What a shock! After enjoying the sunny southern climes Downunder for the past five weeks, landing in Vancouver with a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, along with rain and in some parts snow, was indeed a shock to the system.
Four very wonderful days were spent in the lovely city of Perth in Western Australia, but our return journey to Sydney was most unpleasant as we were caught in an Australia-wide baggage handlers’ wildcat strike which at first delayed our flight by six and a half hours, but when it finally departed it was without the luggage and just made it into Sydney before the airport curfew at 11pm. Having arrived at Perth airport at 7.30 am and spending a good part of the day there we were glad to finally arrive in Sydney even if it was midnight. I have to commend the Qantas people who managed to keep their cool and their politeness that day and throughout the next days as they tried to sort out the luggage mess which was no fault of theirs.

At Sydney airport we spoke to the Qantas baggage service people before we booked into our Canadian flight two days later and they gave us little hope of it being with us on that plane since they had a room with 900 suitcases which they were still sorting out, but they said they would try to find it and rush it to Air Canada in time for our late morning flight. Lo and behold, there it was on the carousel when we arrived, much to our surprise and delight.

They even gave us $120 towards the cost of the clothing we had to purchase to see us through the previous days and luckily we purchased sweaters since it was so cold when we arrived, although I was wearing sandals which seemed rather daft.

The joys of flying in the modern era! Not only did we have this to deal with but for some reason my hand luggage, a small rollerboard suitcase with basically my computer and a few other items fell foul of security people as they passed it through the x-ray machine at least six times finally pulling the whole thing apart and xraying the contents in half a dozen separate trays even after they inspected everything visually. Funnily enough it had all passed through Perth security two days earlier without a single query but those Sydney people are made of sterner stuff. One by one the items were cleared of potential terrorist threat in the case of my mouse and a rock I bought in New Zealand for my rock collection. But a lipstick and a tiny bottle of hand lotion had to be inspected and then bagged separately (they don’t even worry about that any more in New York when I travel there) but they confiscated my $30 special sunscreen and shampoo since they were 110 ml containers, even though half empty, but over the 100 ml size limit. Yes they had travelled from Canada and New Zealand and to and from Perth with no trouble for those security people but three men (yes it took three of them) in Sydney decided that they had to be checked more thoroughly. Even my hat beeped for the first time and had to be x-rayed.

Home, sweet home! I think I shall stay put for a bit and pray for Spring to come along soon.