When the phone call came, and details were first being arranged, Zoe offered to organize the travel details from down here. No, she was told, she wasn't to worry about anything. They would take care of it all and just let us know when to pick up our tickets. Fine, we thought, that's nice of them.

As the show was three months from when they first called us, we continued with our lives much as if nothing had happened. Little did we realise, in those first days of Spring, that nothing was exactly what was happening.

Three weeks before the show we started getting worried that we hadn't heard any details about when we were to pick up the tickets. We were in the middle of moving at the time, and had temporarily misplaced the phone number of Scotty (our contact in Rockhampton). Like most of our possessions, it was in a box.

On the night of the Big Concert we arrived home to find we had a message. It was from Scotty, giving us the travel information. He told us to phone him back, but, knowing we had his number and not knowing that we had lost it, hadn't left it on the message service. The next day, also while we were out, he phoned again – to find out why we hadn't phoned him. Once again, he didn't leave his number! I immediately changed the message on the machine to say "if that is you Scotty, please leave your phone number!" Before he could phone again, however, we found where we had packed it. (We were right, it was in a box).

Unfortunately, the tickets had to be picked up on Monday. Zoe works on Monday, and I had to stay home all day to wait for Telstra to come and install a second phone line. I phoned the railway to ask if we could pick them up on Tuesday instead and to confirm the times. "Yes" they said (after a ½ hour wait on hold) and the times were 5pm Thursday (the Tilt train, a new and very fast train) and coming home 7.30am Sunday morning (also on the Tilt train). Errrr, this I had to confirm with Zoe, as it was nothing like the details we had received from Scotty. As Zoe's show didn't go on until after midnight on Saturday, I was uncertain of the likelihood of us actually being conscious at 7.30am on Sunday. We discussed it and decided that even if we had to stay up all night coming home early sounded like a good idea.

Zoe asked me to see if I could change the booking for going up. Once again I phoned Queensland Rail. Another ½ hour on hold. No problem with changing the bookings. Friday afternoon, Tilt train, 5pm. Coming home on Sunday morning at 7.30am. We would pick up the tickets on Wednesday. Fine.

Wednesday after an appointment in town, Zoe went to pick up the tickets. Another problem. You see, we get cheaper travel around Queensland as we are on pensions. A few months ago we received new cards, and, at the same time, new travel passes. We threw the old ones away. What hadn't been made clear was that the new ones didn't start until January, and the old ones, which were now well and truly gone, were still current. No problem, said the nice railway official, they will just issue new ones for us. However, they had to witness us signing them.

Fourth attempt to pick up the tickets. Thursday morning Zoe and I toddle back into the transit centre to have our signatures witnessed and finally pick up the tickets for the next days travel. We signed, and the nice man handed over the tickets, at long last, and went over the times with us. 5pm on Friday (Tilt train) and 8.15pm Sunday night! I explained that was incorrect, that the travel home was at 7.30am in the morning on the Tilt train. "No, you aren't booked for that one" he said. I asked how that could be, when I had been told by two different people previously that we were. Gently, as if explaining to a moron, he showed us the computer screen that had us down for only one booking – the evening one. We decided not to argue, but to take the tickets.

But it doesn't end there.

Friday arrived, as expected, right after Thursday. We packed and got ready nice and early. We had to be at the train station at 5pm for the train, so, as we only live 10 minutes away, we called a taxi at 4. I explained to the nice lady taking the booking that we needed to catch a train at 5, so could we have the taxi right away. She said "Of course, I'll put you down as VIP and it should be there in 10 minutes." We said goodbye to the cats, locked the house up and took our bags out to the road. We then proceeded to wait. We waited and waited. Then, we waited some more. I went back inside, phone the cab company again (Yellow Cabs. If you are in Brisbane – don't use them!) and got an engaged signal. That wasn't good.

Leaving Zoe to wait at the house, just in case the cab turned up, I raced down to the nearest taxi rank. It was now 10 to 5. There I begged and pleaded with the people in the line to be allowed to use the next available taxi. There is something about a sobbing gen that causes people to just let them have whatever they want, so they very kindly let me have the taxi that pulled up a few seconds later. I explained the situation, and the taxi driver (who seemed a bit slow to catch on) informed me that there was no way we could get across town in 10 minutes at that time of day. We picked Zoe up and drove as fast as possible across town. As we drove into the station the train drove out…

I was a total wreck by this time. The station master informed us that there was another, slower, train at 6.25 and that we could probably get on that one. We went to the ticket window to change our tickets over. The lady there looked at the computer screen, made the changes for us, then said "You have two bookings for coming back, which would you like? The morning, or the evening."

ARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

We decided that as we already had the evening tickets we would stick with that. Refusing to budge from the platform where the train would pull up, just in case we missed it, I stayed with the bags while Zoe went to buy some magazines. Eventually, after what seemed like eternity (one hour and twenty five minutes) the next train, the slow train, pulled in and we got on. One thing that I forgot to mention was that, in getting the tickets changed at the last minute, we managed to get in the same carriage but not next to one another. Zoe asked the lady next to her if she would mind swapping with me, and the lady very nicely said that would be fine. So instead of sitting at window seat number 24, I sat next to Zoe in window seat number 16.

We were only two hours into our journey when the window next to number 16, at temple height, was shot at and shattered by some gun toting idiot. At first I thought that a rock had been flung. It wasn't until the Inspector came to take a report, and told us that the window was actually two thickness' of bullet proof glass that I realised that if that bullet proof glass hadn't have been there, then I, and probably Zoe as well, wouldn't' have been around anymore and you would not be reading this report.

To end it, nothing else at all went wrong after that. Rockhampton put on some nice cool weather for us (Rockhampton is right on the tropic of Capricorn and has some pretty nasty hot weather at times). The people we were going to be staying with were wonderfully nice, and the people Zoe was going to be working with were great as well. The show was wonderful. It was professionally done, but some very talented people. Zoe was wonderful (of course).

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