A Business Trip Adventure

     It seems a bit of an oxymoron, using "business trip" and "adventure" in the same sentence.  A business trip sounds sooooo cool, even glamorous...until you have been on a few.  This is how they usually function: taxi, airport, taxi, worksite, taxi, hotel, taxi, worksite, taxi, airport, taxi.  Notice an absence of words like: museums, shopping, sightseeing, margaritas-by-the-pool.  And it does not seem to matter where the trip is to - Dubuque, Iowa or St Bart's island - it usually amounts to much the same pattern.  Biz-Trippers just create fantastic stories about the locale using information found in the in-flight magazine.
     This business trip to Broome was different.  The federal commission assignment ended at midday, so we had the whole afternoon free  before making the dash to the airport.  "We" being myself and the commissioner's associate, Jess,  who is also flying on an unchangeable steerage class ticket.  The commissioner, before boarding his business class flight, hands us the keys to his rental car with the admonition, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
     As if.

      Wheeeeeeee, one can cover an awful lot of Broome in five hours as it is a rather small place. [see "Broome- a quick sweep" May 8, 2011]   Armed with tips and suggestions from native Broomers, Jess and I make the most of the afternoon: shopping for pearls, photographing natural sights, send a few postcards, picking up the local brew (Mango Beer by Matsoh's) for Kev, eating at a recommended  restaurant, Divers Tavern,  that is transitioning from country pub (fish & chips, chicken parmigiana) to gastro pub (ratatouille filled mushroom caps) and whiling away a couple hours at Cable Beach  beach-combing for  shells.  We were living large, I tell you.
    Oh, but all good things must come to an end. Time to go to the airport.  And wait.  The flight is delayed.         And delayed some more.        And a bit longer.        Each delay comes with a flimsy excuse.       Finally, we are getting bribed with a food voucher.  Hmmm, OK, I'll take that ciabatta bun with cream cheese, salmon and cucumber slices.       And then the flight is cancelled.         New flight 1:00a.m.     Ummmmm, I've got a book.....    Another announcement, new flight delayed until 2:45a.m.        ENOUGH!      Jess has the Commissioner's OK to get a hotel room and fly out at a civil hour the next day.  And if Jess wasn't tired of my stories yet, she offered to get a two-bed room.  

green tree frog

    Well, I am nothing if not resourceful (especially at high season when zero hotel rooms are available) and a few chats  with the right people  saw the pair of us (along with a minute number of other resourceful souls) being treated by Qantas to a night at the incredibly swanky Cable Beach Club Resort [ http://www.cablebeachclub.com ]   where green tree frogs played sentinel by our doors ( and posed for photos ) and the  veranda backed into the Ocean Pool. Harry Potter type owls swooped past my head and the Japanese Garden lily ponds were enchanting.  Why Qantas could not have cancelled the flight several hours earlier is a mystery to me.  Breakfast overlooking the Indian Ocean and then...
   We start the business trip again:    Taxi.     Airport.      Taxi. 
   But what an adventure!