There were 2 periods of time being mixed up here.
The first one was late eighties/ first years of the nineties: QF was short of capacity in an expansion phase and leased in old classics VH EBa and VH EBB and VH EEI. One of the common threads was that the aircraft despite being cleared by their owners maintenance people plus a period at at Sintec, needed a lot more maintenance in SYD to get them up to the required standard. EBA and EBB were previously owned by QF but had been sold. The thought process was that having been previously owned by QF they would have been in good shape but the contrary was true. EEI came from Aer Lingus but made A and B look like perfect aeroplanes. QF tried to inflict these aircraft on Air Pacific has who had a lease agreement for the supply of a B747 classic but their reliability in service was problematic. Martinair and Towerair aircraft were also wet leased in in this era. All of this caused of problems with the consistency of product for QF.
The next period of time was early 2000s when extra capacity was also needed. An ex BA B747-400 VH NLH was leased in as well as 6 rolls Royce powered B767s. The 76s were repainted in QF colours and the 747 was white with the blue BA tail without any reference to BA on it.
This was the same time period when QF rapidly expanded its B737 fleet by buying B737-800s which were dirt cheap because American Airlines had cancelled an order for them from Boeing because of the GFC. Additionally, QF purchased 3 additional B747 400s courtesy of the GFC, 2 from Malaysian and 1 from Asiana; they became VH OEB,OEC and OED.( the first GE powered 400s for QF).
So for the guy who flew from HNL/SYD in a funny coloured QF service, it was probably NLH.