Also it is going to be the name of my prog rock band. Wanna join? I need someone to play theremin.
Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts
Friday, March 11, 2011
Genghis Khan Airport
Also it is going to be the name of my prog rock band. Wanna join? I need someone to play theremin.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Canberra - land of two shadows
This morning flying into Canberra, all the trees had two shadows - the usual black one, and a slightly offset white one, from the thick frost that had not yet melted.
I am writing this in Sydney. My work colleague Ben and I are here for a couple of hours on our way home from Canberra - which is like going from Paris to London via Rome. The sun has just set over the immense airport with planes, terminals and blinky lights as far as the eye can see. And also a control tower with a twisty spiral staircase. Nice. I am in the Virgin Lounge trying to use up as much as possible of the $35 I paid to get in.
We have just had a meeting at the National Museum of Australia (with six ladies)which went well. This is for the Sunshine Harvester interactive. Walking in from the distant reaches of the NMA car park at 11.00, there were still ice-crusted leaves here and there on the grass. It was sunny and bright but the wind was penetrating. Canberra is way inland, essentially sheep country that has been turned into a capital city. Every now and then I think it does our politicians good to be forced to spend part of every year in the freezing/burning interior with its plagues of cockatoos/moths and its essentially permanent drought.
As we had a rentacar and no time pressure, I suggested we go see the Sunshine Harvester in storage. I'm glad I did, as a) the NMAs got a warm fuzzy feeling that I might be as interested in the harvester as they are and b) Ben and I got to rubberneck at a couple of dozen other famous or notable vehicles in storage, mostly in inflatable "carcoons". The harv was just under a drop sheet. A beautiful thing, corroded to a standstill. I am going to enjoy making an interactive about it though. We ended up all squeezing into one of the curators' cars, and had a jolly outing and all got to know each other better.
Hmm. Time for another complimentary beverage.
I am writing this in Sydney. My work colleague Ben and I are here for a couple of hours on our way home from Canberra - which is like going from Paris to London via Rome. The sun has just set over the immense airport with planes, terminals and blinky lights as far as the eye can see. And also a control tower with a twisty spiral staircase. Nice. I am in the Virgin Lounge trying to use up as much as possible of the $35 I paid to get in.
We have just had a meeting at the National Museum of Australia (with six ladies)which went well. This is for the Sunshine Harvester interactive. Walking in from the distant reaches of the NMA car park at 11.00, there were still ice-crusted leaves here and there on the grass. It was sunny and bright but the wind was penetrating. Canberra is way inland, essentially sheep country that has been turned into a capital city. Every now and then I think it does our politicians good to be forced to spend part of every year in the freezing/burning interior with its plagues of cockatoos/moths and its essentially permanent drought.
As we had a rentacar and no time pressure, I suggested we go see the Sunshine Harvester in storage. I'm glad I did, as a) the NMAs got a warm fuzzy feeling that I might be as interested in the harvester as they are and b) Ben and I got to rubberneck at a couple of dozen other famous or notable vehicles in storage, mostly in inflatable "carcoons". The harv was just under a drop sheet. A beautiful thing, corroded to a standstill. I am going to enjoy making an interactive about it though. We ended up all squeezing into one of the curators' cars, and had a jolly outing and all got to know each other better.
Hmm. Time for another complimentary beverage.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Tiger Airways is a disgrace
I just don't understand super cheap airlines. How exactly do they make any money? Is it from people booking a super cheap flight then getting stung for every single thing possible? How on earth do they get any repeat business? Presumably the Civil Aviation Authority and OH & S regulators set a minimum on how crappy their planes and terminals can be. They must be at least not dangerous or unhealthy for their staff, if not their passengers.
So how is it a viable business? I ask this as Elf flew back from Melbourne yesterday with Tiger Airways, after having flown over with Virgin Blue (it was booked for her by her work). The Virgin flight was unremarkable - the Tiger experience was irredeemably dreadful.
