Traveller Letters: I was downgraded from premium, but I had the last laugh

Coming home to Sydney after extended overseas travel, we were greeted with a chaotic airport immigration scene. There was a long, unstaffed queue for six immigration ticket machines, with one not working, and with foreigners mistakenly joining the line. This is embarrassing, given that Sydney is supposed to be Australia’s gateway. When can we have a more professional, organised and user-friendly Sydney Airport? Compare this to other countries and we look positively well below the standard.
Julius Dhanu, Peakhurst, NSW

Smart move

With the new Indonesian visa on-line system and airport smartgates I was able to breeze through the once-notorious Bali airport in minutes. In fact, I reckon I got through the whole airport quicker than it takes to fill in Australia’s ridiculous immigration arrival card – not to mention getting through Australia’s new dysfunctional passport kiosk and “smartgate” arrival system. Our government could learn something from our Indonesian friends.
Simon Benedict, Moonee Ponds, Vic

Bump ahead

We’d heard that Qantas were trying hard to encourage customers to return to former levels of loyalty. That was certainly not evident in our recent experience. We recently booked business class seats return to Townsville, using a large number of points. Going up was excellent but coming back we were sitting in the lounge with our boarding passes, when we were summoned and told we would now have to fly economy. Why? Because another flight had been cancelled, and some passengers – apparently much more important than us – had to be given our business class seats. We were never advised when purchasing that we could be demoted so rudely. Not happy, Vanessa.
Dale Osborne, Rozelle, NSW

Cheesed off

David Whitley’s story of “rice fatigue” (Traveller, August 9) reminds of travelling around Turkey in 2005. After a moving Anzac Day dawn service, we set off on a three-week tour where we were served the same breakfast every day - feta cheese, cucumber, tomatoes and capsicums. When we arrived in London, my first stop was a grocery shop for supplies. My husband ate a buttered roll and I had a peanut butter and banana roll. Not to everyone’s taste, and not something I eat often, but in that moment it was a glorious departure from the healthy food we had been having.
Louise Kloot, Doncaster, Vic

Balmy for parmi

Route 66 may be purported as the world’s best drive (Traveller, August 2) but why not see Australia first? Our family of five just drove 7700 kilometres over six weeks from Melbourne to Cairns via the Newell and Bruce highways. The roads were dominated by caravanning tourists and road trains loaded with cotton bales, oversized mining equipment and livestock carriers, with the rural scenery featuring canola crops, cotton fields, sheep grazing, roaming cattle, flowering sugarcane and misty mountain ranges. Towns, most of which had fabulous tourist information centres with toilets and picnic areas, were welcoming. The pubs, RSLs and sports clubs, often staffed by young people on working holiday visas served excellent “parmies”. The annual Grey Nomad winter migration and school holiday period meant booking ahead was a must for most caravan park sites and attractions, though we found council-run smaller parks much cheaper to stay in than bigger resorts. Our kids now have an appreciation for Australia (and its parmies) which they’ll take with them on any future overseas road trip.
Joanne Thom, Greensborough, Vic

Editor’s note: The use of the term “parmie” rather than “parma” by a Victorian reader in the letter above caused much consternation in Traveller’s Melbourne office, but we assume it’s because our dear reader was quoting how the dish was referred to by the locals in Queensland.

Positives from negatives

My wife and I recently returned to Australia from Europe aboard Japan Airlines service from Frankfurt on JL48 to Tokyo and then to Sydney on JL51. But it wasn’t that simple. We arrived at Narita Airport and the flight to Sydney departed from Haneda Airport, which is 80 kilometres away, involving a 75-minute bus trip. On arrival at Narita we were met and escorted through immigration with “first-class priority” tagged bags. We were then led through customs and onto the connecting bus, reaching Haneda with less than an hour to spare. To our relief the Sydney flight was delayed 30 minutes and both we and our bags made it.

