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)

Setting the Scene to an epic journey to Australia & New Zealand

In the coming weeks you’ll read of my experiences during an epic trip to Australia and New Zealand several years ago. I’ll try to describe elements of the trip in a raw, unfiltered way so you get to experience my experiences rather than reading a standard travel guide text.

I’d basically had enough of the UK and what seemed like a cybernetic robotic existence. The good old corporate empire was doing its best to completely destroy a successful future that I’d developed and for once in my life I was determined to feel like a person rather than a number. The executioners arrived one bright sunny day to inform several colleagues and myself that we were ‘surplus to requirements’, our efforts over the years had in essence increased the profile of our product which resulted in a ‘sell out’ to another company. I felt like I’d been crapped on from a great height, it was time to disappear and gain control, call it running away, call it what you want, the bubble had burst and I felt like I needed to escape in order to get a grip on my own reality. A friend who had just finished studying and wanted to ‘see the world’ joined me on the trip. Our reasons for going where very different. I suppose looking back that I wanted to shy away from my own existence for a while, to slowly rebuild the confidence that had been stripped from me, my friend on the other hand wanted to ‘live like there was no tomorrow’, one might say a slight recipe for disaster.

The need to travel and re-discover my inner-self was further enhanced by an intense passion for the great outdoors, an adventurous spirit and the need to experience my experiences whenever the time felt right for me. I just wanted a period of my life where I could in essence create my own destiny, break away from the confines of a clockwork standardised existence and slowly regain what i'd lost. It was my time, for 12 months i dictated the rules, I was in control and to be honest, most of the time it was freakin awesome..

The story continues…

Travel Tip of The Day

While i'm busy putting together content for the site, i'll start with a very useful travel tip of the day.

Always carry the lid from a 35mm camera film pod.. It nearly always doubles up as a sink plug.. Really useful for travellers who use public or park campgrounds or the not so luxurious backpackers or motels where most plugs have been stolen..