Flying Cabbie Class
 

If they ever had a Crime Olympics, Martin Bryant would be up there on the gold medallist's platform. He shot 36 people in an afternoon, most of them from close enough to look into their eyes.

He was a simpleton, not quite insane, but backward enough that he was unemployable. Banal and boring, he came into an inheritance and spent a good deal of it on long distance travel. Not that he liked flying, or had a need to go to far off places. No, this was the only way that he could get people to talk to him, by sitting in the next seat for hours at a stretch. Heaven knows what he talked about, but going by later events, I wouldn't imagine that it was deep and meaningful, or pleasant and witty. Or remotely enjoyable.

I think that if he wanted conversation, he should have saved his money and taken up work as a taxidriver. We cabbies get intimacy thrust upon us many times a day. And we're paid for it!

Our passengers have no escape, and we can bend their ears for however long it takes us to drive them home. If Bryant had been a cabbie, he would have relished the job. And his passengers would have hated it. He would, quite literally, have been the Cabbie from Hell.

I'm probably the only cabbie in Canberra to have a Qantas platinum frequent flyer card, along with the little splash of oneWorld green. I rarely bend the ears of my fellow travellers, whether I'm driving them or they are sitting beside me, high in the sky. If they don't want to talk, that's fine by me.

There are those who want to talk. I've had some marvellous conversations in cab or plane, met some amazing people, and finished a trip smiling broadly. It's all very well to see the world, enjoy the travel, sip champagne ten kilometres up and all the rest of it. But when it comes down to the bottom line, it's the people that make my trips. The conversation and companionship, the sharing of ideas, tales, tips, and meals. The joy of learning something else about others and passing along a bit of my own life - that's what keeps me travelling.

And smiling. Every now and then, I'll be driving a party of drunks home along a deserted freeway at two in the morning, and I'll be grinning happily to myself. It's the thought of Amy in Charlestown, Mary in London, Elhamisabel in Frankfurt, Jennifer in Christchurch, Fuat in New York, Cari in Osaka...

Not lovers, but friends. Friends who share many of my interests, friends who can laugh and cry with me, friends who smile at the crazy Australian who comes jetting in for a day and gives them a great big hug.

Maybe they should lock me away. Save me from spending all that money, save me from contributing to global warming.

Maybe. But for the time being, so long as I've got the money and time to do it, I'll spend a month or so each year sharing experiences with my friends, and the rest of the year dreaming about it.

Now, buckle your seatbelt, please. Not that it's going to be a wild ride, but in six days I'm off around the world again, and while I expect it all to be fine and fair, maybe we'll encounter some turbulence along the way. Best be prepared!

Arranging the thing
 

"Around the world," I said to my travel agent. "Business class. Tomorrow."

She looked at me, a quizzical twist to her welcoming smile. I'd actually done something like that a couple of years ago; asked her to book a big flight at short notice. She had come through beautifully, and I hadn't stopped smiling since, through two world trips and a wealth of wonderful memories. Tessa might not have been standing by my side as dawn touched the Eiffel Tower, or picking sakura out of my hair in Hiroshima, or even watching the parade of longhorns through the old stockyards in Fort Worth, but I was thinking of her. A travel agent who understands what I want out of a trip, that to cram as many long flights into a short trip is actually desirable and that the best way to fly from Canberra to Sydney is via Perth, thereby crossing the continent twice over, such a one is shining gold. You don’t give her up. Not when she busts a gut to get me good window seats.

Tessa understands what makes me happy. A smile, a card tucked into my travel documents, a personal message. A travel agent with a twinkling eye to detail.

I’ve been stung before. Agents who didn’t know their job, who left essential items unbooked, who charged me twice, who didn’t think to include my frequent flyer number. The way I see it, is that if things go wrong in the planning stage, they’ll turn around and bite me on the bum when I’m a long way from home. “Skyring?” they’ll say at the counter, “We have no record of your booking here. We have nothing left. Why don’t you try somewhere else? And friend, good luck at this time of night.”

When Tessa books a trip, there are no loose ends, and I smile my way through, or at least if something goes wrong, it’s my own stupid fault.

And she’s beautiful. Those flawless Celtic features, a touch of jewellery to set off her charms. She smiles and my heart melts.

I thought I’d lost her a couple of years back. She’d gone overseas and I was wondering how long it would take and how much money I’d waste before I found anyone as good. But she returned in the nick of time and talked me into flying at the front of the plane, a choice I didn’t regret at all.
So, when I wanted to book this year’s trip to the annual BookCrossing convention, held in Charleston, South Carolina this time, there was no doubt in my mind. It had to be Tessa. And business class.

