henrus
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- Jun 23, 2016
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I bring to you a quick trip report across central Queensland. This was all very last minute spurred by what should have just been a one day trip to Rockhampton. In the end I decided to take some extra time off plus the weekend and tick off a few bucket list things in the process. I’d even tossed up adding in the tilt train but given the flight was really cheap and not to mention the huge time saving (7.5hrs vs 1hr), the plane it was.
It started off on Saturday afternoon from Brisbane city, an Uber was set to cost $40 (and hard to get due to the NRL game in a few hours plus riverfire later that night) so I ended up getting a train out to the airport. When purchasing a return ticket online the oneway works out at a slightly more reasonable $14.
The train probably had about 30-40 people onboard and things were reasonably quiet at the domestic terminal at about 2pm ish.
I ended up going through the Jetstar (central) security and there was no one around which meant I was off the train and through security in about 3 minutes. With about 30 minutes before boarding I made a quick stop to the Virgin Lounge. Again rather quiet with just 6 flights left for the rest of the day and the final departure at 5pm ash.
Food in the lounge was limited to servo pies and about 5 different cold items plus the usual packet chips/fruit etc. The chicken salad was just edible for a few bites and we’ll leave it there.
Soon enough boarding was starting, a last minute (2 hours) aircraft switch from the 737-700 to 737-800 meant there was a significant amount of shuffling seats prior to departure (particularly related to the exit rows)
I was one of three in Business class and despite being just a 55 minute flight, the cheap $249 fares in Business class are easily justifiable being less than $70 more than economy. The extra bonus is the increased status credits compared to a Choice fare.
Even though it was a 50 minute flight there was still a meal service in Business. Two cold options either a vego Turkish bread thing or the salmon salad. Regular range of drinks although they did make an announcement saying no hot drinks due to the short flight time (not sure if this also applied business class). One other thing I thought was interesting, they announced a few economy menu items that weren’t on the menu a few sandwiches and wraps that were described as “extra perishable items”.
I won’t bore you with my rather uneventful short time in Rockhampton mainly on Monday. But on Sunday I did catch the bus from Rockhampton to Yeppon (regular translink public bus $6.60 for the 1hr+ trip - much cheaper than the rip off car rental), met up with some poeple and then the ferry over to Great Keppel Island (being a last minute work trip it was fully booked on the island and hard to find anything in Yeppoon due to the school holidays hence just a Sunday day trip).
(Onboard the bus to Yeppon from Rockhampton)
Now something I’ve been wanting to go for a while has been the Qantas Museum and Stockmans Hall of Fame in Longreach. Despite living in Brisbane it’s rare for me to travel anywhere in Queensland other than South East Queensland or Cairns and it’s surprisingly hard to get out there to Longreach.
It's a 13 hour 1179km drive from Brisbane which isn’t that appealing, the train is worse at 24 hours and all the sleeper options are basically booked out for the rest of the year (which means 24 hours in a standard seat). This leaves just a 2 hour Qantas link flight but annoyingly it’s often very expensive (especially around weekends), whilst you can get sale fares for ~$200 more often then not it’s about $420 for a oneway flight.
Despite Rockhampton still a huge distance (7hrs 687km) from Longreach I was determined to see if I could figure something out and take a few days off in the process. Unfortunately Longreach airport only has flights from Brisbane and a weird Rex service from Townsville but I had a small window from Monday evening but had to be back in Brisbane on Thursday.
The train from Rockhampton to Longreach was out due to the terrible departure times leaving Rockhampton at either 4:40am on a Wednesday morning or 1:03am on a Sunday morning. I even considered a rental car but the eye watering one way one day rental was $600 (not to mention I’d have to drive it). In one last search Rome2rio pointed out a Greyhound service which fitted in perfectly with the schedule an 8am departure from Rockhampton for a 9hr trip arriving Longreach at 5pm. A fully flexible ticket was ~$100 due to a sale at the time.
There are several hotels near the airport although space was limited so I locked one in and then finally it was a flight home. My initial google flights search revealed it was going to be $417 but amazingly there was a reward seat for 8000 points + $51 taxes which is about as good as it gets for QF domestic redemptions. This would give me ~21 hours in Longreach and the ability to tick off a bucket list item of going to the Qantas museum. I’d been hoping that Qantas would do a mystery flight style day trip to Longreach aboard either a 737 or Dash 8 and whilst they’d hinted at it, with international travel potentially opening up they seem to be focusing on that right now.
On Tuesday morning I set off from the hotel and walked about 1km down to a petrol station on the Bruce highway, I arrived about 10 minutes before departure armed with snacks and no idea what to expect from a 9hr bus ride. Luckily I had the seat next to me free for the entire trip and everyone could reasonably spread out with just 9 people booked on the 48 seat bus. Later in the trip I got chatting to the bus driver and apparently the record for the Rockhampton to Longreach route is only 30 people. It was my first time ever on a Greyhound bus and I was rather impressed, it had a clean loo up the back, free unlimited wifi (limited by Telstra’s speeds/reception) and a USB power socket at each seat.
