The LRE Outback Do [29 APR - 1 MAY 2016]

[gwilli1]

Stumbling Home after a great jight

 

[serfty]

View attachment 68962

Stumbling Home after a great jight

Stay jight there ...

 

[Princess Fiona]

View attachment 68962

Stumbling Home after a great jight

Not quite, just as far as the Executive Lounge

 

[samh004]

Thoroughly enjoyed the Stockman's Show!

 

[samh004]

Check out this RFDS plane hanging from the ceiling!

 

[samh004]

ALH


Princess Fiona's new hat


Jumbo in the outback!

 

[JessicaTam]

Time to head home.

Thanks for putting it all together Sam. It was a fabulous weekend.

 

[stark]

Absolutely fantastic weekend, huge thanks to Sam for organizing.

And who knew there was such a good exec lounge in longreach

 

[Princess Fiona]

I have now arrived home safely.
What an amazing weekend with a terrific welcome from the Longreach community. Huge thanks to Sam for the organization. Big thanks also to Jessica for Executive lounge access and Chauffeur Drive EDIT: Nearly forgot to thank QF for the very generous prize donations and the others who donated to the raffle. Must have slipped my mind as I didn't win any :mrgreen:
I'll leave this here

 

[Meggsy]

What a great weekend. My first official AFF 'do' and I had a ball from start to finish. My wife and I met so many wonderful people over the weekend, shared a few drinks, had many laughs and made some new friends. Many thanks again to Sam for all of his hard work in organising this event and to everyone that attended for welcoming us and making the trip what it was. I have added some random photos from my collection taken over the weekend.

 

[Meggsy]

Forgot about the 5 photo limit, a few more images.

 

[ALH]

Still here and watching our final Outback sunrise, listening to thousands of birds on the move. Lots of light aircraft taking off this morning as well.
Thanks to Sam for a really wonderful event and thanks to Jess for the exec lounge. Met some terrific new people this weekend and caught up with some old friends. What a great bunch of people.
I have a request to share photos from this weekend. I forgot my camera so didn't get any good photos and would love one or two for my office wall.

 

[samh004]

Thanks for putting it all together Sam. It was a fabulous weekend.

Absolutely fantastic weekend, huge thanks to Sam for organizing.

Huge thanks to Sam for the organization.

Many thanks again to Sam for all of his hard work in organising this event and to everyone that attended for welcoming us and making the trip what it was.

Thanks to Sam for a really wonderful event and thanks to Jess for the exec lounge.

You're welcome.

I'm glad the event came off successfully, despite one no-show. I really enjoyed showing you this part of the outback and look forward to another town in the near future, yet to be decided. It was really enjoyable having you all there!

As was mentioned time and time again, spending money in Longreach helps the broader community as they struggle through their drought. I would like to share with you some of the figures from the weekend. In total, prepayments amounted to $3050, activities cost ~$2377 and all the money that was spent on breakfasts, lunches, groceries, alcohol and gift purchases in town can't be calculated by me, but I'm sure it all helped the local economy this weekend.

Finally, there was $101 leftover in the account at the end of the weekend, and a donation was made to the QFM in that amount.

 

[ALH]

Our Chariot awaits

 

[Meggsy]

I must say the trip home was a little more interesting than usual. It all started at the LRE security screening point. After placing my back pack in the scanner and walking through I got the question asked, is this your bag sir? Why yes is there a problem I replied. Pointing to the screen he says do you have any idea what these small round metallic objects are? Completely stumped I responded with they look like coins to me, probably the ones I put in my wallet, then into my checked bag so I don't set the metal detector off. He removes my wallet, opens it and says yes they are coins but I will have to rescan your wallet, but while I'm in there I noticed you have 2 iPads as well, please remove these for further scanning. With me not wanting to hear the sound of snapping rubber gloves behind a curtain I played along, meanwhile the queue behind me is getting more and more agitated. Scans again and says there is something else in there, hmmm, I'm wondering now did I forget something I had put in my bag but yes, there was still a camera and a mobile phone. Please remove them for further scanning. So after a third scan of the items I leave in my bag multiple times a week through airport security with no problems, he seems happy and let's me repack the entire contents and get on my way.

Fast forward to Brisbane and awaiting my bag at the carousel, my wife's bag arrives and all other bags are collected but mine is a no show. Wait a few more minutes until the carousel stops then head off to baggage services. The chap ducks out the back to see what has happened and comes back immediately with my now very second hand bag and explains it must have fallen off the cart. I say it looks like it fell off, got dragged across the Tarmac, was backed over then hand delivered. New bag claim to be submitted thanks Qantas. Thankfully no major damage to contents or anything missing.

