For the first time on our trip, we were actually glad to be leaving a place and moving on to the next. Our morning stop at McDonalds in Alice Springs was enjoyable, and we made our way to the airport for our flight to Sydney.
Though I’d spent quite a bit of time researching accommodations and neighborhoods in Sydney, I hadn’t pulled the trigger on accommodations until we were in Trinity Beach – only a week in advance of our stay. It was tough to find a two-bedroom condo in our price range in a decent location, but I managed to nab one that looked ok in pictures. I corresponded with a woman at the management company to make arrangements. She told me to call her from the airport once we had our bags, and she’d meet us at unit to let us in.
We had no trouble finding the address via cab, but when we arrived at the front desk, we ultimately figured out that most of the condos were managed by the company that manned the front desk. Ours was one of the exceptions, so we sat around the lobby and read brochures for attractions while we waited 15 minutes for the woman to show up.
Suddenly a 40-year-old hippie-like Eastern European woman swept through the door, shook all our hands and took us up the elevator to our home for the next few days. She chattered on and on – oversharing, in my opinion. The unit looked kinda like she did, worn around the edges with faded 80s décor. See the unit HERE.
We had a bit of a private laugh at the condition, but ultimately it had plenty of space and everything seemed to be operational. Finally the woman left us in peace.
Really the place was fine for the price. It was located on the southeast corner of Hyde Park, which meant that we were on the edge of the tourist district, but it was interesting to see more of the “real Sydney” in action.
That night, however, right after I turned off the light and crawled into bed with Mr. Farmer, my dear man was trying to recount what I’ll call the “water incident”, and he was literally laughing so hard he was sobbing. I think this is the only time I’ve seen Mr. Farmer cry.
Why all the fuss? When we’d come home from our evening at Darling Harbour, someone tried to take a shower and realized there was no hot water. We tested the bathroom and kitchen faucets, and they were both cold, too.
So Dad began to give the whole thing an examination to see what the issue was. At this point I called the condo manager and left a message, and then went down to the front desk to report the issue, asking if we were the only unit without water. They had no clue. So back up the elevator I went to wait.
We didn’t hear a peep from anyone, and the water was still off when we went to bed an hour later. That’s when Mr. Farmer had his breakdown.
After a minute of watching him cramp from laughing so hard, I figured what he was dying to tell me had to be really juicy. Boy was I disappointed! Or maybe you just had to be there. To this day we can’t remember exactly what happened, but apparently Dad was futzing around with the plumbing. He flushed the toilet to see if what he’d done had worked, and upon suddenly realizing that there was now no water, he exclaimed, “#*$&! Now what have I done?!?”
Fortunately the water problem wasn’t our fault, and by 8 a.m. it was back on.
gallopingnelly