Her 3.45 flight finally took off at 5.15 - one of nine flights delayed (one other was cancelled). So the terminal was chock full of unhappy people. The bins were overflowing, the toilets were closed for maintenance. The cafe was outdoors, and occupied solidly by smokers also talking loudly on mobiles. Flights that were delayed came up on the board as "closed", adding to the mild hysteria. NOTE: there was no fog, snow or hail. Just no planes. Also the Tiger terminal is a stand-alone Third World shed at Tullamarine, 10 minutes walk from the relative comfort, security, fun and chuckles of the First World main terminal.
Elf said the general vibe was that none of the Tiger staff knew what was happening. Hobart passengers were called to the front at one stage, then told "As you know your flight is now leaving at 5.00..." No, they didn't know, and why were they now at the front of a queue where they were actually not allowed to check in yet?
At home I was trying to find out when to expect Elf to arrive. She doesn't have a mobile. Tiger are not in the phone book here although they fly into Hobart. (There is also not one single Tiger sign at Hobart Airport). When you call the Melbourne number a male voice says (more or less) "Dude, what do the think the website is for? Get off the phone..... [time passes] ... OK, so you're still here. Sigh. Press 1 for bookings, press 2..." And none of the options encompasses arrivals/departures. Their website has a section that looks like it will help, but rather than give information about individual flights it claims that "81% of our flights are on time" and goes on to gloat about how excellent that is.
Meanwhile Elf was now in the air. She decided to embrace the spirit of the new age of flight, and buy some M&Ms from the hostie. $3, credit card only. "Sorry, we don't handle any cash". At least the plane didn't crash into the sea. As they approached Hobart the captain said on the PA "We'll be in Hobart just a few minutes after the scheduled time". Met with rueful laughter from the passengers, I imagine.
It strikes me that every Tiger flight is a bit like a minor hostage crisis. Anxious families wait for news. The group sit around on their possessions, in the clothes they were wearing when they were captured. Unlikely alliances are struck. Their captors use confusion as a tactic to divide and rule. Basic human requirements are denied. Once the hostages are strapped in they are faced with unreasonable demands (if you are thirsty you had better have a credit card) - which only the strongest can resist. The captors attempt brainwashing ("just a few minutes after the scheduled time"). The captors attempt to control the flow of information. Once their demands are granted, the captives are dumped in the dark at an anonymous location (no Tiger signs, no Tiger desk, no Tiger staff). Thank God everyone is reunited with their families, but what if this shadowy "airline" were to strike again?
So how is it a viable business? I ask this as Elf flew back from Melbourne yesterday with Tiger Airways, after having flown over with Virgin Blue (it was booked for her by her work). The Virgin flight was unremarkable - the Tiger experience was irredeemably dreadful.
Her 3.45 flight finally took off at 5.15 - one of nine flights delayed (one other was cancelled). So the terminal was chock full of unhappy people. The bins were overflowing, the toilets were closed for maintenance. The cafe was outdoors, and occupied solidly by smokers also talking loudly on mobiles. Flights that were delayed came up on the board as "closed", adding to the mild hysteria. NOTE: there was no fog, snow or hail. Just no planes. Also the Tiger terminal is a stand-alone Third World shed at Tullamarine, 10 minutes walk from the relative comfort, security, fun and chuckles of the First World main terminal.
Elf said the general vibe was that none of the Tiger staff knew what was happening. Hobart passengers were called to the front at one stage, then told "As you know your flight is now leaving at 5.00..." No, they didn't know, and why were they now at the front of a queue where they were actually not allowed to check in yet?
At home I was trying to find out when to expect Elf to arrive. She doesn't have a mobile. Tiger are not in the phone book here although they fly into Hobart. (There is also not one single Tiger sign at Hobart Airport). When you call the Melbourne number a male voice says (more or less) "Dude, what do the think the website is for? Get off the phone..... [time passes] ... OK, so you're still here. Sigh. Press 1 for bookings, press 2..." And none of the options encompasses arrivals/departures. Their website has a section that looks like it will help, but rather than give information about individual flights it claims that "81% of our flights are on time" and goes on to gloat about how excellent that is.
