Sadly departing the Great Barrier Reef enroute to work….

Flying on the legendary Qantas was an experience in itself. Qantas is known world wide for its service and safety record.

We flew economy (not business or first class) from Sydney to Cairns, then Cairns to Sydney and then Sydney to Canberra. First, the crew was dressed in smart uniforms: dark suits with white shirts for the men and silk dresses/suits for the women. Interestingly, the passengers (except for us!) were the best dressed I have ever seen as a group on a flight.

The headsets are free, the movies are free, full hot meals were provided with flat ware. On one flight, we were served Hagen Daas Ice Cream as a snack following the hot meal. At one point, a lady near us suffered an unfortunate spillage as a result of a flight attendant. After much mopping and apologies the flight attendant stated that the customer service representative would be following up with the passenger. I figured this would be at the gate at the end of the flight. However, a few moments later, a dressed-to-the-hilt, customer service representative appeared (flew in by special jet?? and transferred to our plane in mid air no doubt) to quietly give that lady a free round trip ticket!

On another flight, the snack truck was delayed, so we departed for our 30 minute flight to Canberra “without the planned snacks”. The pilot apologized for the inconvenience (we still had the standard beverages and pretzels) and stated that a free meal would be provided at any of the concessions at the airport if we offered our Qantas ticket stub.

Great Barrier Reef
Attached are a few more pictures. There was a professional photographer aboard the boat who took pictures during our stay. The Giant Clams looked like something out of a Disney movie. The little Nemo fish were fun to watch as they timidly peek out of the anemone. The shark pictures one very much like the one we saw travel slowly by us.

The other divers we met:

“Mel” – a young 30’s gal who is from Texas. She is a temporary staff member on board who is working aboard the Reef Encounter in exchange for two free dives per day as well as room and board. Her tour of work was going to end that week and she was off to work at a “Cattle Ranch”. She was taking two years off to see New Zealand and Australia.

Peder and Jill – Late 30s. They are from Munich on a seven week Australian vacation.

Ingrid and her boyfiend – 30ish. She is a nurse and they are from Zurich. They are on an 11 week vacation.

There were also three couples on their “honeymoon” trips including Eric and his wife from Santa Monica, CA who were on a two week vacation.

Avian Flu Detector at Sydney
As a part of the immigration at the Sydney airport each person walks through a hallway where there is a very unobtrusive heat detector camera system. A staff member is carefully watching the display (about the size of a large TV). Each person’s image is converted to a heat map. They are looking for people with temperatures and perhaps the avian flu. They found one lady (looked like she was from India) and pulled her aside for additional screening. The bulk of the crowd passed without knowing they had been screened.

Aborigines
These are the indigenous peoples of Australia. Their history seems to parallel the American Indians. So far we have seen very few of these people. You don’t see them performing on TV as newscasters, they were not seen as the shopkeepers, restaurants or as city workers (who seem to wear uniforms). There have been no articles in the paper on them. I only saw a few and sadly, they looked like typical US homeless shuffling on the streets and one on a well worn bike. I didn’t think it would be appropriate to take any photos.

Australian Head Scratcher of the Day: Today we have a tie. The first one was a sign for “Smash Repair.” Our taxi driver told us that where you take your car after it has been in a “smash up.” The second one was the TV Weatherman describing the weather as “skuzzy.” While I easily understood what was meant, I can’t imagine hearing that on Fox News at home!