We're up quite early to prepare for the day: busy in parts (a curate's day, perhaps?). There's a funny smell in the room. First thoughts are that it's the wine stain or tea towel but it could be us. After travelling for a while you have to accept the odd funny smell as just par for the course. Ignoring the smell, then, we get on with the task of packing (my packing last night was to put everything on the floor). At least Helen does, I spend most of my time doing nothing. I like to think I was engaging my intellect on the space-incompressibility problem although I was probably hoping my possessions might get bored and make their own way in [to my bags]. Finally we made our way downstairs to receive a firm No!
and a view of a full locker room on enquiring about baggage facilities. Hmm. A trudge down to the Transit Centre to use their AU$6 facilities.
We bought a "South East Asia on a Shoestring" (the original Lonely Planet book) on the way back before heading off in search of a car wash en route to dropping off the car. Not only did we choose a 10km stretch of road with [only] two petrol stations on it [and extensive very slow roadworks] but neither had a car wash. We found one eventually and made our way back into the labyrinthine one way system of central Brisbane. No hint of a check on the car, just sent off with copies of the tax invoice in case we can claim the GST (equivalent of VAT) back at the airport.
We picked up our forwarded mail [real physical mail!] and settled down to a lazy afternoon, spent mostly tinkering on the Internet (I wonder how many people other than Alex Ferguson could get away with hoofing a football boot across the dressing room and giving the England captain a couple of stitches over his eye?) and posting a couple of things (1.5kg FedEx to London for AU$120, 2.5kg Australia Post to Sydney for AU$9).
Eventually we waddled back to the Transit Centre and took the train to the Australian Airport of the Year (hmm [I thought it smelt of urine]) and made what we could of the few facilities available. It's very irritating to reach the departure gate [shops side!] in good time to see the eaterie inaccessible upstairs. We popped into the Tourist Refund Service where the car rental was dismissed out of hand (a consumed service) and the dive computers were just bad luck. Double taxed. We did glean however that they use a year cut-off for the import GST in 3 month 25% segments. Apparently it takes a year's ownership to demonstrate you've used something and [therefore] it needn't be taxed on import.
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.