Despite it being a long trip, we took some positives from the experience, namely the determination of the JAL staff to make it work, the quality of the aircraft, the food and facilities, and the fact our premium economy tickets, unlike other airlines, offered access to the airline’s lounges.
Peter Wilson, Murray’s Beach, NSW

Tip of the week: No pain, no Danes

Following Rob McFarland’s recent article about bike riding in New Zealand (Traveller, August 6) I would like to recommend another renowned global ride – Berlin to Copenhagen. Yes, at 570 kilometres, it is a long way, but the bicycle route is gently undulating with no extreme hills. Travelling with a tour company that pre-books your hotels, moves your luggage and provides good maps and information makes the ride manageable for many. You ride alongside canals and rivers and through forests and into small towns in northern Germany and then cross by ferry into southern Denmark.

In parts of Denmark you have the Baltic Sea on your right and forest on your left and ride past old and new thatched-roof houses and through small farm towns. The ride is well signposted, especially in Denmark, with fascinating historic and geological sites along the way. The daily distances range from 45 to 85 kilometres with most of the ride on dedicated bike paths.
Peter Roberts, North Melbourne, Vic

Going is good

We returned in May from a trip to East Africa, booked directly with local operator Tanzania Specialists, which we can highly recommend. It was the rainy season, and we were aware our experience might be less than optimal. However, while we did experience rain most days, it was warm and mostly sunny with our wildlife encounters abundant and crowd-free, with none of the safari Jeep traffic jams of high season. Based on our experience, April-May was a fabulous time to travel, with the bonus of saving money in the low season.
Jennifer Peacock, Turramurra, NSW

Guiding light

I note that, in response to a reader’s question (Tripologist, July 28) Michael Gebicki suggested a couple of Morocco tour operators. I would love to add the Australian tour company, Intrepid. We took a two-week “Morocco Uncovered” tour with them last year and it was amazing. We were a small group of seven and had an incredible guide, Mohammed Ourhou, who happens to be a well-known Moroccan mountain guide. We learned so much from him about the Moroccan people, their history and their lifestyle, with many immersive opportunities such as dining in a local family’s home. Intrepid has a great ethos of working with local communities, guides and tour operators and it follows sustainable practices wherever possible.
Dellane Conn, Vaucluse, NSW

Be their guests

Hotel rooms would all be perfect if their owners and the managers were forced to spend a week in them. Then we’d have two luggage racks in a double room, we could easily fill the kettle and the bathroom door wouldn’t crash into the basin.
Tim Durbridge, Brunswick, Vic

Don’t pass it up

It may appear that the Japan Rail Pass, which costs $817 for an adult 14-day pass, is the only option for train travel in Japan. However, there’s also the red Welcome Suica card, which is like an Australian Opal/Miki card, allowing you to pay as you go. It can be purchased at a vending machine at the airport on arrival. You also need to reserve your bullet trains at a train station. Ours cost about $100 each way and all our travel, including multiple daily trips around Tokyo, cost us about the same amount.
Richard Hitchens, Mosman, NSW

Editor’s note: There has been a shortage of Suica cards in Japan in recent times, due to supply issues with the microchips they contain. However, there are electronic versions you can install on your smartphone. Read more about the issue here.

Bank on it

Travelling along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road in school holidays, accommodation can be hard to find, especially in popular locations such as Port Fairy. An excellent alternative is Koroit, a real gem of a rural town close to both Port Fairy and Warrnambool. Our accommodation, The Bank, was set, as the name suggests, in a 1870s former bank building with three bedrooms and is ideal for families or a couple. Koroit also has the Noodledorf brewery-distillery, an Irish pub and an excellent IGA supermarket.
Ian Burke, Denistone West. NSW

The Letter of the Week writer wins three Hardie Grant travel books. See hardiegrant.com

The Tip of the Week writer wins a set of three Lonely Planet travel books. See shop.lonelyplanet.com