Change of Plans

Once we missed our flight, there were no other flights to Tasmania that day so we were faced with a few choices.

• Pick another destination altogether,


• Go home and come back the next day, or


• Get on the next flight to Melbourne, stay overnight, and fly out from Melbourne first thing the next morning to Launceston.
  
  

Since our tickets were an 'el cheapo' fare there was no other destination that we could go to without having to fork out extra dosh. Going home seemed like a bit of an anti-climax. Not to mention the cab fare to go back home and return the next day would have cost more than an airline ticket! So we decided to fly to Melbourne. This was the quickest way we would get to Tasmania. The flight was leaving in an hour and we were getting on it.

TASMANIA via...MELBOURNE?

By the time we landed in Melbourne it was close to 5pm. Luckily, being summer, sunset wasn't due for another couple of hours. So we thought we'd make the most of our unexpected 'detour' and take the kids to see the Fairy Penguins on Phillip Island. So we packed into our rental car and hit the road... and the traffic.

After spending close to an hour driving and getting nowhere, we called the trip off and decided to just stay in the city. Lygon Street. Dinner at Lygon Street. That sounded like a plan. So we were going to find a hotel, settle in, then head out to Lygon Street for dinner and an early night. After all, our flight to Launceston was at 6am the next morning and we didn't want to miss that!

So here we are driving around Melbourne in our rental car while I look up hotels on Hubby's iPhone, call them up for vacancies/prices and navigate. Anyone familiar with Melbourne will know about the hook turns. Those bloody hook turns! We tried to drive around the city avoiding right-hand turns just so Hubby didn't have to perform one but of course, that was impossible. So he finally attempted one. Phew! We made it without getting rail-roaded by a tram! But...

Hubby kept nervously glancing in his rear-view mirror so I asked him what was wrong. A cop car had made a u-turn and was now following us. A few seconds later, flashing lights and a siren to pull over. GREAT! That was all we needed, I thought to myself. I just had to laugh... if not I could have cried. Even Hubby had to see the humour in the situation and was chuckling as the police officer came to his window. He pulled out his Driver's License as instructed and, since it was an interstate license, he quickly started half-rambling, half-whinging to the officer.

He apologised for the bad hook turn, explaining how we weren't even supposed to be in Melbourne that night, that we had missed our flight to Tasmania and were only in Melbourne for the night to leave for Tasmania the following morning. He didn't know how to do a hook turn and we were trying to drive around avoiding hook turns but the hotel we were trying to get to was just down the road so he was really sorry if he did it wrong.

I'm not sure what the police officer thought of all that but he seemed to soften. He explained how to do a proper hook turn and asked where we were headed. After we told him where we planned to stay, he looked into the back of the car, saw the kids and advised us against staying there since it was a 'rough-ish' part of the city. Instead he suggested another motel further down the road in a quieter part of town.

Feeling like kids who had just been let off with a warning, we thanked him profusely and made our way to the recommended motel. By this stage, we were all starving. We checked-in, quickly freshened up and headed off to Lygon Street to end one crazy day with a relaxing dinner in a city we didn't even plan to be in.