We spoke too soon: Yorba Linda Day 1 (16 April 2014)

It all looked like it was going to plan: Board at 12.25 for a 1.05 departure, the departures board said, but soon the fun began. Boarding slipped to 1.20 for a 2.00 departure. That’s not too bad we thought and, as the captain informed us once we were on board, a good tailwind meant we would arrive on schedule. So far so good …

We taxied out to the runway and, with Skycam, saw planes landing onto the runway crossing our path. We must be next we kept thinking, but no, yet another plane would come in while we kept standing still. Then, around 2.45pm, yes, you’ve guessed it …

Over the PA came the captain again. “We have a little problem. An indicator is showing an issue with the pneumatics suggesting a possible leak in a wing. Qantas doesn’t fly with such a fault [which is one of the reasons why we choose to fly Qantas] so we’re going back to the gates to let the engineers check it out.”

And this is when we started thinking, there can be too much communication as every ten minutes or so there’d be an update, even if it was something like, “we’re waiting for the airbridge so the engineers can come on board” and “the engineers are on board talking to the pilots now” and “as we expected it looks like an indicator problem but the engineers need to run one more test”. Eventually the engineers pronounced us ready to go.

But, still came the info. You see, we’d been given snacks to keep us happy. The chief flight attendant came on saying that they’d used some snacks but had enough on board so rather than hold us up longer for re-provisioning we would head off, but they might need to ration snacks later in the flight. Hmm … they have enough but might need to ration? No one was arguing though, as we all wanted to get under way. Particularly since in another announcement the captain had advised they’d refuelled while waiting so we could fly faster! We eventually took off around 4pm, no longer expecting to arrive as scheduled. Fortunately, we didn’t have a connection to make … Other than with Hertz!

Our trip through the airport – immigration, baggage collection, border/customs – took a goodly amount of time. Much longer, really, than we experienced on our international landings in Dubai and Madrid last year. However, the staff, particularly at the immigration counter, were very chipper, so we couldn’t complain. (And Len wasn’t singled out for any more special checks!) Then it was wait for the Hertz shuttle to go to the Hertz car pickup and we were eventually on the freeway around 1 pm, having landed around 11.20 am. We almost didn’t make it onto the first freeway when the car behind us on the ramp didn’t notice that we’d stopped (at traffic-light controlled freeway entrance) and had to run onto the verge to escape hitting us. Phew! After that, though, it was plain sailing down the various freeways – using our memory and the GPS – and we arrived at our friend Carolyn’s about an hour later. Len did a wonderful job driving on the other side of the road down 10-12 lane freeways after a very long day’s travel.

After much talking, a half-hour walk around the local artificial lake, a meal for old time’s sake at Marie Callender’s, and a wander around the large Iranian (but cosmopolitan in contents) supermarket, it was into bed for a good sleep after a long long Wednesday.

Our on-board movies for those interested:

• Sue: Inside Llewyn Davis, Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, The Turning, A Five-star Life (Italian)
• Len: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Wolf of Wall Street and Midnight Cowboy (yes, the old movie, an Oscar Classic in the plane’s menu).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And the movie of the street we are staying at (and actually used to live in!) in Yorba Linda…