The way I see it, it costs about as much for me to fly around the world as it does to fly return to almost anywhere in the USA or Europe. With a oneWorld Explorer ticket, I get twenty flights, very few restrictions, and a lot of flexibility in making the trip.

If it’s planned properly, going business class also gets me a year’s worth of elite status. That’s a lot of extra luggage, priority treatment, first class lounge access and a whole bunch of other goodies that make a big difference when travelling. The details count.

And it’s mighty comfortable to fly at the front of the plane, especially when I am making a number of long trips in a few days. A short-tempered wreck at the end of four days in Economy, maybe, but if I do the same flights in Business, I’m smiling. The only drawback is that I need to be careful lest I wax fat on the food.

But I was joking when I told Tessa, “Tomorrow”. I have no doubt that she could have done it, but I’d left myself a couple of weeks.

Actually, I wasn’t sure until mid March that I was even going to be making the trip. Family matters intervened, and the trip went through several incarnations. At one point I was going to be taking my wife along. Or the whole family. Or just my wife again.

That would have been a very different trip, and to tell the truth, one I would have preferred, to show my wife Guernsey, spend a few days in Paris, and take a small number of direct flights rather than a string of indirect legs. But she couldn’t make it, so I was free to shake the maximum number of airmiles and status points out of the ticket.

“You’re mad,” they all said.

I like flying. It’s like the greatest carnival ride in the world, to whoosh up, up and away off the runway into the clouds, homes and buildings dwindling below. Oceans and green jungles, the slopes of volcanoes and the icefields of the North, all pass before my wondering eyes. I marvel at this multicoloured planet, and hunger to see as much as I can.

And beyond the living world, there are the famous buildings and streets of far cities. The sight of Saint Pauls, the Golden Gate Bridge, the exquisite parks and temples of old Japan. Or the art; I love seeing the great paintings and great galleries of the world, and I emerge out into the real world with my eyes refreshed, taking a new delight in the colours and shapes of every life.
But most of all, it’s the people. I hug myself for joy at the thought of the friends I’ve made on my travels.

Tessa understands all this, I think.

She happily turned the jumble of places and dates into a workable itinerary. I’ve got to be in Charleston for the weekend of the convention, of course. And there’s people I simply must see. How can I visit Continental Europe without stopping in to say hello to my BookCrossing friends there? It’s mandatory. And then there’s the monthly BookCrossing gathering in London; always a jolly meeting in a pub. Books and beer and great company – each evening with these people is a treasure.

After an hour, Tessa hands me the completed work, and I look over it, checking to see that I have time to sleep here and there, time to visit with friends, time to make connections in the airports along the way.

It’s workable, a compromise between the maximum potential airmile and status earning journey, and something that I can actually enjoy.

Canberra to Perth to Sydney. I’m allowed four flights within Australia, and this trip crosses the continent twice over. With a brief midnight stop in Perth before heading back east.

Sydney to Cairns to Narita. Just enough time in Sydney and Cairns to grab a bit of internet. I’ll overnight in Narita.

Narita to Hong Kong to Singapore . I’ll stay the night in the transit hotel airside.

Singapore to Hong Kong to London. A long day, arriving at Heathrow in the evening. I then have a day to recover and poke around London, with the BookCrossing gathering on Monday evening, at the “Artichoke and Camel” pub.
London to Istanbul and return. I’ll have a whole night and day in Istanbul, but I’ll leave my luggage in my London hostel.

London to Helsinki to Frankfurt. Two nights in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt to Fort Worth. I want to see TexasWren (a famous BookCrosser) and maybe visit the exquisite collection of the Kimbell Art Museum. I’ll have one night there.

Fort Worth to Chicago. More famous BookCrossers in Chicago, where I have been promised a couch for two nights, with two cats.

Chicago to Washington. I’ll spend the night at a friend’s place, and the next morning he and I will drive down to Charleston, where we will share a hotel room for the four nights of the convention. We’ve both been invited to appear on a local radio station.

Charleston to Fort Worth to New York to Los Angeles to Sydney to Canberra. This is about two days’ worth of travel, and I arrive back in Australia on Anzac Day. Presumably I’ll be able to sleep on that long night flight over the Pacific.

(posted from Narita - will I be able to catch up?)

