ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
REX is back from the brink this week and keen to put the dog up Qantas and Virgin by taking on one of their most popular and profitable routes.
From this summer, REX will be doing a 15-hour milkrun across the country in their Saabs, stopping at Dubbo, Broken Hill, Coober Pedy, Kalgoorlie and then Perth, then in reverse on the way back.
It'll be BYO and bring your favourite vape because REX cabin crew will be turning a blind eye to that sort of stuff. They might even have a honk, too. In fact, it's encouraged by upper management.
The idea comes from the new management team, who are hell bent on righting a few wrongs and giving back to the Australian taxpayer who very graciously bailed the airline out after they took a punt on themselves and leased a few Boeings and tried to beat Qantas and Virgin at their own game. It didn't work out; the duopoly squeezed out REX like your missus going at an ingrown hair on your inner thigh.
The Advocate was lucky enough to secure a ticket on the milkrun media day, where they invited a number of regional reporters to sample the journey. Tell you what, I'd do it again. We filled up the esky with ice at the BP in Rosebery in Sydney, about 6am. Got some piss the day before from the Dans over the road. We were on the Saab by 7. We had a beer at the gate.
We were first issued a number of empty Gatorade bottles by the cabin crew. These were to piss in; only the girls were allowed to use the airplane toilet. Which is chivalrous, I guess. Anyway, we were up it. I'd had five cans of Gold before we crested Mount Bell. Two big honks on the vape. I was in utter heaven. Before the drop into Dubbo, I was offered a handful of Jatz. Nothing else. No worries.
In Dubbo, we were instructed to stay near the plane. Enjoyers of the traditional cigarette were told to wait until we were back in the air, as smoking on the tarmac is still frowned upon, even in the bush. To my surprise, the pilot agreed to fly to Broken Hill at 5000 feet, so we could crack the door and have a smoke. A colleague from Queensland Country Life produced a sandwich bag of hooter and a pipe. I declined, but they got stoned as hell on the back seat. But yeah, coming into Broken Hill, we got told one of the windscreen wipers blew off over Cobar and they needed to shoot off to the carpark to pinch someone's wiper blade. We watched as the captain, with a light beer between his knees, sat in the shade of the Saab and cut down the wiper so it'd fit the plane.
With that bit of drama behind us, we crossed into South Australia. For lunch, we got a bag of cold McDonald's chips the first officer had picked up in Mascot some six hours earlier. By now, there were at least 60 Gatorade bottles of human piss rolling around the plane. So we took it down to just 500 feet over Marree, with the door open, and we threw them out over town. You won't forget the sound of 600mL of piss landing on a corrugated iron roof. Sounds like a grenade going off. I'd hate to think what it sounds like inside the house.
As we pointed the Saab west, we'd been in the air for nearly 10 hours. There was a certain fatigue growing in the cabin and some concern regarding the dwindling amount of piss was noted. There was some talk of heading into town to pick up a few cartons for the final push onto Perth, but someone found a box of white wine and two bricks of rum. So we agreed to get a splash of fuel and head on.
We landed in Kalgoorlie, and due to the lack of empty Gatorade bottles, the captain invited us to urinate on the tarmac, with him. We convinced him to take one prop up to 2000rpm, and we threw one of the last bottles of piss into it. Trip highlight, that was. Never again will I be covered head to toe in the atomised piss of a Townsville Bulletin court reporter. Spose I deserve it for taking a piss at the time out by the tail.
The stretch from Kalgoorlie to Perth, I had a mild brown out and got a bit timeblind. We'd been drinking nearly non-stop for 14 hours, at altitude, and we'd got pissed in Sydney the night before. I looked down at the brick of rum in my hands — it was a bottle of Bundy that was so ancient it had the batch number ink-stamped on the back. I remember going to hand it back to the Townsville Bulletin bloke up in 1A, but the first officer had a punch on with him over something and he was now duct-taped to the chair. He had a loop over his eyes and over his mouth, too. I asked the stewardess for some water; she said the best she could do was a Matso's alcoholic ginger beer. I moaned internally and took it. It was very warm, it was delicious.
We landed in Perth about midnight, I think. The pothead from the Country Life had to be taken from the plane in a wheelchair; they'd wee'd themselves more than once. The whole plane stunk of stale piss, cigarette smoke, sweat, blood, old man poo, avgas, cherry ice vape and the sense that we'd accomplished something great.
I actually passed out on the new airport train in Perth. Got woken up at Claremont Station by a train guard who asked me where my boots were. They'd been stolen off my feet as I slept, like I'd just lost a duel in the Old West. Maybe I had. But either way, it was totally worth it, and I'd implore anyone considering the journey to make it. I very much think it's a good thing. Good thing for the nation and a great thing for the Australian. Five out of five.
More to come.
