AFF Gather #2 in RADelaide - A Trip Report

[anat0l]

​

Although it is much richer to hear from everyone else's perspectives about this do, I hadn't written a trip report since my short getaway to SYD and MEL, even though I had somewhat tried to commit to writing about my last SC run in October. Luckily this trip report took a bit shorter (so I'm hoping quality didn't drop).

As per my last TR, this report will be filled with pictures. Lots of them, but no more than a few MB. High quality photos are available on request, or please visit my FT Photo Gallery.

Note: to protect the identities of the innocent (or not so innocent), no photos with faces have been included with this trip report.

Summary Lists

Participant List at AFF Gather #2 ADL

• Flashware (PER)
• QF009 + 1 (MEL, MEL)
• tuapekastar (MEL)
• Skoogle (SYD)
• oz_mark (MEL)
• sris (ADL)
• anat0l (BNE)

Restaurants and Bars

• Hilton Executive Lounge (Afternoon Tea, Evening Canapes, Breakfast)
• The Tap Inn (Friday Drinks & Tapas)
• Settlement Wine (Saturday Lunch)
• Mapo Korean Restaurant (Saturday Dinner)
• The Chocolate Bean (Saturday post-dinner coffee)
• Chianti Classico (Sunday Brunch)
• Qantas Club Adelaide Airport (Sunday Drinks & Snacks) :mrgreen:

There was also a wine bar that some of the group visited after Saturday dinner, but I didn't go and I do not know its name.

Wine Estates visited in McLaren Vale (in order)

1. Pirramimma
2. Wirra Wirra
3. Fox Creek
4. Samuels Gorge
5. Coriole
6. Settlement Wine

Special Guests at Saturday Dinner

• Enda Mansfield
  Commercial Manager of Velocity for Virgin Blue

 

[anat0l]

Friday 28 November 2008

As per my usual bad habit, I hadn’t got not even close to enough sleep the previous night due to my usual non-diligence in packing (and the procrastination that accompanies it. Not only that, but I had to get to the airport earlier since Mum had to go to work. So I was up at 4am, packing (yes, from scratch!), finished completely packing at 5.30am (after a bit of ironing and making sure all the valuables are there) before getting showered and ready to go. I had brought my small bag along, which easily fit all of my clothes. Whether it would fit all of my return cargo was a different thought...

So we all bunch into our car – Mum off to work, sister in driver’s seat, me off to the airport and Dad just coming for the ride. We drop Mum off first at work at TPCH, then off to the airport we go. Luckily there is little traffic for what should be an unpredictable and potentially tumultuous time of the morning, so I’m dropped off at BNE D (QF) without a hitch. There was even plenty of spaces at the drop-off area.

And then the fun started......

Going through the glass doors I saw the pleb line for bag drop do it’s usual snaking around. Luckily it hadn’t grown to the go any where near the J/QP/OWR+ line, where I proceeded to line up. Even the premium line was long – crazy. It took at least 15 minutes for me to get up to a counter. I managed to pass the time in the line by talking to the lady in front of me who was going to SYD for the weekend. She used to go to ADL for a bit and I told her about my weekend coming up. (She recommended going to McLaren Vale.) The waiting area resounded with instructions for pax to cut the queues (and sporadic messages that the OLCI line was only for OLCI pax that have a BP printed from home). As usual, BNE D was quite understaffed and hence the resulting zoo. If it’s any consolation, I guess the lines didn’t grow as long as I’ve horribly seen it before.

I got to a counter to find a very visibly and audibly frustrated agent. She didn’t have her name badge on so I couldn’t even address her properly, and she seemed a little bit annoyed when I told her that I had OLCI’d but didn’t have a BP printed. She almost sent me off without one until she remembered to print off a BP on cardboard, then I was on my way. At least she remembered the Priority (orange) tag. Nothing I could say or do would make her feel one iota better. I hope for her sake she made it through the day.