Excellent narrative, I'm really enjoying it!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/208/4...56ec37f5_b.jpgThanks! There's some meat in it later on - I discovered in Tokyo this morning that I'd mislaid my tickets!

But having a blast - just not getting near enough computer time to keep things up to date.

If the couch in Chicago does not work out, let me know. Happy to host a fellow FTer

Enjoy Charleston! I lived there for 4 years and I must say that some of my favorite restaurants in the world are there:

my vote goes to SNOB (slightly North of Broad)

Enjoy it! I'll be there again in May

I was there last April - loved it! - and while I didn't dine at SNOB, I saw the restaurant itself and was told the story behind it.

But it's the people I love most.

Great start to another good trip, skyring.

How scary is it that I recognise 2 of the 3 FAs on such a big airline? Qantas (as opposed to jetconnect) is not the airline I fly the most, or even the second most.

How to pack light
 

The “how to be an experienced traveller” guides they sell all recommend the benefits of travelling light. Well, I don’t do that. I lug around four bags that add up to fifty kilos or more. Taxidrivers blanch when they see me coming out of an airport terminal, hauling my gear.

To begin with, as a BookCrosser, I’m not going to travel light. Forget it. A third of my baggage is books. Apart from my current reads, concealed on my person or carryon bags, I generally have a selection of books to leave as I go. I aim for at least one per destination, just to mark my steps.

Then there’s my reserves, packed in a big bright yellow BookCrossing tote bag. Several dozen books, bulging it out into a cubical shape. I’ve seen women who weigh less. Baggage handlers make to toss it onto a cart and stop short, their bodies jerked to a halt by the unexpected mass.

That’s my small bag. My main luggage is an LL Bean rolling duffle. I selected the bright yellow colour to match the tote bag, and boy, can I spot my bags on a luggage carousel from the far side of the terminal! I figure no thief is going to run off with my baggage, not while there are bags black and anonymous ready to hand.

My big bag fits neatly in the boot of your average sized taxi. Well, no, it doesn’t. Not if there’s a big LPG cylinder or spare tyre sharing the space. This is where those elastic octo straps every taxi driver carries in the bootlid come in handy.

The second third of my kit isn’t all that heavy, actually. But bulky, to be sure. I have these two big plastic storage containers, and I pack ‘em solid with Tim-Tams. These chocolate-covered biscuits are Australia’s gift to world cuisine, and everybody loves them. The true connoisseur (like me) can amaze the locals with what is known as the “Tim-Tam Slam”, which begins with nibbling off one small corner of the chocolate covering (close eyes and moan in delight, for effect), turning the biscuit around and nibbling off a corresponding diagonally opposite corner (more moans).

Second stage is to take a cup of coffee, dunk one end of the prepared Tim-Tam into the coffee, applies the lips to the other, and suck up the coffee through the biscuit. The chocolate filling infuses the coffee with richness and delight, while the biscuit wafers provide support. (Mmmmmmm!}

Tip for young players: timing is crucial during this operation. Let the pleasure linger and the whole thing dissolves into soggy chocolate goo all over your fingers and slides down to the bottom of your coffee cup. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to watch out for.

I’m famous for Tim-Tams. Look up “Tim Tam Slam” in Wikipedia and there’s a picture of me in Frankfurt, giving a master class on the subject. Naturally I need to carry around classroom supplies, and given the turbulence found in the baggage handling area, I need to pack and protect them well, lest they arrive on the other side of the world as a tasty mess of fragments.

The final third is clothing and everything else. I aim for fresh clothes every day, and with quick laundry facilities a scarce luxury, that means I have to pack about five days worth. Good walking boots, thick fluffy socks. Mesh laundry bag for the dirty clothes so I don’t get ‘em mixed up with the clean. A collapsible camera tripod. More books. A wet pack for my bathroom gear. An art folder full of clear plastic sleeves for souvenirs: ticket stubs, maps, postcards and things to paste into my travel journal. My travel journal. And anything else I figure I’ll need.

Both articles of checkin are tough, with strong zippers. I’ve had previous, lesser, bags fail on me, and there is no sense in going cheap. If I’m doing twenty flights in twenty days, I need gear that will last the trip. My tote bag is a beauty, been around the world three and a half times (as I write this) and going like a champion. I’ve chucked it in the washing machine a few times, and the yellow is still bright and the stout material unfrayed. My LL Bean rolling duffle is the largest size, a sled bottom to it (and how many sets of subway stairs has it been slid and bumped down in its life? Lots!) two sturdy wheels, telescopic handle. One exterior pocket (an extra luggage tag lives in here). And that’s about it. Just a big volume I can chuck lots of stuff in, really. I can’t wash this, and the yellow ripstop is stained here and there with baggage rash from the cargo holds of countless aircraft, but it’ll do me.

