My Trip to Australia by Fred Klein

My Trip to Australia by Fred Klein

I will never forget my trip to Australia in the summer of 1990. Through work I had accumulated a large amount of frequency flyer mileage and wanted to use some up before they expired. I thought to myself where is the farthest I can go on my mileage. Australia came to mind, so I used 80,000 frequent flyer mile points to book a first-class seat on American Airlines to Sydney via Hawaii. Envisioning a relaxing vacation I planned a tour of Sydney, a bus tour through the Blue Mountains, and a tour of Melbourne. Little did I know how unrelaxing it would be.

With my bags packed I arrived at LAX airport enthusiastic but weighed down with a very bad cold. Then my first surprise happened. At the American airlines ticket counter I found that my flight had been canceled and they had transferred my reservations to a United Airlines flight. Now instead of a first-class seat on a flight to Sydney with a stopover in Hawaii, I now had a middle coach seat on a nonstop flight direct to Sydney and it was leaving in twenty five minutes. So I had to grab my bags and rush to the terminal bus to quickly get to the United Terminal. With little time left I had to gate check all my bags except my small carryon and hope they got on the flight. They were already boarding when I arrived, so I had no overhead space for my carryon and had to put it in front of me at my feet.

Sixteen hours at 32,000 feet and having a cold put a lot of pressure on my eardrums. It resulted in a punctured ear drum which was very painful. That plus the middle seat in coach allowed me no sleep on board the flight. I was so groggy that when we arrived at Sydney at 4AM At customs, I couldn’t tell them why I was there. Finally, they let me through customs and all I wanted was to get to my hotel room and sleep. However, when I got to the hotel, they would not let me check in until 3 PM. So I checked my bags with the bell captain and had a taxi drive me to downtown where I got on the Red tourist bus for Sydney and went to the back seat and fell asleep while the bus went around Sydney about twenty times. Finally at the end of the day the bus driver woke me up and I took a taxi to my hotel.

At the hotel, my travails were not over. They let me check in and gave me my room key. It was on the fourth floor and there was a speaker next to the door playing loud rock music. Now I like rock music but not while I am trying to sleep. Even with the door closed it was loud. I called down to the front desk and asked them to lower the volume.

 The clerk said, “Sorry sir, but the music it is set by management, and I cannot change the volume, or the music being played.”

 I told them I was not happy with that but they said there was nothing they could do. So, I remedied the situation by going out in the hallway and breaking the speaker.

The next day I got back on the tourist bus and sat through all the sites again only awake this time. They stopped at the Harbor Bridge, the fabulous Opera House, and the old fort.

The driver said, “Australia was formed as a penal colony and many of the residents of Australia are descendants of dangerous criminals. Keep that in mind if you want to give an Aussie a hard time, Mate!”

The day after I checked out of my hotel and got on the bus tour to the Blue Mountains and the Grand Canyon of Australia. The tour group was very diverse with people from Belgium, Britain, Switzerland, Kenya, and one woman from Japan. I was the only American.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in early August and the tourists on the bus wanted to know what the response the United States would take in this matter and since I was the only American, they thought I would know what would happen. I couldn’t believe they thought I would know what would happen next.

I half sarcastically said, “Well the last time I spoke to President Bush he said he was going to do something drastic.”

They just nodded they heads!

The first day we saw a lot of animals. Koalas, Kangaroos, Wallabies, Wombats, and Dingoes. We stopped at a place where they let you hold the Koalas. You had to hold them securely because if they felt they were falling they would dig the claws into you. I guess I did not hold him securely enough and he let me know about it.

The next day we stopped at the Grand Canyon of Australia. We got out of the bus and took many pictures of the canyon with the blue mountains in the background. Meanwhile a bus with Japanese tourist arrived. Our lone Japanese woman on the bus said, “Watch this.”

 All the Japanese tourists got off the bus and lined up by the sign “Grand Canyon of Australia.” and had the picture taken as a group then they all got back on the bus.

The Japanese woman on the bus said, “They just want a picture showing that they were there. They don’t particularly care about the scenery. Their tour guides will then take them to a Japanese owned hotel and to Japanese owned stores in Australia.” Obviously, she did not approve of this which was why she was traveling alone.

That night we stayed at a hotel, and all had dinner together. On the menu, they listed Roo Stew and I asked, “Is that Kangaroo?

The waiter said yes so, I ordered it. One of the other people from the bus heard what I was ordering. That person’s tiny son asked Dad, “What is Roo Stew?”

The father said, “It is roast Skippy.” He was referring to a pet Kangaroo from a TV series in Australia.

When the child heard that he started crying.

So, the father said, “I was only joking!”

The next day the bus took us to the Blue Mountains which had a formation named The Three Sisters after the three highest peaks.

Later that day we arrived in Melbourne the capital of Australia. The next day I was on a tour of Melbourne with all its stately government buildings. While on the tour I met an attractive young lady, and we were attracted to each other. After the tour we had dinner and a few drinks. Then we went to a nightclub and danced for much of the night. When we left the nightclub she said,

 “Well, it had been short and sweet, but I live in Australia, and you are going back to the states tomorrow morning, so I guess this is goodbye.” We kissed and she left.

The next day I had a flight on Qantas airlines from Melbourne to Sydney.  The contining flight was to Singapore so most people would get on at Sydney. So, I had the flight almost to myself. Since there were no other passengers, I got a seat in first class and had all the stewardesses wait on me. This almost had up for the bad flight in.

Unfortunately, I got back to reality since my first-class flight on American had been cancelled and I had to again endure another coach seat back on United Airlines all the way back to Los Angeles.

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Copyright Fred Klein 2025

Image Source: beasternchen from Pixabay