Security was a far more friendly affair and not so much a zoo. I said hello to the woman seeing the bags go into the x-ray machine; she seem puzzled that I knew her name until I noted to her that her badge was clearly showing. I also seemed to be able to continue my mysterious run of late where I haven’t been picked for explosives testing. Counting my blessings I packed up my things and headed straight to the QP (left turn, not right).

Once in the QP, I breakfasted on some corn flakes with yoghurt and berry sauce, followed by a soft, non-toasty muffin with Vegemite. I will never know how to properly use the rotating toaster, notwithstanding that you’ve got little chance of changing the setting on it anyway whilst everyone else has their breads in it. The QP could stand to put some peanut butter in the condiments section, too. Had a latte from the barista, which is overrated (same as from the barista machine except put a human there – no increase in quality). A swig of orange juice and it was time to head to gate 19 for boarding.

Boarding was a little slow because one BP reader was only able to scan striped BPs (i.e. the cardboard ones), so since almost everyone either has a OLCI paper BP or QuickCheck BP that has a barcode on it, almost everyone had to be processed through a single BP reader, which at times still threw up.

Flight: QF661 Brisbane (BNE D) – Adelaide (ADL T1)
Depart: 0825h Sched; 0826h Actual
Aircraft: VH-VYK “Moree” Boeing 737-800
Class: Economy
Seat: 4A

Got seated without much fuss, 4C having taken his seat. The leg room on the 738s are excellent in row 4, even after stowing my bag under the J seat in front of me. The flight didn’t look very full; there were two spare seats in J in row 3.

The formalities over and we were in the air without much fuss, except we were told by the captain that due to some weather on the flight path over to ADL as well as ADL ATC preparing to give us slightly a hard time, our arrival into ADL would be delayed by about 10 minutes.

Breakfast was served, and I have to admit I am getting sick of Just Right. Note to self: next time on domestic breakfast service, choose the low sugar meal. Cereal was sided with a green apple bag and a small square pastry with cranberries in it. It’s not the best change from the two warm scrolls that I had in the last two breakfast service flights, and only went down moderately well with the I-can’t-believe-it’s-whipped-butter.

As I was really tired, I opted to stow away my juice and apples and get some shut eye. Tea and coffee were passed up before I went to sleep, only temporarily waking up again to put away my table once our trays had been collected. I managed to wake up just before the CSM was about to announce to everyone to get prepared for landing. As we passed over ADL, I noticed ADL city centre surrounded by the green belt. I also noticed the Adelaide Oval and forgot about the cricket being there. Unfortunately, it didn’t dawn on me to get my camera out in time, otherwise it would have made for an interesting shot of the oval from overhead with the little men on the field.

As foretold by the captain, we touched down approximately 11 minutes later than scheduled, but otherwise a short taxi to gate 22 and we were out into ADL Airport.

Baggage took some considerable amount of time to arrive, but when it did finally come out, all the J bags easily made it out but there was only a peppering of orange tagged bags following suit. Eventually, my bag made it out, so up one level to the far end of the departure drive-up and I hurriedly hot-footed it to make the J2 JetBus into the city.

The Adelaide Metro is interesting – there is only one zone of travel (compared to Brisbane which has 5 zones in the Brisbane metro area), then there is a “two-section” fare, so you really only have 2 tickets to choose from in order to travel in Adelaide. The ride was too long for a two-section, but $2.60 to get to the city? That’s a great rate! You’d think that for a small-ish city with the airport close to the CBD that I’d be in town within a handful of minutes right? Wrong. The bus ended up making many stops along the way. Compounded with this was a few bouts of unlikely Adelaide traffic at a most unlikely time for it to happen! In any case, I arrived near the North Terrace of the city and pulled out the trusty map to walk towards Victoria Square and the Hilton Adelaide Hotel.

It was a fair walk from Currie St to Victoria Square; I was also slightly annoyed that the map in the tourist guide did not indicate the presence of small streets, so counting blocks whilst matching it up with the map was a fruitless exercise (so I reverted back to my Google Maps map that I printed out earlier). A few walks through shopping malls and little streets later, I found myself staring at a huge park cut in by a tram line. Looking around the diamond shaped city block I found the Hilton Adelaide.