(Greyhound Bus Seating - If I had to guess I'd say it was around 31-32")
It started off on Saturday afternoon from Brisbane city, an Uber was set to cost $40 (and hard to get due to the NRL game in a few hours plus riverfire later that night) so I ended up getting a train out to the airport. When purchasing a return ticket online the oneway works out at a slightly more reasonable $14.
The train probably had about 30-40 people onboard and things were reasonably quiet at the domestic terminal at about 2pm ish.
I ended up going through the Jetstar (central) security and there was no one around which meant I was off the train and through security in about 3 minutes. With about 30 minutes before boarding I made a quick stop to the Virgin Lounge. Again rather quiet with just 6 flights left for the rest of the day and the final departure at 5pm ash.
Food in the lounge was limited to servo pies and about 5 different cold items plus the usual packet chips/fruit etc. The chicken salad was just edible for a few bites and we’ll leave it there.
Soon enough boarding was starting, a last minute (2 hours) aircraft switch from the 737-700 to 737-800 meant there was a significant amount of shuffling seats prior to departure (particularly related to the exit rows)
I was one of three in Business class and despite being just a 55 minute flight, the cheap $249 fares in Business class are easily justifiable being less than $70 more than economy. The extra bonus is the increased status credits compared to a Choice fare.
Even though it was a 50 minute flight there was still a meal service in Business. Two cold options either a vego Turkish bread thing or the salmon salad. Regular range of drinks although they did make an announcement saying no hot drinks due to the short flight time (not sure if this also applied business class). One other thing I thought was interesting, they announced a few economy menu items that weren’t on the menu a few sandwiches and wraps that were described as “extra perishable items”.
I won’t bore you with my rather uneventful short time in Rockhampton mainly on Monday. But on Sunday I did catch the bus from Rockhampton to Yeppon (regular translink public bus $6.60 for the 1hr+ trip - much cheaper than the rip off car rental), met up with some poeple and then the ferry over to Great Keppel Island (being a last minute work trip it was fully booked on the island and hard to find anything in Yeppoon due to the school holidays hence just a Sunday day trip).
(Onboard the bus to Yeppon from Rockhampton)
Now something I’ve been wanting to go for a while has been the Qantas Museum and Stockmans Hall of Fame in Longreach. Despite living in Brisbane it’s rare for me to travel anywhere in Queensland other than South East Queensland or Cairns and it’s surprisingly hard to get out there to Longreach.
It's a 13 hour 1179km drive from Brisbane which isn’t that appealing, the train is worse at 24 hours and all the sleeper options are basically booked out for the rest of the year (which means 24 hours in a standard seat). This leaves just a 2 hour Qantas link flight but annoyingly it’s often very expensive (especially around weekends), whilst you can get sale fares for ~$200 more often then not it’s about $420 for a oneway flight.
Despite Rockhampton still a huge distance (7hrs 687km) from Longreach I was determined to see if I could figure something out and take a few days off in the process. Unfortunately Longreach airport only has flights from Brisbane and a weird Rex service from Townsville but I had a small window from Monday evening but had to be back in Brisbane on Thursday.
The train from Rockhampton to Longreach was out due to the terrible departure times leaving Rockhampton at either 4:40am on a Wednesday morning or 1:03am on a Sunday morning. I even considered a rental car but the eye watering one way one day rental was $600 (not to mention I’d have to drive it). In one last search Rome2rio pointed out a Greyhound service which fitted in perfectly with the schedule an 8am departure from Rockhampton for a 9hr trip arriving Longreach at 5pm. A fully flexible ticket was ~$100 due to a sale at the time.
There are several hotels near the airport although space was limited so I locked one in and then finally it was a flight home. My initial google flights search revealed it was going to be $417 but amazingly there was a reward seat for 8000 points + $51 taxes which is about as good as it gets for QF domestic redemptions. This would give me ~21 hours in Longreach and the ability to tick off a bucket list item of going to the Qantas museum. I’d been hoping that Qantas would do a mystery flight style day trip to Longreach aboard either a 737 or Dash 8 and whilst they’d hinted at it, with international travel potentially opening up they seem to be focusing on that right now.
On Tuesday morning I set off from the hotel and walked about 1km down to a petrol station on the Bruce highway, I arrived about 10 minutes before departure armed with snacks and no idea what to expect from a 9hr bus ride. Luckily I had the seat next to me free for the entire trip and everyone could reasonably spread out with just 9 people booked on the 48 seat bus. Later in the trip I got chatting to the bus driver and apparently the record for the Rockhampton to Longreach route is only 30 people. It was my first time ever on a Greyhound bus and I was rather impressed, it had a clean loo up the back, free unlimited wifi (limited by Telstra’s speeds/reception) and a USB power socket at each seat.
(Greyhound Bus Seating - If I had to guess I'd say it was around 31-32")
Only a 5 hour drive for me 
