En-Route to Australia - The Flight

Australia & New Zealand travel story continued...

‘Where the freakin hell are we going???’

For what seemed like hours the little computer graphic of a plane illustrating our flight and its location seemed to sit motionless in an ocean of blue on the TV screen in the economy cabin. Talk about a long flight, I seemed to spend most of it looking at the Pacific on an overhead monitor. If you suffer from hyperactivity, claustrophobia or the inability to sleep on long haul flights then get yourself a holiday sorted in the Costa Del Sol and forget about heading 'down under'. If you want to experience the thrills of sitting in a plane for 20 odd hours, you could always do a trial run at home by strapping your knees up to your chin with a belt, sitting back in a chair then getting someone to push you right up to the wall and feed you every 3 hours with peanuts and rubberised meat. It you want to make it fully realistic you’ll need to watch Mr Bean continuously, listen to the same top 40 tunes, sit 10 cms from the most annoying person on the planet who prides himself on the ability to eat chicken vindaloo for breakfast, lunch and evening dinner and just pray that you manage to live through the torture without telling everybody around you your life story.

It was early morning as we finally approached Australia. Cairns our final destination appeared in small text on the screen in front. ‘Thank God for that’ I thought, ‘I’ll soon be able to stretch my legs, kick this Deep-Vein Thrombosis into touch, grab some food and a proper kip’. Total frustration, tiredness and the inability to move any limb were soon surpassed by an overwhelming urgency to get off the plane and start living. It soon became evident that the plane had other ideas, well not so much the plane, and more the pilot. I reckon he had plans on going clubbing in Brisbane cos that’s where the plane was going. Cairns was now in the rear view mirror, as we continued to enjoy the rollercoaster ride of turbulence and the fragrant smell wafting from the toilet cubicles. Come to think of it, it was more of an airbourne Glastonbury moment. Several hours later we landed, jumped on another plane and headed back on the same route as we came in on to Cairns, Queenslands northern paradise.

To be continued :o)