Skip to main content

There were bumps and I didn't care

I had yet another day trip down to Canberra yesterday, flying on Qantas 737-400's there and back again. The aircraft are looking rather tired these days and I think the "new" upholstery doesn't help. Still, they do the task for now.

Our flight was delayed due to some galley maintenance. Once fixed, it was back off to the third runway and up into clear blue skies. This trip I decided to video take-offs and landings rather than take so many photos. I'm testing out my new Panasonic TZ10 camera with built in GPS, but unfortunately this feature only seems to be certified for the A380 and I had to switch it off.


I need to work out how to get the aspect ratio correct on YouTube before I can post up the video.

Despite the beautiful skies, there were still a few bumps and dumps, especially on descent into Canberra. I was seated in row 20 on the flight down and 25 on the way back. That's right at the rear of the aircraft. I was a bit nervous about how I would react to any turbulence.

I was fine. In the last year or so I seem to have lost my constant nervousness about turbulence. I'm still scared of "the big drop" but no longer break into a sweat at the slightest bump.


Overall, they were two very pleasant little flights. When I arrived back into Sydney's Terminal 3 I purchased a plush Qantas 747 toy which makes a jet noise when squeezed for Alex and an inflatable "Australian Airlines" (the orange incarnation) aircraft, just because that particular Qantas subsidiary is long dead.

I love flying all over again.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Springs, castles and the end of the line

I am never happy to stop before the end of the line. It irritates me to know that there is still somewhere unexplored lying ahead. So when I only got as far as Gujo Hachiman on the Nagaragawa Railway last year I knew I needed to return for more. Especially as this private third sector railway is, by its very nature, always at threat of closure due to low patronage. But did Gujo Hachiman deserve another visit? Sure it's a nice enough town, but had we missed out on enough last time to return? Mum's trip provided the excuse. I originally planned the Oito line, which wI'll be partly closed when the Shinkansen line is extended to Kanazawa. However, when I thought of special places in Japan that deserved to be shared Gujo Hachiman was at the top of the list. Before we could go anywhere Mum needed her coffee. There was a Tully's Coffee opposite the hotel entrance, so I parked her there while I booked our seat reservations. Mum got her fast train ride on a ...

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...

The Carlingford Line

We close the year and the decade with a local adventure to mark the closure of a railway line. On the January 5, 2020, the Carlingford Line from Clyde will close to be partially replaced by the Parramatta Light Rail. This is Sydney's quietest line, a single track branch for most of its length from the industrial centre of Clyde to the northwestern suburb of Carlingford. According to Wikipedia, power supply and signalling issues mean that only a single four car train can utilise the line at a time. Newer Sydney trains run in fixed eight car configurations. This will be the first and last time I traverse the Carlingford Line in its current configuration. The weather of the day is certainly appropriate for an ending, the brown smoke haze lending an apocalyptic air to proceedings. I drive to Padstow and catch the T8 line to Central, followed by the T1 towards Parramatta and Penrith. The historic homes of the Inner West give way to industrial complexes, rail storage yards and t...