Considering, that you all are an important part of my life because you keep coming back to the movie boards, I’ll always endeavour to be as truthful as possible with you.
I’ve said it before and people who have known me for a number of years can attest to the fact that there was a time when I was younger, prettier and slimmer. Sure people can age like a fine wine but trust me when I say I’m shaped more like a barrel then a bottle.

Before we get too far into things a quick Australian geography lesson for those of you who are completely unfamiliar with the country Australia. Sydney is the largest city in Australia not capital city. The capital city of Australia is Canberra and Canberra is about 3 hours away by car.

Now to the story of why my plans “fell through”.

I’m the type of person who has talked himself out of doing a lot of things, this could probably because I have a spinal cord injury, but I really haven’t taken the time get to the bottom of why I do this (it just one of my worst personality traits). So you can understand that the little voice that is responsible for talking me out of doing things was working its magic when I RSVPed to an invitation from a PR company to a preview screening up in Sydney of a recently released movie. The reoccurring line in my head was “you know it’s easier not to go” but I ignored the voice and made plans to fly up to Sydney, go to the screening and fly back to Canberra the next day.
So, Wednesday morning I was dropped off at Canberra airport so that I could catch my flight up to Sydney so that I could to the preview screening that night. Wheelchair travel tip should you be travelling by plane have a good idea of how much your wheelchair weighs, it saves the check-in clerk trying to look it up on the internet to figure it out.

For those of you out there who might not have travelled with a person in a wheelchair airlines have this thing called an aisle-chair that they use to transport you to your seat. It’s a small chair so that it can fit through the door of a plane and navigate its way down the aisle so that you can be taken to your seat. Being the barrel-shaped person that I am I was only able to fit one butt-cheek on the aisle-chair. Now, seeing that using the aisle-chair was not an option, there was an option #2 the ‘Johnny Belt’ which they wrap around you and you sort of and at least four people help you shuffle to your seat. Now I have to admit that the last time that I stood up was probably 40 to 50 kilos and one ill-advised FTW moment ago. Now credit goes to Anthony the Qantas Airport Duty Manager for allowing me every opportunity to get on to the plane, refunding my airfare and coming out to check on me while Dad came to pick me up from the airport. Anthony also took the time to explain what happened to Dad when he arrived to pick me up.

Now, my story probably would have ended when I got up if it wasn’t for two things: the debate the voices in my head had about whether or not I should drive up to Sydney and the fact that I could not bring myself to get out of the car. So the next chapter in this adventure commence with me and Dad tag-team driving the three hours up to Sydney.

Now I would like to take a moment to dispense Wheelchair Travel tip #2. For a point of reference I need to make it known that the wheelchair that I was in wasn’t mine, it was on loan from ACT Community Health while I have a new on order, which should arrive sometime next week. The Wheelbase or width of the wheels for this ‘loaner-chair’ is 880 millimetres or 88 centimetres. This Travel tip is more for the travel agents who might not have any experience in booking travel for a person with a disability particularly a person in a wheelchair you need to make sure that the door widths for all the doors of the room that have booked for your client will accommodate their wheelchair. This is a very very important thing to do. For those of you who out there who just happen to be travel agents please promise me that you will do this for all of your disabled clients who use wheelchairs. It’s the difference between an enjoyable trip and a blogger sitting at his laptop explaining why my plans ‘fell through’. The door to the room that I had booked was about push-rim to small for my wheelchair to fit through. Now this is where the second hero of our adventure came in. Ash, the junior duty manager at the Mantra2. Ash not only offered to put us up in a Penthouse suite (which had a big enough door for me to get into the room, but the doors to the bathroom and bedroom where unfortunately to small) but he also helped us ring around hotels in the area that we were staying. Unfortunately the doors to the disabled access rooms of the hotels that we called where all too small. Ash also authorised the refund of my money once I had told the travel agent that I had booked this trip with what had happened. At about 4PM my plans had officially fallen through. I called the PR rep who had sent me the invite to the preview screening and told her that my plans she said that she was going to send me a pass to the movie in the mail and then we made the 3 hour journey back to Canberra.

Was I disappointed that my plans had fallen through? Yes. But to be honest the fact that everything that could go wrong seemingly did go wrong wasn’t so bad. I mean I didn’t talk myself out of going to Sydney, I didn’t let my Dad talk to me out of going when I was sitting in my car at home in the driveway, I managed to get into the passenger seat of a car twice something I hadn’t done in at least ten years and most important of all I got to spend some quality time with Dad as we drove to and from Sydney. So what is the lesson of all of this? When your plans have gone to custard and you are staring in the face of abject failure stay positive, there just might be some good to find and most important of all there are good people out there in this big scary world of ours and if you stay positive they’ll do their best to help you out.