Holiday Drama - 2. Chapter 2

Landing at Strahan, we had a good look around the small town and its surrounds before travelling by bus up to Queenstown, where we boarded the Tasmanian Wilderness Railway, which would take us back to Strahan, where we boarded the helicopter again and headed north to the town of Stanley. After a relaxing overnight stay in the small Northern coastal town, we climbed the famous hill called The Nut, electing to take the chairlift back down to ocean level, where we had an early light lunch, before we set off once more to King Island, in the Bass Strait. The helicopter flew back to Hobart at that point, as we checked into our B & B accommodation for two nights, which included a vehicle rental, so we could explore some of the island on our own.

After a relaxing time on King Island, we would fly to Geelong, where we booked into a hotel suite for two nights, before catching the train back to Adelaide. I didn’t tell Grant until the afternoon before departure, giving him just enough time to pack his suitcase, after I had made sure that all the clothes he needed were already washed and ready for packing. He was thrilled when I told him about our Tasmanian adventure, and he wanted to know all about it. I just gave him the basics of the itinerary, so he had some idea where we were going. During those 9-days in Tasmania, we had a wonderful time, and Grant took loads of photos on his new camera, which he loaded onto his laptop to edit them and put together a timeline of our journey.

During our rest and downtime at our accommodation, I continued to plan for our big trip to Canada, which would be a three-week-long trip, cutting into the last few days of the second term of school and a few days off the start of the third term. After a lot of research, I had booked and paid for two business class seats onboard an Airbus A220-300 with the National airline, leaving Adelaide at 5.30 pm on Wednesday, and landing at Brisbane three hours later, where we would have an overnight stay before our connecting flight with the Canadian national airline, departing at 10.00 am, once we have checked in most of our luggage and going through Customs and Border Control.

Our international flight on board a Boeing 787 would take nearly 14 hours, and with Business class, we would be able to lie down and sleep for some of the journey and arrive at 6.30 am local time. Our return journey home is just over two weeks later, and will be via Auckland, New Zealand. We would be spending two days there, looking around the city and its surroundings, before flying to Adelaide. I had researched accommodation and tours in Canada, and I decided to do a fourteen-day home swap on Victoria Island, before returning to the mainland, where a few days later, we would board the Canadian Rockies train for the rail trip, leaving on Wednesday, with 5-star accommodation and Gold-Leaf level rail service.

This trip would include 5 days onboard the Rocky Mountaineer Train, and two days staying at hotels in Jasper. We would arrive back in Vancouver on the following Wednesday with the flight home departing at 8.55 that same evening, so we had time to relax a little before going through customs at the airport. For the nine weeks between the Autumn holidays and the mid-year holidays, Grant was bouncing around like a jumping bean with excitement for the Canadian holiday, which I announced to him a week after we had returned from Tasmania. I informed Grant that we would arrive in Vancouver, Canada, early in the morning, and from there we would board a regional flight to Victoria Airport, which is a 35-minute journey, and from there we would book a charter bus to take us to our accommodation.

The holiday rental home is located at Sooke, on the coast, south-west of Victoria, and it has a spa in an enclosed private patio, also a splash pool that overlooks the tennis court and the bay, and a small jetty, with canoes available to use during our stay. As the weeks passed, I too was starting to get excited about this trip to Canada, and I had already packed most of my luggage, checking it each week, to make sure that I had everything that I needed. I was communicating with Sarah and Mike, the owners of the house in Sooke, every week, and she had informed me that the property next door to her was on the market, but it may not sell until after our stay, so we didn’t need to worry too much about it.

I had agreed to allow the Canadian couple to stay in my house for two weeks, even though we would be staying in Canada for an extra week. I would be moving all of my work documents, tools and equipment to the large storage room within the garage area, so that it remains locked away safe while we are away, with just two security cameras, within the garage area to monitor that area, and no other place, which I had mentioned to Sarah and Mike, and they were happy with that. As we were getting closer to our holiday, I reminded my clients that I would be away on holiday for three weeks, and that I have a couple from Canada who will be minding my house while I am away, with some clients asking get me to do a few rush jobs before I went away, of which some I was able to do, and others would have to wait until I returned from my trip. I spent a lot of time doing research on places to visit and activities that we could do while in Sooke, which was quite a lot, surprisingly. Just one week before we were due to fly out to Canada, I received an email from the couple with whom we are doing a house swap.