We then head out to the car park to collect my vehicle with my wife, Travelling Smithy and BVT to drive to the Gold Coast and the car park won't let us out. Try swiping card, inserting card and just swearing at it but the gate would not budge. Ring the help line and the first question he asks is, what is your reference number???. Anyway he finally sorted it out through my registration number, confirmed I was prepaid and remotely opened the gate. We then had an uneventful drive home with
A few more laughs about it all.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I must say the trip home was a little more interesting than usual. It all started at the LRE security screening point. After placing my back pack in the scanner and walking through I got the question asked, is this your bag sir? Why yes is there a problem I replied. Pointing to the screen he says do you have any idea what these small round metallic objects are? Completely stumped I responded with they look like coins to me, probably the ones I put in my wallet, then into my checked bag so I don't set the metal detector off. He removes my wallet, opens it and says yes they are coins but I will have to rescan your wallet, but while I'm in there I noticed you have 2 iPads as well, please remove these for further scanning. With me not wanting to hear the sound of snapping rubber gloves behind a curtain I played along, meanwhile the queue behind me is getting more and more agitated. Scans again and says there is something else in there, hmmm, I'm wondering now did I forget something I had put in my bag but yes, there was still a camera and a mobile phone. Please remove them for further scanning. So after a third scan of the items I leave in my bag multiple times a week through airport security with no problems, he seems happy and let's me repack the entire contents and get on my way.

Fast forward to Brisbane and awaiting my bag at the carousel, my wife's bag arrives and all other bags are collected but mine is a no show. Wait a few more minutes until the carousel stops then head off to baggage services. The chap ducks out the back to see what has happened and comes back immediately with my now very second hand bag and explains it must have fallen off the cart. I say it looks like it fell off, got dragged across the Tarmac, was backed over then hand delivered. New bag claim to be submitted thanks Qantas. Thankfully no major damage to contents or anything missing.

We then head out to the car park to collect my vehicle with my wife, Travelling Smithy and BVT to drive to the Gold Coast and the car park won't let us out. Try swiping card, inserting card and just swearing at it but the gate would not budge. Ring the help line and the first question he asks is, what is your reference number???. Anyway he finally sorted it out through my registration number, confirmed I was prepaid and remotely opened the gate. We then had an uneventful drive home with
A few more laughs about it all.


View attachment 69124View attachment 69125

Yikes!!! That case is deceased.
I am familiar with LRE scanning, they are very "thorough"
When we were departing LRE after the Retro Roo charity flight the scanning process was exactly the same. It took well over an hour to process everyone and those of us on the first wave were onboard, sipping Cosmos watching it all unfold in the heat as the air-con wasn't on !!

 

[Meggsy]

Yikes!!! That case is deceased.
I am familiar with LRE scanning, they are very "thorough"
When we were departing LRE after the Retro Roo charity flight the scanning process was exactly the same. It took well over an hour to process everyone and those of us on the first wave were onboard, sipping Cosmos watching it all unfold in the heat as the air-con wasn't on !!

The crazy thing is though as I realised last night when I saw all of you with connecting flights at BNE was you had to head out then back through screening again. How ridiculous.

 

[jojen]

Sorry for being late with my thank you.

A huge thank you to Sam for organising such a great weekend. Although I had been to Longreach previously I had a wonderful time.

Also, thank you to JessicaTam for the great executive lounge she provided and also her great chauffeur service.

Another thank you to Princess Fiona for being my travel companion for the weekend and booking our great accommodation.

As Sam posted the local economy must have benefited from our visit, especially the local taxi driver !!!

The Longreach community certainly made us feel very welcome, and as is normal in outback towns were very friendly.

Look forward to visiting the next town to be chosen and will bring Mr jojen instead of leaving him at home.

 

[samh004]

The crazy thing is though as I realised last night when I saw all of you with connecting flights at BNE was you had to head out then back through screening again. How ridiculous.

It is quite bizarre. Why bother to upgrade all the regional ports to include security screening if you treat them as if they weren't screened when they arrive back to BNE?

Maybe someone on AFF knows the dysfunctional answer!

Sorry to hear of your baggage troubles.

 

[jojen]

The crazy thing is though as I realised last night when I saw all of you with connecting flights at BNE was you had to head out then back through screening again. How ridiculous.

That was certainly some serious damage to your case.

Agree entirely that having to go through screening again was ridiculous. We had already been screened at a secure port, but think it may have been due to lack of staff to man the door. We just made it in time thanks to Travellingsmithy and Mr Hyde in letting us go ahead of them.