This must be the smallest airport in the world

I mean… this is not Africa, right?
So if you call something an airport, it should look like one!
We got to Proserpine airport, we left the airplane area through some doors, and all of a sudden we were in the middle of a crowd. As Pipa went to see how we could get to Arlie Beach – the final destination to visit the Whitsundays – I went for a smoke.
As I was outside, smoking, I remembered that we were missing one bag! We forgot to go to the baggage claim belt and get the bag we had checked in!
I wanted to let Pipa know so she could try to retrieve it, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the airport doors because smokers (despite being out in the open) are not allowed to smoke within 10 metres from the doors – and because we were in the end of the world, everyone seemed to be extremely zealous with their rules, despite no one under 85 worked at this so called airport.
Then Pipa got out of the building, and I told her about the bag. She pointed to the people standing on the corner of the building… it got me puzzled…


(people standing looking dumb just waiting for their bags... in the open)

Turns out, the small yellow rectangle you can see slightly under the JetStar banner read: Baggage Claim. Yup! For you to get your bags, you needed to wait outside the terminal, for them to carry the bags just next to the bus!


(here come our bags)

I couldn’t believe it!
In the end, everyone working at the airport was indeed over 85 years old, and everyone stuck by the rules to the most intimate detail. When we were coming back they detected a cigarette lighter “stashed” in the pocket of my jacket. They made me go back through the x-ray thing to take it out of the pocket, put it in a plastic tray and make it go through the machine again…
It makes me wonder: Do they think this is really necessary? Or they just do it because it’s written somewhere? And who on earth comes up with these rules?!?
I mean, never in any other airport I was asked to put the lighter in a separate tray! They usually thank me when I tell them that I don’t have anything in my pockets because I’ve put everything in the pockets of my jacket (that goes through the machine).
And despite all their efforts in keeping terrorists away, not even once (I mean in all the flights we took since we got here) they’ve check our ID’s… not during check-in nor during boarding… I could be Bin-Laden himself (in disguise ofc, because I'm much prettier) and I would board every plane in the country, no questions asked!