Friday, 16 November 2012
It seemed one moment I was pondering whether sleep was actually possible and the next I was having my arm gently shaken with inquiries about coffee and breakfast.
Three-thirty in the morning when you're passing over New Guinea mightn't be the optimal time for breakfast, but when it's on offer and you're not sure about the arrangements that were going to come into play later you tend to accept, and once you have, it's over to the iPad for a bit of a read.
What I should have done was reach for the iPod and a soothing soundtrack as well and some of what followed might have been averted.
As it was, I didn't, remaining blissfully unaware of the fact that I was sitting on the item in question and the little package holding the earbuds had wedged itself into the crack between the seat and its upright brother.
I'm not sure why I didn't go for that, possibly because deep down I knew I wouldn't have long before the Seat-belts sign came up along with the request to turn off the electronic devices, but as far as I was concerned the iPod was safely stowed in Madam's hand luggage (the Little Red Travelling bag) rather than my backpack, which was lurking overhead in the locker.
It was when we stood up to disembark that a question regarding the location of the device brought a No, and a subsequent investigation revealed where it was. I don't know why I didn't check for the ear buds as well, but there you go. I'm not sure how much of what followed could have been avoided if I had, but there you go.
We'd disembarked and were heading towards Immigration when the penny dropped, and since we weren't allowed to head back I had to wait for the cabin crew to finish doing their thing after a message was passed back. As it turned out the search was successful, but I didn't realize that was the case until they'd walked past and I doubled back to the checkpoint where I found the item in question. In any case, that got us to Immigration where I discovered that incoming couples with one Australian passport holder could go through the same checkpoint, which would have been handy, and would have delivered us to the head of the Customs queue if the iPod incident hadn't occurred.
I was fairly flustered by the whole string of events to date, and when the bloke from Customs scrutinized the relevant slips and asked whether we were carrying foodstuffs, I reflexively answered that we weren't, when I should have said I wasn't. Madam, of course, was, and pointed out that she did, and we were motioned over to the having your bags inspected queue.
Again, I don't know what difference it would have made, because when filling out the Customs slip I ticked the box about having been out in the countryside over the preceding week, which we had been. Madam hadn't, so regardless of my answer about the foodstuffs we might have ended up in the queue anyway.
Without the earbud bit, of course, we would have been at the top of the queue, so when the phone rang and the Ukulele Lady asked whether we were through Immigration, the response was that we were in a queue and weren't sure how long we'd be there because there were a few people in front of us and no one seemed to be in a hurry.
Eventually, however, we got the all clear and made our way to the front of the building, where a lengthy wait ensued. Under other circumstances, when the call came we'd have been just about through the reentry process and would probably have been told the Ukulele Lady would be right over.
Still, it was early in the morning, so when Ukulele Lady and Sushi Chef Husband arrived in two cars and offered to show us the quickest way out of town there wasn't a great deal of traffic about, and we made our way onto the Bruce Highway without too much difficulty.
And here's where the little things started to add up.
The first issue involved the sunglasses that are de rigeur when driving in bright sunlight. They were in Madam's luggage, and we needed to pull over somewhere so they could be retrieved. That took place in a rest area on the banks of the Mulgrave, where we could also have had a toilet break, but, as in so many other instances through the course of the morning the penny refused to drop.
As we neared Innisfail two things were obvious.
First, we needed something more substantial than croissants and coffee for breakfast. Fine. On the other side of Innisfail there's a rather good bakery at Mourilyan where the pies are excellent.
Second, it was obvious that Madam needed to take a break and catch up on some sleep. She's remarked on the difference between Economy and Business the night before while we'd been waiting for dinner, remarking that she'd probably already be asleep if we were sitting further back. Of course, had we been sitting further back we wouldn't have had the three-thirty wake up call.
Still, we made it to the Bakery, and when an inquiry about rest areas nearby proved unsuccessful I asked about Etty Bay, which produced an answer along the lines of yes, you could go there. Lovely spot.
And it was. Unfortunately it's a lovely spot without toilet facilities, so once we'd demolished breakfast there was an issue that needed to be addressed.We needed sleep, but someone needed the facilities, and until that came the sleep bit wasn't going to happen.
What did come, however, was a cassowary, something that produced a bit of an adrenaline rush while the attempt to obtain photographic evidence was made.
We'd been told Etty Bay was a pretty sure bet when it came to cassowary sightings on the Cooktown trip earlier in the year, and here, in the course of a twenty-minute stay, was the verification.
In any case we were heading back towards the Highway shortly thereafter, and the Sugar Museum at Mourilyan delivered the comfort stop, so we headed off in search of rest areas.
There aren't any between Mourilyan and Tully, but I figured we'd be able to turn off there and find a shady spot. One possibly exists, but it wasn't anywhere we looked.
Back onto the highway…
There was, however, a rest area midway between Tully and Cardwell, and an hour's stop there was a significant battery recharger.
After that, we passed through Cardwell, where extensive post-Yasi roadwork nudged stopping into the too hard basket, and over the Cardwell Range, where we ran through the massive realignment of the highway very smoothly and on to Ingham.
By this point I was thinking we'd be making our way home rest area by rest area, but Madam wasn't needing a break at Francis Creek, so we continued on. By the time we'd reached Rollingstone she reckoned she did, but local knowledge from Hughesy's teenage years meant I could point us to Bluewater, where the shady spot was found and a good hour's break ensued.
We could, I guess, have passed through Townsville, stopping to pick up a resupply of cat tucker at The Domain, but opted instead to turn off at Shaw's Road and take the Ring Road, which immediately became the default option when a stop in Townsville on the way to or from points further north wasn't required.
From there, two and a bit hours got us safely to Bowen, where we weren't too concerned by the presence of two out of three furry felines since the other was fond of nearby drains and would probably be back around supper time.
That theory was shot down in flames shortly thereafter when the neighbour with whom we share the cat quotient and had been feeding them while we were away arrived to let us know that TeeTee was missing, had been for close to a fortnight, and had apparently (aural evidence only, nothing physical) been involved in a disagreement with a wandering dog.
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