 

[anat0l]

Hotel: Hilton Adelaide Hotel
Room: 17th floor, Executive Double

For the reader of this report, one must distinguish between the “Hilton Hotel” and the “Hilton Adelaide Hotel”. There is a suburb in Adelaide called Hilton and – you guessed it – there is a pub in Hilton called “Hilton Hotel”. I realised this when I was Google mapping out the landmarks for this do.

The reception/concierge desk seemed relatively quiet and the HHonors line was free. Elodie promptly completed the arrangements for my room. I had booked an Executive Double as part of the PR40TP promotion, hoping that there would be a big room (since there needed to be two beds there), only to be told that is will be a room with two single beds. Oh well, didn’t matter much. As a HHonors Gold, I then exercised my free benefit and chose complementary high-speed internet access. Whilst the possibility of upgrading from an Executive sounded attractive, I thought the internet would be far more valuable. Mere minutes later I was in the lift up to the second highest floor of the Hilton Adelaide, then almost at the end of the corridor to my room.

The room outside was a nice lead in to the inside. The room was well set out and had a nice simple yet elegant design. The furniture was simple but not old-fashioned (cf. Hilton Brisbane, which is old fashioned). There was a window that could actually open – bonus! The view from the room was excellent – a great view of Victoria Park, the street and buildings below. The openable window allowed me to stretch out and grab some other pics. The mini-bar wasn’t one of those new ones with preset slots that auto-charge you, which is perfect if you are trying to shift stuff to make space for your own items. As predicted, there were two single beds. The bathroom had a frosted glass door, as well as a full bath and separate shower (rather than the two combined, a la Hilton Brisbane and On The Park). The shower had two heads: one was an overhead shower and a pin could be pulled out to activate the hand held shower head mounted on the wall. The usual Crabtree & Evelyn amenities (small quantity type) surrounded the deep sink (with a separate plug).

 

[anat0l]

After settling down and unpacking some things, I immediately set up my eeePC to take advantage of the high-speed internet. A brief nap later, I read AFF to see that QF009, tuapekastar and Skoogle had landed in ADL. I made a brief visit to the Executive Lounge to have some afternoon tea. Again, the Executive Lounge was nice and simple. A bit small, but I’m guessing that’s because ADL isn’t a big city. There’s a great view from the windows to the ocean, where you can also see ADL Airport.

A little later, I met up with QF009 and Skoogle in the Exec Lounge for a bit of evening canapés. The range consisted of some mini-quiches and various dips, as well as some mixed Asian vegetables and lobster served in a Chinese soup spoon.

It was soon that we decided to make our way to The Tap Inn for evening drinks. When we exited the hotel, we managed to find tuapekastar, who was waiting on sris, who was driving to The Tap Inn. When sris pulled up, there was only enough room for one other passenger, so we had to find another option. At first, it seemed like taking the free bus to the edge of the city centre followed by a relatively short walk, but at the insistence of my companions we opted for the more pedestrian (pun intended) option of a taxi ride.

It probably helped that I printed out some Google Maps as well as spent some time on Google Street View, as we managed to identify The Tap Inn with relative ease. Taxi paid for, we proceeded inside. The Tap Inn is a golf-centric bar (gee – was it difficult to guess?). There is a huge bar with a massive wall of different wines, beers and spirits abounding in the background. The taps for the alcohol on tap were shaped to look like the heads of golf clubs. If you wanted to, you could buy some time to hit some balls at the indoor driving range. Best of all, they accepted Amex.

 

[anat0l]

Drinks consisted of wine and beer. The wine selection included a d’Arnberg Harry’s Original Shiraz Grenache – which was the first bottle to be imbibed – followed by a O’Leary Walker Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir. The latter was lighter and seemed to go well with the crowd, so a couple more bottles were ordered during the night, however my drinking ceased after the first O’Leary. Some tapas were ordered to accompany the drinks, which went down well. Of course, the difficulty was selecting an appropriate selection of tapas to suit all tastes; more importantly, we had people with allergies to shellfish and tomato in the group.

sris needed to leave early to start working on her Thanksgiving feast the following day, including one ominous turkey, so it was left to QF009 and tuapekastar to polish off the second bottle of O’Leary...before attempting to polish off another one.

