nequine

Wow at the seat configuration on that prop flight! :O

nancypants

7th July 2019
Melilla

Despite having no idea what’s the gee-oh in Melilla and despite Mr 14C’s caution yesterday, I was quite taken by the views on the taxi ride to the airport
Checked out of the hotel relatively early, skipped breakfast and set off exploring

I soon discovered that Melilla is a hot bed of interesting architecture, primarily Art Nouveau esque. It seems this relates to the upsurge of the port of Melilla as a result of increasing trade in the 1920s or so, the bourgeosie wishing to express their worldliness through the adoption of the new architectural style of Modernisme. Whatever the reason as something of a lover of art nouveau I was quite happy about this







I was quite impressed by how accessible the town centre was, in terms of plaques explaining statues and key buildings. I didn’t see anyone else who looked like a tourist but it struck me as a place that was insanely well set up for tourists when they eventually come…

Moving on to Melilla la Vieja, I wandered past yet another statue I did not know the significance of, and the plaque of which did not really advance my understanding. Looking it up later on I discovered it’s actually the last remaining statue of General Franco in Spain (a claim to fame if ever there was one)


As I was wandering around the old city/fortress walls, a guardia civil car (are they police or customs or what? something along those lines). I was told in no uncertain terms I shouldn’t be walking around taking pictures or with my phone in my hand as it was liable to be pinched. Charming!!

Happily I did not get mugged and was able to have a decent explore of the old town and fortress walls, including the aljibes which I suppose translates as water tanks within the walls and must have been a mighty feat of engineering when built







Getting rather tired and hungry I hit upon the genius idea of walking from Spain to Morocco, via the beach
I stopped at a cafe for pizza but in my fatigued state accidentally ordered an alcohol free beer


The closer I walked to Morocco, the more I genuinely did feel like I was about to get knifed. Not because it’s Morocco, before anyone starts, but more that generic “weirdos hang around border areas” kind of vibe

The queues to transit were phenomenal and I imagine it would be kind of like Gibraltar/La Linea in that there’s a fair number of people who cross the border every day for work. So unfortunately no Morocco entry stamp but interesting nonetheless




Heading back to town, I had just enough time to take in the Melilla sign (in the main square, not quite the Hollywood hills), and then it was time to go to the airport





7th July
IB8277
MLN-AGP
Canary Fly for Iberia operated by Air Nostrum ATR72
Seat 19A

Having learned my lesson from the last time I had selected a seat at the rear of the plane

I had about 30 minutes to kill before going through security so hit up the only airport cafe for a couple of cokes, and the only airport shop for some fridge magnets for my nephew. I ended up getting a real talking to from the shop lady because I bought a total of 5 magnets (for the benefit of family and friends who could go “where?!”) and she was most upset that I had basically cleaned them out of magnets (how outrageous eh, going into a shop and buying things!!)

The plane boarded uneventfully and we were treated to a great view of the border fence on climb out




At Malaga airport, bags from Melilla (and indeed Ceuta) are spat out on a completely separate belt, and you have to go through- customs maybe? Added 5 seconds onto my journey (outrageous!) and on my way


I was staying at the Malaga Airport Campanille hotel which I’ve decided was walkable when I booked it, but when I got there I decided I CBA with that so took a taxi. Now i don’t want to describe this as a scam but the fare was something like EUR12, I handed him a 20 and there was no change forthcoming. Unusual. Unfortunately my Spanish lacks the vocabulary for “where’s my change?!”. So let it slide I had to


The Campanile is pretty poor to be frank but I suppose that’s how it’s meant to be. I was quite starving but their restaurant is apparently not open on Sundays, and again not feeling like a walk I was stuck with snacks and sandwiches for purchase from reception. Given I was up early yet again the next morning I took this as my sign from the gods to have an early night

nancypants

8th July 2019
HTY204
AGP-JCU
Helity AW139

Rising early and heading off to the airport, the taxi fare this time being EUR6, with change….

