The Log of Flight SQ217

Today we come to you from 39,000 feet above Kabul. If you’re going to visit Kabul, then doing it from 39,000 feet up is best.

Our journey today will include some turbulence (mainly caused by the Thai curry and Guinness consumed last night), six security checks, two opportunities to take your shoes off voluntarily and four opportunities to take them off involuntarily. Airport security have the same fascination with shoes as Imelda Marcos. Seventeen snail like queues and five inedible meals, two leg cramps and a change in ground temperatures from -1c to 39c.

It used to take six weeks to get to Australia on a boat. But I’m guessing that once you had boarded, they kind of left you alone until you got to the other side. Air travel is not so unobtrusive. Boarding cards and passports are requested each time you visit the toilet it seems.

26 hours and 30 minutes to Melbourne.
Having queued for thirty minutes I finally get to check in only to be told that they’ve never heard of me and my ticket is makey uppey. I’m forwarded to the ticket desk where I have a little more luck. They can see my name in the system but can’t link me to any flights. Everything these days in done with E-Tickets. The “E” I’m assuming stands for Existential. If something goes wrong, you disappear into the ether and no amount of sympathy will save you. Unless of course you stomp your feet and start crying like I did.

25 hours to Melbourne.
The plane banks to the right suddenly (are we supposed to say starboard in these situations?) and suddenly I realise that we are crossing the coast and leaving Ireland behind. Unfortunately Ireland was asleep and hungover and not really in the mood for teary farewells.

23 hours to Melbourne.
When you’re dealing with a 40 degree change in temperature, it’s always a big question as to when you ditch the overcoat. I decided to pack it in Dublin on the basis that Airports and planes are hot and that I didn’t want to carry it across three continents. Heathrow threatened my plans however. If hell has an airport, I’m sure it’s modelled on Heathrow. It’s a confused mess of ugly concrete and enigmatic signage.

Crowds trundled along dark corridors as though circling the Kaaba shrine at Mecca. My task was to get from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3. In modern airports this would be done by means of a driverless train or a swish moving walkway. Heathrow shuns these conveniences like a penitent pilgrim to St Patrick’s Purgatory. Not only does it involve a long walk. But horror upon horrors it involves GOING OUTSIDE. It was my last taste of winter for the foreseeable future and it was like winter was giving me a good kick in the arse as a farewell.

15 hours to Melbourne
Halfway through a 12 hour leg between London and Singapore and I’m losing the will to live. The airline tries to provide distraction by way of movies and free drink but it matters not a damn. All you hear are the cries of colic children and the endless hum of the Rolls Royce engines. I’m sure they have put years into researching the ergonomics of airplane posture. But it doesn’t take long for your bum and it molecules to merge with the seating. It’s hot, sticky and extremely uncomfortable, made worse by the feeling of being trapped between two strangers. Planes are scary enough without having your every cough and uncomfortable twist in the torturous chair tut tutted by two people six inches from you that you’ve never even met before.

9 hours to Melbourne
My backside is now officially welded to the seat. Molecular transference is complete. We’re one hour out of Singapore and miraculously all the under threes on the plane have stopped crying. It must be because everyone is now awake and they have no-one to bother with their demonic wailing.

They brought breakfast around and as always seems to happen to me the trolley stopped first beside my seat. They proceeded to serve the person behind me and worked backwards which meant I was the last of 350 passengers fed. This wouldn’t bother me except they had run out of food by the time they got to me. They were kind enough to give me a yogurt and some fruit though, which made me feel like the kid in school whose mother forgot to pack lunch.

1 hour to MelbourneAfter three hours of cruising over the red dirt of central Australia and looking down on desert plains that not even Aboriginals have walked across, we crossed over the Victorian border and the desert gave way to farmland. The patchwork quilt of fields glistened in the evening sun and hinted at the warmth below. Air travel is uncomfortable but truly amazing. I had swapped seasons with the speed of Edmund passing though the wardrobe into the land of Narnia. Except I was doing it the other way round.

We landed bang on time in Melbourne and battled though Immigration and Customs. In Australia they seem much more concerned about jam than drugs at immigration and the Chinese passengers in particular get a hard time. Less they be smuggling a dried piece of pork into a country that eats kangaroos and crocodiles.

The doors opened and my gentle tiger was waiting to take me home. Even the most independent traveller likes to be met by somebody at the airport. As we drove into the City I thought of that person who said that it is not the destination that matters but the journey. It’s a nice phrase, but clearly that person had never travelled through Heathrow, been wedged into a central seat on a 747 or faced the indignity of having to hold your trousers up or expose your hole ridden socks to the world while your shoes and belt are scanned at yet another security check. Your flight is boarding. Please leave your dignity and comfort in the bins provided.