Some time later, when QF009 was just starting to feel a little bit under the influence, Flashware turned up slightly inebriated. Turns out the PER QP plus his flight over had served him well (pun intended). He disappeared a little later to come back with two beers. When asked why he had two beers, it turns out one beer didn’t make the minimum on the Amex.

We stayed a little longer in The Tap Inn, amidst the smell of marijuan_ in the air (apparently someone else in the bar decided to light up a joint) and Die Another Day and Revenge of the Nerds screening on the TVs in the background. Eventually, we decided to go, which was just as well since QF009 was looking rather unpredictable. Without a taxi in sight, it was up to me to call a taxi, and within a comfortable amount of time (at least in my view), one pulled up. So we all piled in and headed back to the Hilton for a good night’s sleep.

As it turned out (no we did not plan this), Flashware was the only attendee (apart from sris, of course) who did not stay at the Hilton Adelaide.

The best cure for a hangover is to get drunk again.

Well, with a trip to the wine region the next day, what could be better (or worse)?

 

[anat0l]

Saturday 29 November 2008

Morning rolled in and I woke up realising that I had almost overslept. A quick shower and change (iron the shirt before changing into it), a quick note for housekeeping and I was out the door to the Exec Lounge for breakfast.

I arrived at the Exec Lounge to find QF009+1 there, as well as Skoogle and Flashware. Exec Lounge breakfast was the same deal as all over the country, although I must remark that either the eggs are very popular or they don’t replace them all that often, because when I passed over the selection there were no scrambled eggs left. The rest of the food was fairly standard fare. So some sausages and mushrooms with a toasted muffin it was, sided with a café latte.

Breakfast finished, we proceeded to the lobby to find oz_mark, who lead us to the b*s that would be our means of carting as around McLaren Vale. Our first stop after a fairly long drive (well, short for QF009 who seemed to be out of it in the back seat) was the McLaren Vale Tourist Information Centre. Here we obtained a map of the region with all the cellars marked.

(The following picture was an interesting ad for a wine stain remover being sold at the Tourist Information Centre)

First stop of the day was Pirramimma (“the moon and the stars”), and let the wine tasting begin! Noticeably, compared to when I went to Sandalford in 2006, we did not have to pay anything to taste the wines. Pirramimma had an old-fashioned looking cellar which was quite cool inside (as to be expected). Unfortunately, for the reader, although I learned a bit more in appreciating wines during this Gather, I am not able to intimately recall and/or describe all of my experiences with the wines tasted during the day, so apologies to those that were expecting to know what were great wines or not. (BTW I am normally a white wine drinker, but light reds are OK with me. I prefer sweeter wines, too.)

Anyway, the tasting procedure was the same for every estate. A list of wines was provided (usually in preferred tasting order) and people simply nominated the wines they would like to try. oz_mark, being our ever trusty driver, kept his imbibing to a minimum. Flashware was taking it a bit slowly at first to compensate for the copious amounts of alcohol he had the previous night, whilst QF009 (who is a serial red drinker) seemed to be able to take whatever was coming to him. This time I also exercised my discretion in disposing of wines I did not really like, which helps one taste many wines without getting drunk quickly.

There were some good wines at Pirramimma, but we decided to move on to other estates and return later to purchase some wines. This works out well, otherwise by the time one commits to buying bottles at each estate, it’s not hard to end up with many, many bottles! (As Flashware relented to a wine tour one time, he ended up with about 40 bottles!)

 

[anat0l]

The next stop was Wirra Wirra (“amongst the gum trees”), well known to a lot of us as the makers of the Scrubby Rise white wine which has been frequenting the beer and wine selection on QF domestic economy of late.

