business or pleasure?

I went to Queensland for work last week. Raise your hand if you think travelling for work is fun? Guess what? You are wrong. It may seem fun, but it is so not. Unless said "work" includes sitting on the beach or getting a massage... there is nothing fun about it. Case in point, my trip to Queensland last week. I went to Noosa, a town that is known for it's beautiful beaches, lovely shops, nice restaurants, and tropical feel. Want to see what it looked like? Like this:



Only it was darker. With more rain. In fact, with about 400mm more rain, to be precise. That is SIXTEEN inches, for those of you in the Imperial world. Say it with me folks - holy crap!

While I had a lovely time training our fine folks in the Noosa office, the fun really started once I went to the airport to try and go home. On a Friday night. On the last flight out of town. (And for some fun irony, it was the Sunshine Coast airport. Snort.)

Apparently the runway at the Sunshine Coast airport is too short, causing real problems in rainy weather. And boy oh boy, was it ever raining! Like a bloody monsoon, I tell you. So - about 3 hours after we were supposed to leave, they announced that we would not in fact, be leaving on a plane that evening. But - never fear - they kindly offered to bus all 160 of us to Brisbane that evening, allowing us to try and get a flight home the next day. However, the buses would not arrive until nearly 10:30pm, and they couldn't exactly guarantee we would get a flight the next day. But - the alternative was sleeping on the floor in the airport, so we all got on the bus.

I'd like to go on record and truly thank Jetstar for that lovely experience. Taking a 2 hour bus ride in the middle of the night while getting soaked by leaky windows and kicked repeatedly by some annoying kid next to me was totally on my bucket list. And now I can happily cross it off.

After about 5 hours sleep at a (thankfully) fairly decent hotel, we were herded back onto the bus and returned to the Brisbane airport... where we waited for a plane. I arrived home about 22 hours after originally getting to the airport. Losing most of my weekend in the process.

I am truly looking forward to flying back to Brisbane next week. I think they are calling for rain.