So I haven't posted anything in the last 48 hours because the last 36 were full of travel hell. We were delayed SIX hours out of Uluru because of some dumb thing, then were told we'd be rerouted to Alice Springs and that we'd have to stay the night there. Thankfully, Andrew figured out that we could jump on a flight from Uluru to Cairns that afternoon, which would get us to a larger airport with more options for flights to Melbourne. The flight was scheduled to be non-stop, however, when we got on the plane, we were told we'd be stopping through Alice Springs to drop off all the people on our original flight. Unfortunately, that meant we missed the last connection to Melbourne that night from Cairns, so Qantas put us up in a hotel in Cairns. We landed in Cairns around 9 p.m. and then tried to figure out what flight we could get on as early as possible the next day to Melbourne, but were told the only Qantas direct flight left at 12:30 p.m. and didn't get in until almost 4 p.m. Because we had such a short time in Melbourne, we looked into our options while we waited another 20 minutes for our shuttle to our hotel. Andrew, again, found a way to get to Melbourne earlier than the 12:30 flight Qantas rerouted us on - through Jetstar, which is a sister airline to Qantas - so we booked it, hoping we could convince Qantas to reimburse us later!
That night, upon arriving at our prebooked hotel, we found the Sizzler-esq hotel restaurant to have dinner (which was covered by Qantas). The meal was actually surprisingly good, based on the looks of the place. The morning brought the next hurdle: Check into the Jetstar flight and simultaneously convince Qantas to refund us for it, and cancel the 12:30 p.m. flight they originally put us on. Of course, we got basically nowhere. We were given customer service business cards and were told to write them a letter explaining the situation so we could hopefully be reimbursed. We'll see.
Anyhow, as soon as we got to the gate to board our earlier Jetstar flight, we were notified it was delayed!!! With heavy hearts, we waited. We had already missed an afternoon and night in Melbourne and we didn't want to miss anymore. Thankfully, we boarded only about 10 minutes late, however, upon our arrival in Melbourne, we were told our baggage would be delayed coming out on the carousel. SERIOUSLY? We all felt like this city didn't want us here! I felt like the minutes were ticking by so quickly and was so sad we were missing these precious moments in the city we were most interested in seeing! Finally, after about 30 minutes, the baggage came out and we caught a cab and were on our way to the hotel…until the cab driver took a wrong turn and got lost, costing us more precious time. We were all at the end of our rope, but we finally arrived at the hotel a little before 3:30 p.m. No joke, we spent 36 hours trying to get to Melbourne.
So, here we are and it's an AMAZING city. So sad that we missed the time here, but we've got a little over a day and a half and we're going to spend it pounding the pavement. We grabbed a quick snack in CBD (city business district) and then shopped around a bit and headed to an early dinner at Dainty Sichuan; so yummy.
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| Quick snack in a cool ally-way |
On the walk around the city, we found several ally-ways covered in spray paint, which is something the city is known for:
Dinner, mmmmm:
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| Sichuan fish at Dainty Sichuan |
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| Crazy spicy chicken |
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| Sunset view from our hotel balcony |
Once back at the hotel, we all had a couple drinks and are headed to bed so we can get up early to enjoy our last day in Melbourne tomorrow. We can't wait to see what else this great city has in store for us. Cheers.
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| We love you already, Melbourne! |
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