23rd Jan
Well I’m here safe and sound. I’ll write this post entirely in NSW time so that all you eastern-coasters.
Monday the 23rd of January, Dad woke me up at 4:30am. I was already partly awake owing to the dogs we were looking after to friends so I jumped up quickly and was only slightly wobbly as I climbed into my thongs.
Once up at the ‘house’ (we live in a caravan) I got dressed and crammed the last few items into my bulging suitcase and then took it all to the door. I was feeling like I was going to be a bit burdened with carry on luggage as I was planning to take my violin, my backpack, MY camera, and EMC’s video camera all on board as hand luggage. Mum said I would look like a Japanese tourist!
I said goodbye to Mum and Dave and Dad and I loaded my gear into the car. By 4:45 I think, we were on our way to the airport.
We got to Port Macquarie airport in plenty of time. In fact, we were there before anyone was at the check-in desks inside and so seeing that we had a few moments to spare (or a few more then a few), Dad helped me put the video camera inside my suitcase so that I had one less item to carry on board. The airport staff soon arrived and I went to put my baggage through. The man was really nice and he asked me about my violin and said that it really needed to go in my checked on luggage. I was a bit hesitant but he assured me that he would ask for it to be top-loaded and he put a bunch of fragile stickers on it. And sure enough, it got to Perth safely and still in tune!
One my luggage was gone, Dad and I had nearly an hour to wait until I could board. Finally the boarding call came over the loud speaker and I said goodbye to Dad and walked through… without having to go through security! I guess the security staff had slept in or something!
So it was straight out onto the tar-mac, up the stairs and into the plane for me and… I only had my backpack and my camera case as carry on luggage! YAY!
The flight to Sydney was uneventful, the fed us a ‘light refreshment’ for breaky and then we pretty much landed. Now came my exercise for the day. I had to get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 in the Sydney airport. It wasn’t too bad… it just required good sign following skills and a bit of a walk. It probably took me 10 mins max. Here I had to go through security but that was no hassles for which I was thankful for. It’s a pain going through security with a computer, a camera and a hat. They make the computer go in a separate tray and the hat and the camera and the backpack all go separately too.
Once I worked out which gate I was departing from and found it, I was just about to go and check out the shops, just wander around for a while when I turned on my laptop and discovered that the lovely airport people had provided me with free wireless broadband! Now thats kind people for you!
Out the window went my shopping idea, I spent the whole two and a half hours chatting to friends and downloading updates for my MacBook Pro.
The time went quickly and the lounge filled up and then they were calling for passengers for Qantas flight 518 to board. I presented my boarding pass and then walked down the air passage in my Akubra and Blunstone boots to seat 55K.
We arrived in Perth at 2:50pm after a delicious vegan lunch of lentil stew and risotto as well as some stuff that I had brought from home. I wandered out into the terminal and wandered towards the baggage collection point, keeping an eye out all the while for a black Akubra Bronco belonging to my friend Ely.
Finally, I saw Ely, Rachael and Little Emily heading my way and waving. Of course I waved back and hugged them all and then we headed over to the baggage area. We sent a text to Uncle Kel that we were ‘ready’ and then we waited and waited and waited. The bags were so slow in coming out. And mine was nearly last as usual!
At last we got my suitcase and violin and we were off to find Uncle Kel. We soon spotted him in Ely’s little silver Ford and we crammed my luggage in on top of Rachael’s bags and Ely’s lap. Then we drove off to find a little park to have lunch in!
So for my third meal of the day at about 4:00pm we had sandwiches spread with a spoon and eaten off container lids. Then we dropped Rachael off at her brother’s place and began the drive home, well to Bussleton anyway.
When we got to the SDA camp-ground on the coast, Ely, Emy and I headed down to the beach for some exercise. On the way we met Aunty Nic and Cabe and said hello to them and then continued on our walk. A few hours later at about 8:30, I had my fourth meal of the day! Baked potatoes! Don’t laugh! They were good!
El and I didn’t go to sleep early. It was probably nearly 1am NSW time by the time we finally fell asleep but we had caught up and had looked at the Do and Dare pics together.
24th Jan
We started our recording process this morning. The first song we did was “Wonderful Peace”, the simplest of them all! We just did it A Capella with some harmony and some solos and that was it. Next we did “Open My Eyes” which was a little more difficult because the harmony was really hard to get. Third was “Create in Me A Clean Heart”, in which we added a violin duet and some violin harmony towards the end. Lastly for today we did “Faith Melody”, arranged by Ely from two lovely songs. For this one we were brave enough to use the guitar and once we figured out how to do it, it sounded lovely!
In the afternoon, we all went down to Yallingup and did the Yallingup Maze. That was fun but a bit too expensive.
Then we went to a gorgeous little beach with some adorable rocks and some small waves and spent a little while there, I took photos and the others went for a bit of a walk and collected shells. When we got back and Ely and I raced off to our first videoing session. We did “Faith Melody” in front of some rocks with a pink and blue sky behind us. We had a lot of fun and laughs and we got it done, that was the main thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment