Date: February 24th 2024.
Destination: The Quest Apartments Collingwood, Melbourne,Victoria
Before I begin this blog I want to tell you a bit about the NDIS process to arrange Respite.
- IT TAKES FLIPPING AGES!! Months and months and months of planning and waiting and wondering and re-hashing plans and re-hashing plans and changing the where, when, why and how about 8,754 times before everything is sorted
- Once everything is sorted and in place- You can have a nice relaxing time with everything paid for ( including food and transport if required)
There. That’s what I learnt regarding Respite paid for via the NDIS. Now then… Moving on.
My Respite was planned for a period of 4 days from Saturday February 24th to Tuesday February 27th. I had arranged the whole 4 days around HUBLANDER – Australia’s first ever Outlander Convention and given the event was to be held at The Timber yard in Port Melbourne, I had arranged to stay at the Quest Apartments in Collingwood- which was just a short 15 minute trip from the venue.
With my bags packed and Eleanor Wheelie fully charged, my Support Worker & Partner in crime ( for the next four days at least) Miss C came and collected me from my door at just a bit after lunch.
It was an easy drive with not much traffic on the road and we arrived in good time. After checking in and getting handed the keys, we made our way up to the 3rd floor to our home away from home for the next 4 days .
I had never stayed at a Quest apartment before, although, at the time, as we walked in and dropped off our bags – I remember thinking about a point in my life in 1996 when, in an effort to find suitable employment, I signed up to do a two week long course in Hospitality. I have vague memories of turning up to a Quest Apartment in the City and having to clean rooms and learn how to make Hospital corners on some of the whitest bedsheets known to man.
Suffice to say that didn’t pan out as after one particular day – I came face to face with vomit in the bathroom of one room after the occupant had …. ‘partied to excess’ the night before and, by the looks of the state of the room – had made a swift exit & check out so as not to be held accountable for any of the mess. (Unfortunately for them.. places like that have ways of finding people like them and so, I have no doubt in my mind they were caught out and dealt with accordingly.)
Anyway… Where was I? Oh yes! The Quest Apartment…
As I was saying, I had never stayed in a Quest apartment before .. let alone one that was disabled friendly.
I could easily get Eleanor into the room and there was plenty of space to move around in. I could even take her into the bedroom and pop her in a corner with ease. We were lucky to have a two bedroom apartment.
We had:
*A main bedroom with ensuite bathroom
*A second Bedroom
*A bathroom/ shower/ toilet area
*Dining and lounge area
*A washer/dryer machine ( I’d never seen one of them before . In fact, neither of us had .. so we had a time trying to figure out how it worked. I’ll tell you that much!)
*A Balcony with a little outdoor setting .
Speaking of the bedrooms, Here’s a picture of the Master Bedroom. As you can see – we were very spoilt and the beds were very comfortable ( Yes, that is me in the reflection!)
So, suffice to say we were pretty impressed.
The first order of business was grocery shopping to cover us for the days that we were going to be there. After much discussion with my Support Worker and those helping me arrange my Respite – It was decided that we’d prefer to make our own meals as opposed to living off take out.. (which neither myself or Miss C wanted to do anyway) so we got ourselves organised and set off to find the nearest Coles to grab what we needed.
Like all places, Collingwood is not without its interesting characters. Upon leaving the Quest Apartments, there was a rather unkempt looking shirtless gent who wished me to .. how shall we say … ‘Go like the clappers, make it go full speed and put some fire under those wheels!” in reference to Eleanor Wheelie .. a suggestion, I can assure you, I politely declined.
One of the things I’ve really began to notice as a semi ambulant wheelchair user is just how uneven the ground is. Now, don’t get me wrong Eleanor Wheelie (Model C2 Whill) is pretty much an all surface /terrain chair and can tackle just about anything.. but my gosh does she let you know just how crooked and angular everything is! Going along the side streets and then on to the infamous SMITH ST I cannot tell you the amount of times I felt like I was going to topple forward and or fall out of my chair because of uneven ground. It was an experience – that’s for sure!
We arrived at Coles, purchased our groceries and returned back to our lodgings with a minimum of fuss to set about getting ourselves ready to settle in for the night. Dinner was Fajitas and I discovered that Miss C was a rather good cook. We also decided that seeing that Sunday was going to be a BIG day (and it was .. believe me! But more on that later) that we’d make our own food and take bottles of water with us.
That night we watched the Simpsons on Netflix and then went to bed. Our alarms were set for the ungodly hour of 5am ( Not that this is an issue for me as I am used to getting up early – but on a Sunday? Yes.. Exactly!)
The next day was Hublander day … and as I drifted off to sleep that night I wondered excitedly what was to come.
Until next week,
Thanks for reading
Ceej
PS: The banner for this blog has nothing to do with the event.. I just thought it looked nice 😀
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