Meanwhile Elf was now in the air. She decided to embrace the spirit of the new age of flight, and buy some M&Ms from the hostie. $3, credit card only. "Sorry, we don't handle any cash". At least the plane didn't crash into the sea. As they approached Hobart the captain said on the PA "We'll be in Hobart just a few minutes after the scheduled time". Met with rueful laughter from the passengers, I imagine.
It strikes me that every Tiger flight is a bit like a minor hostage crisis. Anxious families wait for news. The group sit around on their possessions, in the clothes they were wearing when they were captured. Unlikely alliances are struck. Their captors use confusion as a tactic to divide and rule. Basic human requirements are denied. Once the hostages are strapped in they are faced with unreasonable demands (if you are thirsty you had better have a credit card) - which only the strongest can resist. The captors attempt brainwashing ("just a few minutes after the scheduled time"). The captors attempt to control the flow of information. Once their demands are granted, the captives are dumped in the dark at an anonymous location (no Tiger signs, no Tiger desk, no Tiger staff). Thank God everyone is reunited with their families, but what if this shadowy "airline" were to strike again?
Friday, June 04, 2010
All good in the cardio department
Yesterday Michael and I went over to Melbourne for his scheduled check-up at the Royal Children's Hospital. Michael was born with a heart defect that was corrected surgically at RCH when he was a week old. On our last visit 3 years ago his cardiologist was very happy with his progress, and asked for him to come back this year, at age six. He had not been looking forward to the trip at all, so I was very pleasantly surprised that he was terrific all day.
Our flight left at about 9am, and we managed to get him a window seat. It's not all that long since he has been on a plane, but it's still a novelty, and he let out a delighted whoop as we took off. Flying north over Tasmania is always pretty spectacular, but even when we were above the clouds he was thrilled by how fluffy they were. Descending into Melbourne we were above some patchy low cloud, and he said he thought it looked like ice floes.
Our appointment at RCH was not until 2pm, and I had planned that we would spend the morning at the nearby zoo, then maybe spend a while at the Melbourne Museum afterwards if we had time. It happened that in the taxi to the zoo, Michael found a brochure for the museum, and started picking out the parts of it he wanted to see most. I got the vibe that he was much more into the museum than the zoo, so I re-directed the cabbie and we hopped out there instead.
Michael just hummed with delight throughout the museum. I let him lead me wherever he wanted to go, and we probably covered about half of it. He is really fascinated by the human body, and in the cab he decided the Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was the main one he wanted to see. It is upstairs, so first we spent some time among the obligatory dinosaur skeletons, and visited the insects. Upstairs I craftily let us get slightly lost so that I could look at the History of Melbourne exhibit that I have never quite got to previously. This is where they keep Phar Lap, in a glass case. He certainly was a big fella. For decades this stuffed horse has been the Museum's No. 1 attraction.
The Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was like all Michael's favourite library books brought to life. I made one error of judgement when I suggested he might like to come into the tiny theatrette and listen to the audio presentation on the history of human dissection. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but he is constantly reading books about this stuff and I thought an audio thing would not be scary. Well, once they got up to the trial of Burke and Hare, the 19th century Edinburgh grave robbers and murderers, I probably should have suggested we move on. When the judge with the hammy Scottish brogue said they would be "taken from this place to another place and hung by the neck until dead, whereupon you will be dissected like so many of your victims..." Michael himself said he had enough and could we leave please. Sigh. Bad dad, bad dad.
Although I did learn that William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of blood, actually dissected his father and sister. Bodies for dissection were so hard to come by, that once they had shuffled off the mortal coil, he simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a bit of a peep inside.
We got out into the fresh air and hailed a cab. Michael was right beside me, hailing also, like a tiny cosmopolitan. At the hospital everything went very smoothly. Just as he did when he was 3, Michael seemed determined to be as positive and helpful as he possibly could. He had an ultrasound, and ECG and finally an exercise test. During the ultrasound he was watching the TV set up over the bed, showing a Scooby Doo episode about voodoo dolls and vampire/werewolf types, who did a bit of toothy shape-shifting. It was actually pretty scary, and on top of the Burke and Hare stuff I was thinking they were seeing his little heart probably pumping at full tilt.
