HALF AN EASTER

Sadly I had to fly up to Port Hedland on Good Friday to attend the funeral of a co-worker on Saturday morning. It was a good funeral, as good as they can be I guess. The funeral was almost 300km's out of Port Hedland so we had to do a bit of driving. Which is fairly boring, the limited QANTAS flight schedule also meant a lot of time to kill before we could fly home. But we did the best we could and then right before we were about to fly home it took a turn for the unexpected. Allow me to explain with visual aids....

We arrived early evening and booked into our hotel, a 1970's number with original decor attached. My air conditioner sounded like a jet engine so I quickly turned it to silent mode only to find it was already there .... whoa.

Allow me to put on my 70's porn moustache and show you around my Friday night digs. Allow yourself to glow in it's beigeness.

First up the ultra modern bedhead/sideboard inbuilt AM/FM radio set, note the abundance of laminated surfaces....

motel radio

Dead sexy huh? A must when seducing the ladies yes "Allow me to put on some .. Burt Bacharach". As we pan out you will notice the floral bedspread resplendent in hues of blue, yellow and green....

motel decor

Note the full length mirror on the back of the door, fuuuuull length, know what I'm sayin my senoritas?

motel door

This funky dining suite must have hosted a heap of fried camembert and prawn cocktail entrees in it's time....

motel delight

So after we left the funeral we made the long trek back to Port Hedland, the monotony only broken as we neared the port and were met by a train....

train engines

train

As we arrived back in Port Hedland we did a quick 3 minute tour, snapped a few pics of the main st and wondered "What now?"

pt hedland main st west

pt hedland main st

With almost four hours still to kill we trolled the South Hedland shopping centre and in particular its' jewel in the crown - the K Mart store. The book section put forward a few disturbing and interesting items...

They've finally done it, they've put OMG on the front of a book, WTF BBQ?

omg again

Doctor Dan the bandage man has found a new angle on the doctors and nurses game of old....

doctor dan

and this one just plain disturbed me....

disturbing

So with 3 hours left before take off we figured we'd check in at the airport and see if they had a QANTAS lounge to hang out in. The Port Hedland terminal was abuzz with activity, hum airport terminal music in your head before viewing the next 2 pics....

pt hedland airport

pt hedland terminal

We found the lounge and settle in with a few beers, cashews and Tim Tams....

qantas lounge pt hedland

lounge freebies

This is where it suddenly got interesting, we were watching Sky News and they showed a story on Prime Minister Kevin Rudds' plane being turned back from Thailand due to riots in that country, just as the story ended I noticed a plane pulling up in front of the lounge window. I quickly recognised it as the PM's plane and said as much to the other 5 guys in the room. "Bullshit" was the general response, but I insisted that it was and I was right. This was a tad sureal....

Kevin Rudd's plane

PM arrives

His entourage came out first....

Kevin Rudd'sstaff

and then the big K Dog himself to throw us a wave....

Kevin Rudd

kevin rudd press dash

"Well that just made the day interesting. Then the door to the lounge opened (keep in mind this is a very small lounge, 20 chairs max) and a QANTAS person asked to check all of our membership cards "Becasue the Prime Minister is coming in"

I had just joked "What if he wants to come in here, what do we call him? Kev or Prime Minister"
One of the other guys (we'll call him P1) replies "I'll tell him to f#ck off"

Hmmm yes charming, thank you. So now he's actually coming in and everyone in the room gets a little uncomfortable/excitable/nervous. I mean it's not every day you meet the Prime Minister and in such closed surroundings,

"I'll pour him a beer" I said to lighten the mood. Then I notice P1 pulling a pair of jeans out of his carry on bag, he's only wearing shorts at the moment.

"What ya doing?" I ask.

P1 "Well do you think I should be wearing pants?"

Hahaha I guess you're not telling him to f#ck off then are you? Gotta love bravado. So we waited for our private audience with the pope, erm sorry PM. Updated our Facebook status to reflect the impending meet and greet and we waited and we waited.... and we waited. Then we hear the call to board...huh? He's not coming in? But my friends they expect pics!!!!

Seems the PM felt it was better PR to rub flesh with the Aussie battlers in the terminal cafe than mingle with us poshies in the lounge haha

Anyways it made the day just a bit happier and just a bit less boring. Until next time Kev, you now owe ME a beer, call it my stimulus package.

Comments

Maja said…
I went to a funeral a few weeks ago, it was at Karrakatta cemetary, and it just so happened that Geoff Gallops wife Beverly had died of cancer the same day as the person I knew had died, and they had their funerals 15 minutes apart, and Kevin Rudd showed up there, too.
stu said…
whoa!! You don't think...you don't think Rudd is... the Grim reaper :gulp: oh hang on that dude shows up before you die

freaky coincidence? I think not