Having hit the wall the night before I still wasn't 100% when I surfaced the following morning, but there were things to do and places to go.
And breakfast to be ordered, and as it turned out it was just as well I abandoned my usual get there early notion. Neither of us had eaten the night before, and while we could have headed down to Southern Cross straight away and caught up with breakfast at the airport I reckoned we were better off grabbing something at Cafe de Tuscany and then heading off to catch the shuttle.
Which was, as it turned out, just as well. As soon as we'd boarded the 8:50 shuttle we were informed the bus might be a little late arriving at Tullamarine since a car had caught fire on the freeway, and we'd be taking a longer alternative route. I wasn't sure when the incident that blocked the freeway had occurred, but the evidence we saw en route to Tullamarine suggested that passengers in earlier services may well have ended up missing their flights.
Having gone via the scenic route we were only around ten minutes behind schedule when we alighted at the Jetstar terminal, and we made the flight with plenty of time to spare.
The flight into Sydney proved up eventful, the shuttle transfer to the Travelodge went without a hitch, and a bit more rest and recovery saw us heading out to the regulation dinner at Spice I Am just in time to catch the doors opening. As usual, dinner was just about spot on as far as Hughesy was concerned, and a Mussaman duck curry went down a treat. Madam wasn't quite as happy with her beef salad, having some issues with the chilli content, but managed to avoid the worst of it by simply pushing the slices of chilli to one side for someone else to finish off later.
And when someone did get around to finishing them off he came to the conclusion that she'd done extremely well to get as far as she had.
I'd already headed around to The Oak Barrel, which yielded a rather interesting bottle of Yarra Valley Syrah that made for a rather effective nightcap for someone who wasn't entirely over the previous day's collision with the wall.