For the exercise test he had to have wires taped all over his chest, and then run on a treadmill. It's pretty hard for a 6 year old to do, actually. Every few minutes it sped up a little and the angle increased, so he needed to run faster and steeper uphill. They were attempting to get his heart rate up to a particular "red line" to see how he coped. Before he got there he was feeling tired and asked to stop. They asked him to give it another three minutes, and he did, but he didn't reach the red line. It was still a useful test, but his cardiologist is keen to see him to do it again in three years, when he will be more able to understand the need to push himself.
The hospital visit was finished quite a bit earlier than I had thought. After the museum and the treadmill, I thought what we needed to do was sit down for a while, so we caught a tram going past the hospital and just stayed on to the terminus, on the other side of town near the Domain. I told Michael there was a cafe just up the road where we could have ice cream and coffee. It turned out to be a fair bit further than I remembered. He didn't complain though, just asked if we could sit under a tree and read for a while before we kept walking. I had bought Michael a book at the museum gift shop (another human body book) so we sat and read that for a while. After we had carried on and got ourselves some afternoon tea, Michael sighed and said "I just want to go to the airport and fly home now Dad".
Our flight was not until 7pm, so all we could do was get a tram to the city, get a cab to the airport and hunker down and wait. Jetstar's gate for travellers to and from Hobart is pretty unglamorous. You feel like you are at the arse end of the airport, maybe one step up from the shed where they park the baggage buggies. You have to walk across the tarmac to your plane. No-one still does that at a massive international airport, surely? We do it in Hobart, but that's because we have a tiny Toytown airport.
The flight home was no picnic - it was dark, and squeezy, and we were both tired. Michael was a bit teary. I hadn't packed very well - I had pulled out reading matter we were too tired to read, but left packed away money for snacks, water to drink and chewing gum for sore ears. Of course we touched down eventually, and it was great to see Marcus and Elf. On the drive home from the airport Michael was his old self, and regaled everyone with an astounding level of detail about the day.
Our flight left at about 9am, and we managed to get him a window seat. It's not all that long since he has been on a plane, but it's still a novelty, and he let out a delighted whoop as we took off. Flying north over Tasmania is always pretty spectacular, but even when we were above the clouds he was thrilled by how fluffy they were. Descending into Melbourne we were above some patchy low cloud, and he said he thought it looked like ice floes.
Our appointment at RCH was not until 2pm, and I had planned that we would spend the morning at the nearby zoo, then maybe spend a while at the Melbourne Museum afterwards if we had time. It happened that in the taxi to the zoo, Michael found a brochure for the museum, and started picking out the parts of it he wanted to see most. I got the vibe that he was much more into the museum than the zoo, so I re-directed the cabbie and we hopped out there instead.
Michael just hummed with delight throughout the museum. I let him lead me wherever he wanted to go, and we probably covered about half of it. He is really fascinated by the human body, and in the cab he decided the Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was the main one he wanted to see. It is upstairs, so first we spent some time among the obligatory dinosaur skeletons, and visited the insects. Upstairs I craftily let us get slightly lost so that I could look at the History of Melbourne exhibit that I have never quite got to previously. This is where they keep Phar Lap, in a glass case. He certainly was a big fella. For decades this stuffed horse has been the Museum's No. 1 attraction.
The Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was like all Michael's favourite library books brought to life. I made one error of judgement when I suggested he might like to come into the tiny theatrette and listen to the audio presentation on the history of human dissection. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but he is constantly reading books about this stuff and I thought an audio thing would not be scary. Well, once they got up to the trial of Burke and Hare, the 19th century Edinburgh grave robbers and murderers, I probably should have suggested we move on. When the judge with the hammy Scottish brogue said they would be "taken from this place to another place and hung by the neck until dead, whereupon you will be dissected like so many of your victims..." Michael himself said he had enough and could we leave please. Sigh. Bad dad, bad dad.