“Dear Myles and Grant, we are so looking forward to our holiday in South Australia, and we do hope that you enjoy your time here at Sooke on Victoria Island. We just wanted to let you know that the property next door has sold, and that the new owners will be moving in over the same weekend we leave home to travel to the mainland, where we will be spending a few days before starting our journey to Australia. The real estate agent handling the property next door is fully aware of our house swap agreement, and they have agreed to ask the new owners not to disturb our international visitors during their stay in our home.

We have asked our closest friends, Charles and Gloria, to keep an eye on the house for the five days the house will be empty, between us leaving and you arriving, and they will check in with you, a day or two after you arrive, to make sure you have everything that you need. If you do have any issues, please let the real estate agency know. We will leave their contact details in the information folder on the kitchen table. Kind Regards, Sarah & Mike.”

I printed out the email and added it to my file of documents and information that we would be taking with us for future reference. I had not thought about putting together an information folder for them, as I was just going to leave a heap of pamphlets on tourist things and local restaurants, and I now realised that I needed to be a bit more detailed with what is available in Adelaide, so I spent nearly two whole afternoons gathering lots of information, and putting it into a folder, and I also spent two evenings writing up information on everything about the townhouse, especially with everything being so different from the Northern Hemisphere.

In the afternoon before our flight out of Adelaide, I had Grant unpack and repack his luggage, to make sure that he had everything that he needed for the trip, and I did the same with my luggage, so we were both set for the following day, with the flight leaving at 5.30 in the afternoon, I decided that we needed to be at the airport at least two hours before departure time, to make sure that we didn’t miss our flight. I made sure that Grant was permitted to leave school a few hours earlier than the end of the day, so he could get home, and we set off to the airport, which is located only 20 kilometres to the south of home. The last thing we did that day was to visit Joanna’s grave, which Grant and I had been doing once a week.

The first stage of our journey was uneventful, and on arrival in Brisbane, we caught a taxi to the hotel that we would be staying at, which is fairly close to the airport. This would make it easier to get back to the airport in the morning, and with a 10 am departure, and needing to go through customs and border control, we decided that we needed to be there at 7 am at the latest. After an early dinner at the hotel restaurant, we retired to bed early as we had a 5 am wakeup, to shower and dress and be ready to leave the hotel at 6.30 am, as we would have breakfast once we had arrived at the airport and checked in our tickets.

We had the centre seats in Business Class, so we are seated next to each other, as well as being on the aisle on each side, which made it easy for access to our overhead bins for storing our luggage, that consisted of a small suitcase and a backpack each, everything that we needed for our overseas journey, including an iPad each to keep us entertained during the journey, with Grant having heaps of puzzles and audio books loaded onto his.

I had made one slight adjustment to our travel plans, with an overnight stay in Vancouver, before we travel over to the island, to allow us to deal with any jetlag, as it is a long 14 hour journey that includes crossing the International Date Line halfway across the Pacific Ocean, and I was not sure how Grant would cope with the long time that we are in the air over the ocean. Thankfully, we both managed to sleep during the trip, and we were well looked after by the cabin crew, so both of us felt surprisingly good when we finally landed in British Columbia, and the process through customs and border control went smoothly, since we were business class passengers.

Once in a taxi, we asked the driver to give us a one-hour tour of the city, before taking us to the hotel that we would be staying at overnight, and he took us to a small café on the edge of a large park, so that we could enjoy our first Canadian breakfast, which was wonderful. When we finally arrived at our hotel at about 9 am, we were able to check in and get settled into our hotel room, where we rested for two hours, before having a shower and changing, and setting of to have a better look around the city of Vancouver, that included enjoying lunch at the same café that we were at this morning, where we were well looked after, as they recognised us from our earlier visit.

During lunch, I received an email notification, which I read, smiling when I saw that it was from our hosts. “Dear Myles and Grant, we hope that you had a safe and enjoyable journey to Canada. We took an earlier flight than planned and spent a few days in Sydney before flying on to Adelaide, and we arrived at our wonderful vacation home a few hours ago. We have already been to the beach to see the Gulf and enjoy a meal at the café that you recommended, which was delightful. We presume that you would be arriving at our home around now. We hope you enjoy your stay, and please don’t hesitate to let us know if there are any issues. Kind Regards, Sarah & Mike.”