Day 4: Gold Coast > Sydney
Which is, predictably, where the fun really begins.
Really, the preceding three days were like the manoeuvring you need to undergo to get a yacht to the starting line, and in this case the starting line took the form of a 10:20 Virgin Blue flight from the Gold Coast to Sydney.
Despite all my best endeavours I found myself out of bed before dawn again, tapping out the missing details of those preparatory manoeuvres, working on the theory that if I've explained the why's and wherefores at the start I can run through the chronology without lengthy asides to explain why we were where we were.
Had I been inclined to push matters I probably could have made it in time to catch the 7:38 Service 702, but optimising the charge on the iPad took me past that time, and it was around 7:59 when we got to the bus stop outside Australia Fair.
I say we because Madam supervised my movements up to that point, though her enjoyment of what we've come to refer to as valuable free time meant she wouldn't be taking the hour-long journey to the airport, wasting another hour on the way back.
That hour-long journey passed uneventfully, listening to Hughesy's 1500 Most Played on the iPod, checking the odd detail on the iPad and missing the odd call from Foxy on the mobile.
Actually, I didn't miss it by that much, and a call back had Foxy offering to call back in half an hour.
Booking in and continuing through the inevitable security check went smoothly for once since Madam hadn't been given the opportunity to slip something to attract the attention of the security people into the toiletries bag, and I had a spot of breakfast while I waited for Foxy to call back.
When he did, chewing the fat and exchanging Easter itineraries took care of most of the time before the boarding call, and once those formalities had been completed I found myself in the unprecedented position of having an empty seat on either side of me in 18B, which was about the only remarkable thing about the hour-long flight.
On the ground I was under instruction to check whether the shuttle bus would be able to collect us from the final night's accommodation (it wouldn't), a situation arising from the fact that when we booked tickets for Derek and Susan we decided to find somewhere close to the Enmore in Newtown, whereas Elvis & The Imposters were downtown at the State Theatre, which provided the excuse for Hughesy to stay at the Hilton, which is just around the corner.
The shuttle bus duly dropped me there, but being unable to book in until three I had two hours to kill, which wasn't that difficult when there's a Dymocks, a couple of music stores and an Apple Store in the space of about two blocks north of the Hilton.
Had it proved necessary I could have walked a hundred metres south and whiled away more time at Kinokuniya, but I found myself back at the Hilton around five to three, and curiosity, apart from killing the cat, demanded that I get the maximum exposure time from the unprecedented luxury I'd booked myself into.
Besides, Madam had made a couple of inquiries by way of text messages as to the quality of the conditions...
Anyway, as can be judged from the accompanying photo, the accommodation was, as expected, pretty schmicko, and after a quick call to establish contact with the inimitable Pope of Pop the next two hours were spent resting quietly and tapping out the narrative to the unprecedented point where I'm totally up to date with the story so far, and will be able to hurl myself at the shower and set out in search of nutrition, beer and Popes of Pop with the narrative being resumed tomorrow morning, when, hopefully, I'll be tapping out my review of a night with Elvis and The Imposters, which will be appearing over on the Music Pages, as well as in the relevant Little House of Concrete blog site.