Although I did learn that William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of blood, actually dissected his father and sister. Bodies for dissection were so hard to come by, that once they had shuffled off the mortal coil, he simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a bit of a peep inside.
We got out into the fresh air and hailed a cab. Michael was right beside me, hailing also, like a tiny cosmopolitan. At the hospital everything went very smoothly. Just as he did when he was 3, Michael seemed determined to be as positive and helpful as he possibly could. He had an ultrasound, and ECG and finally an exercise test. During the ultrasound he was watching the TV set up over the bed, showing a Scooby Doo episode about voodoo dolls and vampire/werewolf types, who did a bit of toothy shape-shifting. It was actually pretty scary, and on top of the Burke and Hare stuff I was thinking they were seeing his little heart probably pumping at full tilt.
For the exercise test he had to have wires taped all over his chest, and then run on a treadmill. It's pretty hard for a 6 year old to do, actually. Every few minutes it sped up a little and the angle increased, so he needed to run faster and steeper uphill. They were attempting to get his heart rate up to a particular "red line" to see how he coped. Before he got there he was feeling tired and asked to stop. They asked him to give it another three minutes, and he did, but he didn't reach the red line. It was still a useful test, but his cardiologist is keen to see him to do it again in three years, when he will be more able to understand the need to push himself.
The hospital visit was finished quite a bit earlier than I had thought. After the museum and the treadmill, I thought what we needed to do was sit down for a while, so we caught a tram going past the hospital and just stayed on to the terminus, on the other side of town near the Domain. I told Michael there was a cafe just up the road where we could have ice cream and coffee. It turned out to be a fair bit further than I remembered. He didn't complain though, just asked if we could sit under a tree and read for a while before we kept walking. I had bought Michael a book at the museum gift shop (another human body book) so we sat and read that for a while. After we had carried on and got ourselves some afternoon tea, Michael sighed and said "I just want to go to the airport and fly home now Dad".
Our flight was not until 7pm, so all we could do was get a tram to the city, get a cab to the airport and hunker down and wait. Jetstar's gate for travellers to and from Hobart is pretty unglamorous. You feel like you are at the arse end of the airport, maybe one step up from the shed where they park the baggage buggies. You have to walk across the tarmac to your plane. No-one still does that at a massive international airport, surely? We do it in Hobart, but that's because we have a tiny Toytown airport.
The flight home was no picnic - it was dark, and squeezy, and we were both tired. Michael was a bit teary. I hadn't packed very well - I had pulled out reading matter we were too tired to read, but left packed away money for snacks, water to drink and chewing gum for sore ears. Of course we touched down eventually, and it was great to see Marcus and Elf. On the drive home from the airport Michael was his old self, and regaled everyone with an astounding level of detail about the day.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Birthday - part B2 (the prequel): wayfinding
I just remembered a sign I saw at Melbourne Airport. Alex, who was picking me up, is an information designer, and very interested in wayfinding, which "…encompasses all of the ways in which people and animals orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place." - thanks Wikipedia. So I needed to go to the toilet, but was running late to be picked up by Alex out the front of the terminal. The toilets down the long, long concourse were all closed for cleaning anyway.
I was about to go down an escalator, and through one-way security barrier, when I saw a laser printed A4 sign taped to the escalator.
I was about to go down an escalator, and through one-way security barrier, when I saw a laser printed A4 sign taped to the escalator.
THE TOILETS ARE BEHIND YOU
AT GATES 2, 6 AND 10.
THERE ARE NO TOILETS DOWNSTAIRS!
EXCEPT...
AT GATES 2, 6 AND 10.
THERE ARE NO TOILETS DOWNSTAIRS!
EXCEPT...
And that's where I stopped reading, as my momentum was carrying me down the escalator and there were people behind me. At the bottom I turned right and there were the toilets, where they have always been. I wish I had stopped to read what the exception at the end was.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Melbourne: Sunday
On Sunday Marcus and I were both awake about 6.30am. I sent him out to the kitchen to do some drawing but there was no way I would get back to sleep. The previous night Alex and Suparna and I stayed up talking past midnight, which is pretty late for me these days.