There was a small difficulty in locating the frontage of the cellar (after happening upon the vineyard proper instead). Tasting here seemed to be less of an affair, except I was attracted by the Moscato, which had a light, refreshing sweet taste but not overly sweet nor thick like a dessert wine. Wirra Wirra was one of the busier estates that we visited.

 

[anat0l]

After Wirra Wirra was Fox Creek, which wasn’t really much of a creek (there was no water in it). Fox Creek had a nice smaller cellar, but probably was a bit too small; there was barely enough room for the people who were there to crowd around to taste wines. There was also considerable merchandise in the lounge room, including shirts and tank tops, as well as a small toy fox in a basket near the fireplace. One wine that seemed to hit off with some of our group was the Red Baron (no prizes for guessing the colour of the wine).

 

[anat0l]

Samuels Gorge was our next stop, which had been recommended to us previously as having a most picturesque view and some great wines (apart from Coriole). We sat down in the courtyard of the very traditional looking cellar (complete with an outhouse), which looked out to magnificent rolling views of the hills.

The wine was pretty good too; for myself I picked up a bottle of the Shiraz. Would have been all that more sweeter had they accepted Amex, but ah well.

 

[anat0l]

Coriole was the next stop and would have also meant lunch in a very nice setting, but unfortunately Coriole was the busiest of the wineries we’d visited that day and hence there was no more restaurant seating left. So we resorted to tasting wines. I was most impressed by their dessert white and fortified red, so I bought a bottle of each to take with me.

At this point, the group was starting to feel quite peckish, so our next stop at Settlement Wines was a welcome one, since (with a quick dash inside to confirm) they served food – pizzas to be precise, supposedly gourmet (and at the prices they were charging, ought to be).

It also became our last stop for tasting and purchasing wines; I bought three bottles of wine from Settlement alone, which would have been nicer had they accepted Amex.

The pizzas were quite good but not overly spectacular. Chilli seemed to be a bit of a common theme in the pizzas, which wasn’t so bad except one of our own didn’t quite want chilli. Another very picturesque view from the tables concluded a great day: six wineries visited in all. Along the way back to Adelaide, we stopped by Pirramimma to make some last minute purchases; Flashware in particular warming up (no pun intended) to the port.

Overall, the wine tours seemed to go down very well with the group, which was ironically made better by the fact that our group was small. Certainly, the size of the group made it possible for us to go about the day in a more ad hoc manner.

 

[anat0l]

Upon arrival back at the hotel, oz_mark went to drop off the b*s, whilst I returned to my room and had a brief nap before having to get ready (and iron another shirt) to go for dinner. I’m a real sucker for trying to get as much out of the hotel as I can, so of course dinner was preceded by dropping by the Exec Lounge for evening canapés (or whatever passes off as a canapé these days ). A brief bite later, we headed out (on foot – yes, we did walk!) on Gouger St to Mapo Korean.

There’s a sign at Mapo that says you can earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points, but we later found out that this is some future promotion. When you go into Mapo, the cooks alert the presence of new customers by beating on a large drum. That’s probably where most of the traditionalist stuff stops – the rest of the restaurant is fairly modern. The chopsticks are metal and relatively heavy for chopsticks, which is rather impractical. Also, I didn’t know until I looked at the wall of newspaper clippings that this was an Asian fusion restaurant.

Anyway, we all took our seats as we waited for our special guest, Enda. When Enda arrived, Flashware correctly picked him out (the guy that looked like he was looking for someone) and joined us just as drinks were being organised. On one end of our eight-seater, we had people having beers; on the other end of the table a bottle of red was shared. Being conservative, I limited myself to a glass of red, but my fellow tablemates had other plans.

Then came the ordering of the food. Some various Korean foods, like bulgogi, were on the menu, but others looked like some creations with weird Asian (or non-Asian) influences. I settled on the duck dish on the menu. We chatted for a while, but I was on the half of the table which was not close to Enda, so it was difficult for us to grab his attention, not that it could be helped. (It’s a bit like Phil and Luisa at our last AFF Gather floating around, except there wasn’t enough room to be floating around.) We all got to know a bit about Enda and how he came to his current position at DJ and Velocity. Some of the questions we had were mainly about DJ more than Velocity, so it wasn’t stuff that he could clearly answer, but it was all good.

