29/11/25 To Melbourne.

"I only wanted to go to Melbourne for the weekend." The woman from Port Pirie sat with me in uncomfortable airport seats, watching all the ticketed passengers saunter onto their flight.  "And I've got to come back tomorrow and then drive back to Port Pirie."  She sighed and refreshed the Qantas app.  "I'm going to get coffee and figure out if this is worth it."

Luggage trolley queue.

All this waiting resulted from something going up in flames over at the Qantas terminal in Melbourne the night before.  Planes with all of a sudden nowhere to unload were parked all over the tarmac, the terminal was evacuated, and Qantas passengers found themselves cancelled and re-booked all over the place.  All the passengers who had planned to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne on Friday night found themselves booked on my flight on Saturday morning, and I was relegated to the side-lines. 

I drank overpriced airport coffee and watched all the morning activity outside.

Sunrise, Adelaide airport.

By midafternoon the passenger pipelines had unclogged and I had not only a seat, but one with a window too!

The West Lakes sailing club was out enjoying the sunny Saturday morning.

Roger messaged me courtesy of Qantas wifi.  "You must have a fantastic view of Lake Alexandrina and the Coorong!"  Yep, sure do.

 I didn't have long to lament the lack of view, the flight to Melbourne being somewhat shorter than the ones I'd taken of late.  Barely had I completed the cryptic crossword in the in-flight magazine (a doddle, because it was the same one I'd laboured over on the flight from Perth two weeks ago) and gobbled down my plastic crackers and cheese when we started our descent to Melbourne.  Little windows opened in the cloud, giving tantalising glimpses of Victoria's countryside.

I caught the Sky Bus into the city, getting my thrills from sitting at the very front of the top deck, inadvertently ducking as we roared under bridges while the woman beside me waxed eloquent on the woes of settling her mother's estate, and roundly criticized the loading of the horse float in front of us.  "Goodness!" she cried.  "Everyone knows you load the horse on the right, not the left!  The float will tip over if you load the horse on the left!"

The things a city builds when you're not looking: a bikeway that looks like a waterslide.

We arrived at Southern Cross Railway station unscathed, and the wrongly-loaded horse float drove upright into the sunset.  I suffered a suburban train and a short walk to my night's accommodation at the Deco House in Melbourne's suburbs.

The lounge room time forgot.

The Deco House had its quirks: motion-activated lights in the kitchen and dining area required manic arm waving at regular intervals; pink house slippers were provided alongside stern requests to store my boots in the provided cupboard; a note on my pillow admonished me to sleep under my top sheet, not on it; and a curtain hung in front of each room door, which caused consternation when I first arrived and had to find my room. 

The other rooms were inhabited, I think, by shadow people.  One man came to put his groceries in the fridge and was startled to find me sitting in the dark dining nook, having neglected to perform arm-waving in time to maintain light levels.  He squeaked and ran away quite quickly, and I had the place to myself until I retired to sleep suitably positioned under my top sheet and doona so as to avoid the wrath of management.

Just for fun: Pink lakes and watercourses in country Victoria.