While Suparna made us a deluxe cafe-style hot brekkie, Marcus was pinging around the house with excess energy, so he and Alex and I went to the park at the end of the street with a flat football. There we relived the heroics of the night before on the very dewy grass. There is a Seventh Day Adventist church beside the park which has been designed to look as though one corner is sinking into a swamp. I do not know what this symbolises.
Suparna called us in when our breakfast was ready. Their house is beautiful, a very calm and serene space. Alex has a wonderful collection of colourful tin robots. They are very keen to have kids, and judging by how they doted on Marcus, I think they would very happily swap their serenity for some noise, scuffed walls and the occasional broken robot. We really enjoyed their company.
They drove Marcus and I to the zoo via a neighbourhood cafe. Windsor is a little corner sandwiched between Prahran and St Kilda. It is notable for the Astor Theatre, a train station and a number of dodgy second-hand fridge retailers. Alex and I shared a flat two stops up the train line, sixteen years ago now. I remember buying a fridge and some Mexican tin folk-art ducks in Windsor. There was a tapas bar, which was a daringly new concept at the time.
After fond farewells to our hosts at the zoo gate, we went in, turned left and got amongst the simians. We paced ourselves fairly well, and although we only saw about two-thirds of the zoo, we saw all that we were capable of in one go, including all our favourites. Here is a rundown on highlights.
The gorilla lay very still, and seemed to have a hangover. His head was the size of a 44 gallon drum. The spider monkeys were a little subdued as well. The porcupine was in his box, but was very attractive nonetheless. The lions were a little bit skinny-arsed, like they were down on their luck. I really liked the fishing cats - I think the next new AFL team could be the Fishing Cats. They were pretty much like a domestic tabby sized up about 400%. There is a pic of Marcus below sitting back to back with a grizzly bear (with some thick perspex between them admittedly). Marcus enjoyed that. It looked a bit like he had dropped in to watch telly with the bears - and the other grizzly had gone off to get them all some snacks. The seals are the happiest animals in the zoo. They seem very pleased with their gig. All the big cats and many of the small cats radiate a sort of intense annoyance at being in a zoo in Melbourne. The elephant area now goes on and on - it was an "elephant village", but seems to now be a small elephant country. My favourites are the co-located zebras and giraffes. They don't have savannah or acacias, sadly, so they are very easy to spot. I'm all for animals having a good familiar habitat, but if I can't find them after five minutes looking I am likely to feel peeved. The zebs and giraffes are right there. Also I like the hills-hoist arrangement that they use to get the giraffes food up to the right height.
I teed up my old friend (and ardent friend of this blog), Michael to pick us up at 2.00pm. This he did with his beautiful kids Cooper and Mackenzie in tow, and we all went off to Barkley Square for late lunch. (No nightingales sang). Michael's just started his own business, and his office is located at the old Essendon Airport. This is handy, as he is a keen pilot, and uses a plane that lives on the apron there. He took us through the gate and out onto the tarmac where he opened up the plane for the kids to climb about inside. It's just occurred to me that I would have liked to do this as well, but I was too busy taking photos. We walked down a covered way, which I gradually realised was an old walkway for passengers coming and going from the aircraft. The signs for gates 10 and 11 were right there, mouldering away, complete with rotary handles to change the destination and flight number. I tweaked one around to advertise a Special to Flinders Island.
The kids got on very well, devising games, shouting and shoving quite happily. On the way out I saw a dog with one leg in a cast being walked, then another. Besides Michael's consulting firm, there are also a veterinarian, many other small offices of various kinds, the Armaguard headquarters, and soon a mega Coles supermarket. Perhaps the Essendon Football Club may need to change its nickname from The Bombers to the Hobbling Huskies.
After this Michael dropped us at the Real Airport, where we flew home uneventfully. Michael and Elf were delighted to see us, and we them. Marcus said a few times over the weekend that he was really having fun. He kept saying it right up to when he fell asleep in the car on the way home.