Entrees were served, which ranged from deep fried tofu to prawns to pork balls (for those of you with odd minds about Asian food, the latter is pork meat shaped into a ball shape, not the... you get the idea!). I helped finish the deep fried tofu, which wasn’t all that exciting – even the sauce could have used a bit more flavour.

 

[anat0l]

The mains fronted up fairly soon, which included the “massaged duck” dish that I had, dolsot bibimbap (which could be passed off like the Japanese sukiyaki served in a hot stone bowl), Atlantic salmon and bulgogi (a common Korean dish of barbequed meat). There wasn’t much duck on my dish – about three pieces. The tempura nest of vegetables that the duck surrounded was a bit sweet for liking. Overall, it wasn’t a very tasty dish, although surveying around me it seemed that the rest of the dishes went down well with the crowd. Looks like someone should have just stuck to the bulgogi (or the dolsot).

The crowd (or not really a crowd – only eight people) decided to pass up on desserts, except for QF009 who opted to order a green tea ice cream. Moments later, a large scooped pyramid of green tea ice cream served with a toffee crisp was laid right in front of QF009. Needless to say, I think he got his money’s worth on that one.

The size of the group and the atmosphere of the restaurant didn’t really warrant us making Enda give a speech, so we all thanked Enda for coming, and at that very moment, someone from another table decided to make most of the restaurant sing with him in wishing a friend from overseas a happy birthday. I very much fumbled to organise the bill , but with a bit of help from all the cash was arranged and the bill put on my Amex. We were informed then that a 3% surcharge would be levied on the bill. At this point I either successfully calculated that the extra would only be ~$9 and/or I couldn’t give half a stuff, so the transaction went ahead.

After Mapo, most of those present kicked on at a wine bar not far from our dinner venue. I decided to hike it up to the other end of town to a chocolate shop/café that had been recommended to me. The café was quite busy and I couldn’t get a seat, but my journey hadn’t been in vain as I collected some truffles for Christmas gifts, as well as sampled some of the chocolaty delights.

As I wondered back to the hotel and my room, the thought was in my mind as to how I was going to carry (all in one piece) seven bottles of wine with my small checked bag and carry-on.......

 

[anat0l]

Sunday 30 November 2008

I woke up a bit late the next day, so it was lucky (although an almost forced decision anyway) that I did not opt in for the select group who were going to be at Chianti early. The Exec Lounge breakfast is also open later than usual on weekends, so this worked out well. But there was so much to do.

The first thing to do was to extend my checkout time, which turned out to be easier than I thought. To my chagrin, I later found out that the loading was light that day so I could have extended my checkout much later, but such was.

I had breakfast in the Exec Lounge and managed to bump into QF009+1 whilst I was there. Since they had little idea of how to get to Chianti, I was going to meet up with them at 11.45am so we could go together, since I had a map. I was hoping to get my errands done before then.

First stop was to Coles down the street, which opened at the toll of 11 (literally, 11 bells from the clock tower tolled in the distance). No signs of bubble wrap, but I also grabbed my mobile recharge there (as well as a fuel voucher and Amex transaction). So next stop was into the city to look for some stationary shop that may have bubble wrap. I tried Spotlight – no go. Next try: a newsagency – equally futile. Woolworths had one little cylinder left with no other stock on hand – oh well, another Amex transaction. Finally, at the recommendation of the people at Woolworths, I tried The Reject Shop and grabbed three rolls of bubble wrap and plenty of sticky tape (no Amex accepted here, unfortunately). It was getting late, so I walked quickly back up Rundle Mall to get the inter-Terrace tram back to Victoria Square.

Once inside, QF009+1 were waiting in the lobby. I quickly raced to my room and retrieved the map with instructions and headed back down to the lobby, with also a note to say that I would be joining the rest of them later and to apologise on my behalf. Then it was back up to the room to start the mad packing process.