Ceuta of course does not have an airport and doesn't have sufficient flat land to build one either, so the choices there are helicopter or ferry (Or possibly flying into Morocco and doing a land border crossing but that is quite the mission), so helicopter it was

BACKGROUND
Booking the helicopter was something of a mission; it seems the operator has traditionally changed fairly regularly. The website is in Spanish only (fair enough) and is resistive to Google translate so you might need to phone a friend to help you with some of the more technical aspects. (although i phoned my Argentine friend and her response was "is this website broken? It's terrible!")
I was unable to book until around 3 months out, which initially had me worried the flights were either booked out, or that there was going to be another operator change, but turned out to be fine.
The most frequent flights are the Algeciras but of course that is totally useless for connections. Malaga has about 4-8 a day depending on date but it appears some of these get rolled together, presumably if there's not many bookings. There is a once daily JCU-MLN but that was cancelled both days I was in Melilla and both days I was in Ceuta so 4 days in a row. Not sure if that is indicative or was just bad luck
There is resident and non-resident pricing, with the non-resident pricing more expensive but appearing to add a fair bit of flexibility
Don't try to contact the company, they don't respond quickly and when you get an email back it doesn't really add much
http://helity.es


The Helity desks were not open when I first arrived and I was slightly paranoid that the flight had already opened and closed (as it was only about an hour and 10 minutes before scheduled departure and I have no clue if helicopter airlines operate to the same kind of timescales as fixed wing?!)

However. At the appropriate time, the lady from the sales desk wandered over to the check in desk and proceeded to check in passengers for my flight and the one before, which was due to depart in about 20 minutes…

Helity fairly clearly operates as some kind of official/unofficial branch of the Ceutan tourist office; the boarding passes were emblazoned with prominent “Europa en Africa” branding, which I must say I thought was quite pretty




The passes were also stamped with fast track and well, it would have been rude not to take advantage so away I went

Obviously not expecting any in flight catering I grabbed a bocadilla on my way.
At the gate I was greeted by the same lady from the sales desk and check in, now fulfilling her role as gate agent
The pilot- captain? first officer? not sure but he had 4 bars- was there as well, greeting each and every passenger like an old friend

We were taken down to ground level and were loaded into a Ceuta/Helity branded mini van. Given that the whole operation clearly runs on a fairly tight basis, i was impressed by how slick everything was. A safety video played in the van on the way to the aircraft, followed by a tourism video about Ceuta. We only had enough time to get about 10% of the way into the english language part of the briefing but the gist was got.




The helicopter had open seating and the regulars clearly knew which were the best seats to grab. I ended up in the 2nd row, 1 seat away from the windows. The front two rows faced each other in club style seating, with the third row forward facing behind that (and with fairly tight leg room). All seats were equipped with a 5 point harness which the ?loadmasters helped people unfamiliar (e.g. me) to do up

The whole experience was quite fascinating (for me, perhaps not for the regulars)



Our friendly pilot ended up in the right hand seat, with a very intense lady pilot (also 4 bars) in the left seat

Clearly I have not spent much or indeed any time on commercial helicopters so a lot of the procedure, such as taxiing out to and taking off from the runway was a bit of a surprise to me. We also hovered for quite a while over the runway before making any kind of lateral movement. Different strokes and all that I suppose.



Once underway we were treated to a rather nice fairly low altitude sightseeing cruise of malaga and torremelinos (is there such a thing?!). There were also decent views of the rock of Gibraltar off to the right. Unfortunately the windows were very heavily tinted blue which meant pictures didn’t come out well but I suppose you can’t have it all


Arriving into Ceuta, I took a taxi to the Hotel Ceuta Puerta del Africa. The receptionist spoke a highly impressive 6 languages and was kind enough to check me into my room early. Still feeling a little washed out from all the travelling I napped for a couple of hours before heading out. The hotel has refurbished and unrefurbished rooms, and various other options you can choose for a premium. Being as I was travelling on my own and not intending to spend much time inside beyond sleeping, I settled for an unrefurbished room which was perfectly fine

