travelling allrite

By and large I'm mostly enjoying the isolation of the COVID-19 lock down. I love the family time and have plenty of work to keep me busy. But now and then something triggers me and I feel a sense of frustrated wanderlust. The television shows a rural scene and I miss the wind and the scent of the land, a place devoid of others for many kilometres around. A photo of a tram or a rattling train and I am back in rural Japan, seeking an onsen to sooth my cracked skin and tired bones. Towering clouds in blue skies, empty of the aircraft I can dream I am on. We pass the airport and I am sad that I cannot go in and lose myself in the activity, catch a meal while watching the aircraft and passengers come and go. I imagine staying in a transit hotel, relaxing to ambient music as I rest before my next flight. Wanting an activity pack like those handed out for children, only aimed at adults. I see the Osmos game, so long on my phone, and recall ...

Isolating ourselves from the scourge of COVID-19, borders closed between states and other countries, even a simple drive of a few kilometres can become a noteworthy journey. What drew me out of the house was another casualty of the pandemic. The Boeing 747 has played a huge role in the history of Qantas, spanning a period of forty-eight years. This year marks the airline's centenary, but sadly there is little to celebrate now. By the end of tomorrow they will have no more international flights until restrictions are lifted, most of their workforce stood down. Today likely marked the final scheduled passenger flight of the 747 for Qantas, QF28 in bound from Santiago, Chile. They had already announced that the Queen of the Skies was to be retired this year , but no doubt had planned a greater celebration of its most famous aircraft. Instead, any celebrations must have been muted, with passengers whisked away to hotels for a mandatory two weeks of isolation. But I could...

The aspect of the coronavirus pandemic lock down that frustrates me the most isn't the isolation from other people. Neither is it the inability to leave the house. It's the silence of the skies. As the border restrictions bite and the Qantas Group and Virgin Australia prepare to stop regular flights overseas and cut domestic frequency, other airlines have also culled their flights into and out of Australia. The near constant music of aircraft across the sky has fallen to an occasional distant hum. The rainbow parade of liveries has disappeared to white and red, the odd orange and silver. The variety of shapes and types shrinking, the queens of the sky stuck on land. Sadness as old favourites may never fly again. Fear for what the future holds. And all those people left without jobs. I cannot even go there. I have a love-hate relationship with flying. At its worst there overwhelming anxiety of turbulence and the tedium of being trapped in a small tube with no hope...

I was flicking through my blog and I noticed a post back from August 2012 called My ultimate Jetstar journey , where I describe an Asian itinerary on low cost flights. It goes Sydney - Cairns - Darwin - Singapore - Penang - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore - Ho Chi Minh City - Hanoi (I originally put the wrong city in the post) - Singapore - Taipei - Osaka - Tokyo - Sydney. Almost eight years later and I've virtually done all those legs, many multiple times, with the exception of Cairns to Darwin and Hanoi. They weren't all with Jetstar either, but I did add extra destinations. Here are some examples: Sydney - Darwin - Singapore - Melbourne - Sydney  (2010) Sydney - Singapore - Penang - Kuching - Taipei - Tokyo - Sydney  (2013) Sydney - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore - Osaka - Singapore (via Taipei) - Ho Chi Minh City - Hue - Danang - Kuala Lumpur - Sydney , (2013) And, of course, multiple trips to and within Japan on Jetstar. It's incredible to think just how far we...

Woke up and it looked like we were in The Big Smoke already. Without much ado we simply repacd the car and drove off back along the Hume Highway to Sydney. Kita doesn't even really fight putting his harness on and is soon fast asleep. There is little to say about this all too familiar journey. We pass a burned out truck blocking half the road near Sutton Forest, whatever its load was included a lot of glass. The skies are grey and smoky, occasionally spitting rain. Here and there are signs and roads pointing off at towns and localities. I wonder what's down those roads, but now is not the time to traverse them. We are going home, to a place our dog knows. No stopping for food or local goods, not until we have left the motorway and reached Padstow, where we have lunch at a local fave. Then home, as we have left it bar the spiderweb that entangles itself in my hair near the entrance. Tonight a storm, something of a relief from the humid smoky air. Already I miss the re...

It's time to head home. Pack, clean and fight with Kita to get the harness fitted. I drive the motorways through Geelong and around Melbourne until we are finally on the Hume. But it is not enough just to reverse our journey. Instead we take a detour towards Shepparton. By the time we reach the rural city we are hungry and need to use the facilities. Limited by the dog we pull over at Victoria Park and, while I walk Kita, the other two fetch a takeaway lunch from the KFC opposite. However, the real reason to stop at Shepparton is not food from a multinational restaurant chain. Shepparton is the fruit capital of Australia, home of SPC. We stop at a farm outlet and buy a box of white peaches and a bag of apricots. Apricots! You can't get decent apricots in Sydney and I love apricots. I love these apricots. There was another place, further along, where we once bought the most delicious pears. But they don't seem to be open any more. The route eventually me...

Back to Queenscliff today and straight to the Big4 Beacon Resort to collect our hire bikes. Three mountain bikes. Across the road to the beach, where we ride the path along the esplanade, sea to our left, sandhills to our right. The air is hazy with smoke and smells like a blend of smoke and the scent of seaweed that I always associate with this region. It is a flat path, easy to cycle past joggers, families and pedestrians walking their dogs. The path goes all the way to Point Lonsdale, that village at the head of Port Phillip Bay. Kids and adults sunbaking or splashing in the waves. We turn back and return the way we came. At our starting point we cross the road and cycle in the opposite direction, parallel with the heritage railway track, the same way we went on our first ride here back in 2016. I just glimpse a diesel hauled passenger train heading out to Drysdale, which is a pity because it would have been so nice to see it pass up close a bit further on against ...