While Suparna made us a deluxe cafe-style hot brekkie, Marcus was pinging around the house with excess energy, so he and Alex and I went to the park at the end of the street with a flat football. There we relived the heroics of the night before on the very dewy grass. There is a Seventh Day Adventist church beside the park which has been designed to look as though one corner is sinking into a swamp. I do not know what this symbolises.
Suparna called us in when our breakfast was ready. Their house is beautiful, a very calm and serene space. Alex has a wonderful collection of colourful tin robots. They are very keen to have kids, and judging by how they doted on Marcus, I think they would very happily swap their serenity for some noise, scuffed walls and the occasional broken robot. We really enjoyed their company.
They drove Marcus and I to the zoo via a neighbourhood cafe. Windsor is a little corner sandwiched between Prahran and St Kilda. It is notable for the Astor Theatre, a train station and a number of dodgy second-hand fridge retailers. Alex and I shared a flat two stops up the train line, sixteen years ago now. I remember buying a fridge and some Mexican tin folk-art ducks in Windsor. There was a tapas bar, which was a daringly new concept at the time.
After fond farewells to our hosts at the zoo gate, we went in, turned left and got amongst the simians. We paced ourselves fairly well, and although we only saw about two-thirds of the zoo, we saw all that we were capable of in one go, including all our favourites. Here is a rundown on highlights.
The gorilla lay very still, and seemed to have a hangover. His head was the size of a 44 gallon drum. The spider monkeys were a little subdued as well. The porcupine was in his box, but was very attractive nonetheless. The lions were a little bit skinny-arsed, like they were down on their luck. I really liked the fishing cats - I think the next new AFL team could be the Fishing Cats. They were pretty much like a domestic tabby sized up about 400%. There is a pic of Marcus below sitting back to back with a grizzly bear (with some thick perspex between them admittedly). Marcus enjoyed that. It looked a bit like he had dropped in to watch telly with the bears - and the other grizzly had gone off to get them all some snacks. The seals are the happiest animals in the zoo. They seem very pleased with their gig. All the big cats and many of the small cats radiate a sort of intense annoyance at being in a zoo in Melbourne. The elephant area now goes on and on - it was an "elephant village", but seems to now be a small elephant country. My favourites are the co-located zebras and giraffes. They don't have savannah or acacias, sadly, so they are very easy to spot. I'm all for animals having a good familiar habitat, but if I can't find them after five minutes looking I am likely to feel peeved. The zebs and giraffes are right there. Also I like the hills-hoist arrangement that they use to get the giraffes food up to the right height.
I teed up my old friend (and ardent friend of this blog), Michael to pick us up at 2.00pm. This he did with his beautiful kids Cooper and Mackenzie in tow, and we all went off to Barkley Square for late lunch. (No nightingales sang). Michael's just started his own business, and his office is located at the old Essendon Airport. This is handy, as he is a keen pilot, and uses a plane that lives on the apron there. He took us through the gate and out onto the tarmac where he opened up the plane for the kids to climb about inside. It's just occurred to me that I would have liked to do this as well, but I was too busy taking photos. We walked down a covered way, which I gradually realised was an old walkway for passengers coming and going from the aircraft. The signs for gates 10 and 11 were right there, mouldering away, complete with rotary handles to change the destination and flight number. I tweaked one around to advertise a Special to Flinders Island.
The kids got on very well, devising games, shouting and shoving quite happily. On the way out I saw a dog with one leg in a cast being walked, then another. Besides Michael's consulting firm, there are also a veterinarian, many other small offices of various kinds, the Armaguard headquarters, and soon a mega Coles supermarket. Perhaps the Essendon Football Club may need to change its nickname from The Bombers to the Hobbling Huskies.
After this Michael dropped us at the Real Airport, where we flew home uneventfully. Michael and Elf were delighted to see us, and we them. Marcus said a few times over the weekend that he was really having fun. He kept saying it right up to when he fell asleep in the car on the way home.
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