Farewells and a free nights accommodations

Today marked Chris and Annette’s last day with us, but it was definitely not the end of their trip in Australia!

We had to be awake early for the drive to the airport, however the wonderful hotel we were staying at, as mentioned in our previous post, was undergoing construction. At 6am we were woken by all manners of tools and shouting, Chris and Annette however got to see a wonderful sunrise over the city!

Slowly we all piled in the car and drove to their airport, via the M7 Airport Link toll road, trust me its an important bit of information for later.

Goodbyes are never nice! We all had a coffee and nibble before hugs, some tears and waves goodbye. Chris and Annette were on their way to Melbourne, from there they would then visit Uluru and then Sydney before returning to the Netherlands, their adventures were continuing!

Alex and I made our way back to the hotel, again taking the M7 Airport Link, seeing the signs notifying us to pay. We reminded ourselves to call later that afternoon.

When we arrived back at the hotel, whilst Alex tried to find parking I went to speak to reception. I mentioned how we were woken by construction and given everything that occurred the day before, in addition, we should be provided a nights free accommodation. She was more than understanding and called her boss. She also gave me her boss’s number to call as he did not answer her right away. He didn’t answer my call but I left him a message. A few minutes later she came to tell me that they would put us up for a free nights accommodation. This free night would not be there, but at another one of their hotels instead, where there was no construction going on, just peace and quiet. You see complaining gets you places people #imannoyingthatway.

We got the other hotel details and drove there right away to check in. On the way to the hotel I called Go Via, the toll road people as we passed through the toll road twice that morning. When I got through I gave our rego and after checking a few different systems they could not find us on their system as passing through any tolls. Hmmm this is strange right? The lady on the phone said that sometimes it can take a few hours or even a day for it to register, but at the same time she asked to clarify my rego at least 5 times to make sure I had it right. So with that information we hung up and would call again later.

So back to the new hotel. When we arrived the poor receptionist there, who normally works somewhere else, had no idea we were coming or about our situation. But she called a few people and then Alex and I were given a two bedroom apartment all to ourselves!

Now I cannot leave out the dilemma with parking and then finding our car!

Checked in, ready to drop our stuff and go explore the city, we found ourselves stuck without somewhere to park the car. Our car is ginormous, it does not fit in most garages so when we told the receptionist she had to first find their higher parking area, which she had no idea where it was, and then try direct us to it. We followed her instructions and arrived only to find that the gate would not open with the key we were given. It was beeping but nothing was happening. At this point we were both over everything a little, but could not help giggling at the whole situation thus far.

I gave her a call and she sent someone down the help us, who let us in and gave us a spot to park. Perfect, the car was stored away safely, so we went into the city.

With everything that had happened that day we just wanted to chill out, so when we found a cinema showing the new Kingsman movie within 10 minutes, we got tickets and went in. 3 hours later we came out and realised it was dark already. We’d eaten lunch just before going into the movie, but since it was dinner time when we got out, we brought something again. After feeding ourselves we navigated our way back to the hotel and attempted to get to our car and our bags. Only to find that we had no idea how to get back down to the parking garage haha. This day was turning into a nightmare when it came to these hotel apartments!

After a good 10-15 minutes of going up and down in the elevators, and walking around like headless chicken, the receptionist helped us, who was luckily still there. We had a key and it went in a door we had walked past a number of times….

Finally with our stuff in hand we headed to our luxurious and spacious two bedroom apartment, where we sat on the couch and watch another movie. It may sound lazy but oh my goodness we loved just sitting on a couch! You have no idea how much we sometimes miss couch’s after sitting in camping chairs or the car most days and where our luxury seating is lying in our bed on the roof.

And to top off our free nights accommodation with the luxury of a couch, just as we sat down to watch the movie a storm came over Brisbane and bucketed down. We were safely indoors. It just reiterates my point before, that complaining can sometimes be damn beneficial!

The next day we woke up in a comfortable bed after a sleep in. The first thing to be done that day, after leaving the hotel, was to call Go Via again. So I called two or three times that day to check again how much we owed for passing through the toll roads. On every occasion they could not seem to see our number plate showing up, asking me multiple times to make sure I had it right. I definitely had it right as I was standing in front of the car looking at it each time. After calling about four times, one of the staff mentioned that they no longer managed the M7 Airport link but that another company did….Why no one mentioned that to us previously just confused the hell out of us! So we called that company who said it wasn’t them and that they could not see our number plate on any of their managed toll roads either. So again I called Go Via. Still they could not find us on the system and we concluded that maybe because of our WA plates and the different combination that we had, our car had slipped through the radar and it had not registered when scanned. We decided to leave it again for a while and call again later, maybe in a few days. At the time we were really worried about not getting fined, but it seems we haven’t been fined or charged and it’s three weeks later…Bonus!

So in the end Brisbane was an interesting place, definitely a cool city but maybe not so great on our visit due to circumstantial events and saying goodbye to Chris and Annette…

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