. We are still debating whether or not we will continue to pursue this issue. Stay tuned. This could get interesting.

In retrospect, the Good far out weighed both the Sort of Bad and the Ugly. We learned a lot, and we got to spend time with our daughter. We plan to return in six months and I have no doubt that our next trip will go very smoothly. Well, fingers crossed! Until then, I will sign off with a cheery “G’day Mate.”