Furious was the pace I was going at. Bubble wrap was cut, wine bottles rolled meticulously and taped up on all points of impact. The next struggle was working out how to fit all the bottles into my case and bag, as well as a large plastic bag that I had nominated to use as a second hand carry. I managed to fit just my clothes and six bottles in my checked baggage (using the clothes as edge padding); the last bottle went into the plastic carry-on bag along with my toiletries bag and other things (like pilfered coffee, tea and Crabtree & Evelyn amenities ).

A quick furious check of every nook, crannie, cupboard and cavity seemed to reveal nothing left behind, so I charged downstairs to meet my checkout time of 1pm. As I previously alluded to, it turns out I could have had the room for much longer, but since I was all packed I thought it to be fruitless to keep the room. They had apparently forgotten to accurately record that my internet access was complementary (HHG benefit). My final bill corrected and Amex slapped on for payment, I left two of my bags with the concierge whilst I hiked out to Chianti.

Once at Chianti, I found the table straight away with our crew. The first line I got from any staff at the restaurant was, “You’re late!” oh well, to be expected. I was also slightly chided by QF009 on recommending the walk to Chianti. A dish quickly ordered to avoid any further delays, I settled down with the group with a glass of red vino.

 

[anat0l]

Food was delivered fairly promptly, which was good since a couple of people in attendance had flights within hours (cf. myself and a few others, who had flights after 7 pm). Food was fairly good and the sentiment was shared all around. I ordered a duck with pasta dish and although comparing the cuisine might not be apples with apples since it was far from the same dish, I still felt that the quality of this preparation was much better than that of which I had for dinner at Mapo. The duck was cooked precisely and had good flavour to it. The resulting dish complemented the duck meat nicely.

 

[anat0l]

With the mains completed, desserts were offered, but most declined or resorted to just a coffee. I ordered an affogato which was sided with a shot of Frangelico. It was quite a nice combination.

At that point, people started moving (QF009+1 moved to get packing; Skoogle and tuapekastar for their flights), so it was decided that Flashware would pick up this bill.

(Picture above is of Victoria Square, a park which the Hilton Adelaide Hotel directly overlooks)

The remainder of us didn’t stay for very much longer after everyone started to move, so I finished my dessert and the bill was settled. Flashware, oz_mark and I hiked it back to the Hilton whereupon we retrieved our luggages and hailed a taxi to the airport. After all, we didn’t have much else to do, and there was free booze begging to be consumed at the QP.

Once at the airport, I didn’t have the cash to give to oz_mark straight away, having seen my wallet notes being composed of solely $20 and $50 notes. Once inside, the premium line was somewhat appreciably long but not insidious like BNE the other day. I had my checked bag stickered fragile so I had to cart it to the other end of the desk bank to the special handling area. Funny enough, I laughed at the check-in agent that I was probably begging for Murphy’s law having a fragile sticker put on my bag (i.e. a fragile sticker is an invitation for more damage, not less), but she laughed and reassured me that that was not the case.

QF009+1 caught up as I was about to head through the security checkpoint. Once through (eventually ), I diverted from going straight to the QP to buy some more chocolates for gifts from the Cocolat shop inside ADL T1, which I must remark have excellent chocolates, too. Having grabbed those, it was off to the QP, and with a flash of my BP and QF SG card, I set out in search of the team.

...although Amex have some work to do at Mclaren Vale wineries

Yes!!
Where are you? On a PC somewhere in the QP? We've got our own little corner here getting slightly sloshed

We found ourselves parked at a set of tables in the mobile free area . At that point, Skoogle and tuapekastar were just about ready to leave, whilst Flashware and QF009 had whipped out their trusty notebooks (as did I...or rather my netbook). QF009 was quaffing on his usual red preference, whilst I returned from the bar with a Bloody Mary for Flashware and a glass of white sparkling cuvee for me.