The weather that had been so poor in Melilla had evidently cleared overnight and it was a stunning day. As much as Melilla was well set up for visitors, Ceuta was off the charts. There was a massive tourist office down the front and clearly there had been an ad campaign and branding effort made (“Ceuta si!”). I saw various references to Ceuta being the European Capital of Culture but haven’t been able to work out which year, which implies to me it was one of the candidate cities but ultimately unsuccessful


Statue of 12th century Ceuta Cartogapher Muhammad al-Idrisi

I felt there was much more Arabic history on display here than there was in Melilla. There were no cautions given regarding crime and everyone seemed quite friendly, including a bunch of old ladies approaching me in the street to explain certain things as I was obviously looking interested/lost. There were statues and monuments everywhere and some really interesting looking buildings

Banos arabes


The fortress moats here I'm told are navigable and I believe are swimmable as well- the water certainly looked good enough for it but I wasn't game enough to try it!


There is some story about Ceuta being one of the two pillars of the ancient world, which were pushed apart by Hercules in order to create the Mediterranean (or some such). Gibraltar being the other. So as you could see Gibraltar in the distance, you also could take in at least 2 "pilars of Hercules" statues





A few more snaps of around town

Town hall

Calipso






Walking back I saw a McDonalds advertising beer. Perplexed by the novelty of being able to buy beer from McDonalds, and also being able to drink that beer outdoors, I decided to give it a go


It was without a doubt the worst beer I have ever had
That sunset though...

nancypants

I think some of the greek island services have something similar and allegedly the QF Q300 also but the seat map on Qantas website doesn't match the seat map in manage my booking; I've always ended up bumped off Q300 flights so as yet cannot confirm

It's pretty grim though unless you're in a group of 4 maybe

rapidex

Great trip report. The Captain normally sits in the right seat in helicopters, just to keep things simple.

nancypants

Not to cast aspersions but that did seem the logical conclusion- do we know the historic reason for that? Please tell me it’s not got anything to do with which hand people used to hold a sword while riding a horse etc...

ChasingDaylight

Amazing! Having lived in the NT (Darwin & Palmo) never quite imagined I'd be reading a TR starting from Boroloola (last time I talked to someone from there, it was at Casuarina Bus interchange and she was very drunk, telling me she liked me and asked if I would be her husband.... she didn't like transit officers or NT Police nearly as much sadly.) Looking forward to Nhulunbuy!

nancypants

Yesh that’s Borroloola! Borroloola to numbulwar has to be an FT first, next one will be numbulwar to alyangula. Via Indonesia Malaysia and Nepal 🤔

FT creative routing is really starting to take the piss

(Addit: to be fair to Borroloola, the level of public drunkenness is nowhere near the level of many Cape York communities, Tennant creek or indeed Alice springs. Or the Bradford Rio on a Friday night c. 2001)

T8191

Oh, this TR rocks! ^

Interestingly [well, I found it interesting] one of our CC on the UD of last month's IAD-LHR was from Ceuta. I guessed that from the language flags he had on his name-tag (English, Spanish and Arabic]. He was surprised I'd even heard of Ceuta!

nancypants

There’s more pictures for the Ceuta part but VA’s inflight wifi crapped out on me so will sort it out tomorrow

Fredrik74

Ceuta and Melilla are high on my bucket list if for no other reason than their location. Flights with miners not so much. Still it's been very interesting to see. and it looks like this report is on its way to be a classic.

nancypants

I will add more comment on the booking of the helicopter to Ceuta, which was a bit of a mission

ceuta is definitely > Melilla. But I wouldn’t have wanted to do just one or the other. I think helity are supposed to operate a JCU-MLN-JCU chopper but it seemed to be cancelled semi regularly while I was there. Would make for an interesting triangle if operating

addit: done

nancypants

9th July 2019
There had been a series of schedule changes on a Vueling flight I was due to take this evening, and given my lack of experience with helicopters, Mediterranean weather etc., that made me uncomfortable. As such I decided to get myself moved forward from HTY206 (1520-1540), to HTY204 (0925-0945). The intervening flights were all to Algeciras so the option was essentially a long layover or virtually no layover
Reading the conditions of carriage it seemed that this change would be free to make as long as it was done at least 6 hours in advance of the booked flight. Seeing there was still a seat free on the earlier service it seemed the most sensible thing to do would be to head to the heliport and make the change