Not soon after, oz_mark found us and came back with hot food consisting of little meatballs and spring rolls. We continued the drink for a while and I got some standard QP fare back, but I still wanted to sample some hot food before boarding. I ended up having to camp out the food bar until a new batch of hot food was out, at which point I immediately lined up with about a dozen other people following suit. In the end, only half a dozen people actually got hot food, the rest having been ravenously taken by those lucky enough to line up first. (One person in front of me took about 10 meat balls.)

Much wine and food consumed later, our ranks began to thin out as people started being called for boarding. In the end when I had to go, Flashware was the only one left waiting for his boarding call. So it was onto gate 22 to catch my flight home, but thankfully it would be a much more comfortable one riding up in front.

 

[anat0l]

Flight: QF656 Adelaide (ADL T1) – Brisbane (BNE D)
Depart: 1940h Sched; 1948h Actual
Aircraft: VH-VXC “Gippsland” Boeing 737-800
Class: Business (Points upgrade from S fare)
Seat: 1D

Luckily I locked in this upgrade before today and not try for an op-up or an ODU, because J was full, and so it looked like the rest of the plane as well. CSM Gabriel (male) greeted us and I got seated, ruing that I should have selected a row 2 seat by virtue of my carry on. It thankfully all fit in the half-size compartment above row 1, but I was a little scared of the plastic bag.

Pre-flight water and juice (apple and strawberry) were offered, but apart from that it was a fairly uneventful pushback and take off. The skies had just started to darken slightly and dim a little from possible rain arriving as we took off into the bight before circling around back towards the north.
Dinner was served on the flight and the J choices were either:

• Roast chicken salad with lemon herb dressing, sided with a Manna from Heaven sweet biscuit, or
• Barramundi with lemongrass and chilli flavoured sauce served with steamed vegetables and rice, sided with a small green salad.

I chose the latter dish of fish. Normally I wouldn’t select fish for most flights, but in this case the combination of flavours sounded a bit more appetising than usual, so hopefully that makes up for the possibly bland fish. I was thankfully surprised to find the fish not bland and actually succulent with flavour, with the lemongrass sauce a pleasant accompaniment. The green salad was supposed to be served with balsamic dressing, which I didn’t actually find out until eating the entire salad without dressing and then looking around at others who had ordered the fish. Oh well.

Dinner went down with a glass of white wine, which I followed up later with a cup of tea as a bit of detoxification. Turbulence as we passed over parts of Victoria looked threatened to cause some troublesome white wine soiling, but luckily it was merely a brief subtle spell without any damage whatsoever.

Once the tray tables were cleared, there wasn’t much else in the flight, except I did ask for some Peyton’s chocolates for Mum, of which Gabriel gladly proffered the last two on the flight for me to take. We landed in Brisbane on time, taxiing to a stop at gate 21, and thus ends this Adelaidean odyssey, as well as this trip report.

P.S. The wines survived the trip!

Fin:arrow:

 

[Bundy Bear]

Thanks for writing the TR.

I hope your family liked the chocolate gifts you brought back with you.

Do the winerys sell padded bags or something similar to carry the wine home.

Also I hate it when the pictures make the page very w i d e .

 

[Flashback]

Excellent in-depth TR D2, couldn't have put it better myself. Reading reminds me just how great the weekend was

Interesting to note also that while tasting @ Samuels Gorge, we were offered to occupy a table outside and they would bring the wines out to us. Certainly a great way to do it, and allowed for some great conversation rather than standing around a counter talking about the next wine you're going to sample!

 

[tuapekastar]

Nice report anat0l. Glad those wines survived. A case of Pirramimma (6 x Shiraz, 6 x Petit Verdot, I think) was waiting for me on my return from Bendigo tonight, though not under the house as cleary instructed, but sitting on the front porch . Hope they weren't out there in the sun too many days! No sign of a dozen Samuel's Gorge shiraz (best wine I tasted on the trip) yet.

Great weekend, and look forward to the next.

Oh, and ditto to Bundy Bear's comment about the 'wide' thread. Anyway, a minor irritant!

 

[Keith009]

ROFL, cracker of a report!

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