Unfortunately it seems my/google's combined understanding of Spanish language conditions of carriage is incorrect, as I was told I needed to pay for a new ticket as I was making the change within 6 hours of the flight I was intending to move onto. Not sure about the logic of that but sometimes it's easiest just to go with it. Nothing better for me to spend EUR160 on that day anyway

I took the opportunity to do some chopper spotting (fnah fnah) while waiting




There was a medical chopped parked on the apron and a couple of Guardia Civils buzzing around but the bulk of the action seemed to be variations of firefighting flights (at least, I assume that's what the buckets are all about?)

HTY204
JCU-AGP
0925-0945
AW139

I probably shouldn't be half as fascinated by this stuff as I am but I did enjoy the various signage, including the "how to approach a helicopter" part



My recollection is that the engine was running throughout the turn around although this picture seems to contradict that and it was a while ago so I could well be wrong


I was last to board and initially it looked like there was no seat. The super awesome loadmaster (pictured above) worked out that some idiot was sitting across 2 seats and it was all sorted out really quickly and I was strapped in by him as well. I felt a bit spoilt actually

Same crew as last time and fairly identical seating arrangement all round





Again we were treated to pretty interesting views on the way back in. It must have been a little more hazy though as Gibraltar was very much not visible today


Upon landing we had to wait for the flight crew to do a spot of baggage handling before the minivan could depart
They both seemed to be finishing up for the day- not sure how rosters work in a company such as this, they seemed to have done AGP-JCU-LEAG-JCU-AGP on this day. Who knows how many crew the company even employs? They all seem to be Malaga based, it was the same helicopter on both occasions but one would like to believe they perhaps have a spare? Who knows


Arnhem land "get it done" mentality in action


Side view showing the seating arrangement a bit more clearly

Baggage was again claimed from the random Spanish north african territories section of the airport. I got massively lost and had to be taken back through an exit in order to retrieve my bag...



With a now fairly substantial layover in Malaga, I decided to dump my baggage and go and check out a DC3 I had spotted from the taxi
Research had shown this was at the Museo Aeronautico de Malaga, which appeared to be walking distance so off I went
I was not to be disappointed

1938 terminal building

An extremely jolly DC9

Back in the jump seat


Convair from the 1950s. Or the present if you happen to be a Chatham Islander

One for PUCCI

One for the BA fans!!

Inflight catering exhibition


Spotters paradise from the old ATC tower


Some kind of twin Beech possibly

De Havilland Heron (or possibly Dove)

Not a DC3 after all- note beer of Malaga being brewed in the background (smells like a swamp)

All in all not a bad way to spend a few hours- especially so given the museum is free!!

Arriving back at the terminal, a bit of present day plane spotting, especially of stuff that is probably pretty mainstream in Europe but won't be seen dunnunder any time soon, such as the A220



9th July 2019
VY2612
AGP-BIO
1645-1815
Vueling A320
9F

Actual departure time ended up being pushed back to 1749, so *of course* I actually would have been fine after all
However the huddled masses were queuing up not only long before boarding started but before the plane had even landed

"Don't leave without me!"

When the plane eventually touched down and boarding started, I was one of the last to board. They were approaching people in the line ahead to gate check their carry ons- since I didn't need access while on board, I proactively offered to have mine go into the hold, which was accepted

Flight was fairly standard Vueling fare


We managed to make up some time and were thus only 41 minutes late arriving

Clearly I don't follow Spanish news adequately but there was obviously some kind of protest going on at Bilbao- turned out there was a ground handling strike happening later that week and this was some pre-strike agitation in progress. So strike 1 of many successfully avoided today

T8191

Beechcraft Model 18, de Havilland Dove. The DH Heron is bigger, and has 4 engines. I assume the DC-3 is a C-47, given the cargo door. [/geek]

nancypants

Correct. My notes say it was labelled as a heron but I thought it was a dove too. Although I have been ruined slightly by connellan airways re-engining their herons which is confusing