Two items of carryon, apart from my cargo pants, which can be a whole extra item of baggage all by themselves. A small daypack, which I use for cruising around a destination, but on board it holds a change of clothes and a couple of books. Don’t want to run out. It has a strap that goes over my shoulder or across my chest, but mostly I just carry it.

My backpack’s reason for existence is to protect my laptop. It never goes as checkin, always staying in close proximity to me. I’d rather have it under my feet on a long economy class flight than stowed overhead. It’s a Targus, with heavy duty impact padding around the laptop compartment, including semi-rigid inserts that guard the corners. Three internal dividers make four compartments, going from the laptop area forward, I have one for documents, such as itineraries, hotel reservations, contact information for friends. If I get an email with phone numbers or booking numbers, I print it out and slide it into one of several transparent sleeves. Second is a space for books and my Moleskine. Third is for cords and dongles, headphones and miscellaneous. This has a tendency to become a tangled mess, so I have a series of small black drawstring or zipper bags to keep things organised. Little items such as batteries and thumb drives need to be kept in their place, otherwise, they get lost. One indispensable item is a travel kit of cables and connectors. The cables have their own little spring reels to keep them compact and tidy. The kit includes a tiny optical mouse and a USB lamp. Middle of a long night flight, it illuminates the keyboard and I can keep on working.

That’s the main compartment, and I have two other spaces, one that fits my codriver, camera, mobile phone, the other for stationery (such as pens, BookCrossing labels) and consumables like tea bags, dried apricots, headache tablets, bandaids and stuff. Two mesh pockets on the outside – one for a water bottle (of limited utility nowadays, though I always try to get something airside), the other for my backup amenities kit. This is an old red leather Qantas first class bag, filled with the small handy items that will keep me looking trim. Razor, toothbrush, collapsible hairbrush, floss, sleeping mask. A ziploc bag of the right size holds fluids and gels. One treasure is shaving oil. Instead of a bulky can of shaving foam, I have a small thumb-sized container of oil. Three drops is all I need for a shave. Amazing stuff.

My laptop is my life. It keeps me connected, it stores my photographs, it lets me write anywhere. I love it. This current model is a Compaq Presario B1900, and it’s small enough to function on an economy class tray table with the seat in front fully reclined. Full sized keyboard so my fingers hit the right key. Optical drive included – some ultralight laptops have a separate drive, which I find to be a royal pain – for backup and watching DVDs. Slots for memory cards and a PCMIA card. Three USB slots.This is a recent purchase, and it has Vista and Office 2007. I included Microsoft Onecare for keeping the laptop safe and organised. The whole thing weighs less than two kilos.

I ditched the official power supply and bought a Targus AC/DC adapter. I can plug in to a wall socket or a car supply and keep on working. A handy little kit, with tips for several brands of laptop and cords with little velcro straps so I can keep them neatly looped, all in a zip up pouch with internal mesh pockets.

I have a couple of compact battery chargers. Every chance I get, I plug it in and add some juice to my rechargeable batteries. Both have flip out US power prongs as well as plugs for other nations. A hotel room always has a shaver socket. And finally, a nifty little power adaptor, that has push out prongs for US, UK, Australian and European styles on one end, and plug sockets for all of the above at the other. It changes anything into anything else.

Mobile phone is also a pocketPC with miniature versions of Word and Excel (and a tiny qwerty keypad). I can keep writing even when I don’t have a lap (or time or space) for a latop. It has a USB cradle which also keeps it charged.

Two cameras, both Canons so as to keep software and controls as uniform as possible. One is a S3IS with 12x optical zoom, a lovely camera, but just a touch too big to slide into a pocket. The other is a Powershot A710 with 6x zoom, compact and powerful. 1 gig memory cards for both, but I’m thinking of going large on both.

One final item of equipment is a bright yellow DayTimer zipup organiser. A diary, a planner, a holder of maps and information, a credit card holder, a dozen other things, it is vital to my existence. It fits in a cargo pants pocket, and it has an external sleeve into which I fit my passport and boarding pass.

I can’t say that I travel light, and realistically, you don’t fly around the world on carryon alone, but I like to think that I’ve taken steps to stay as compact and organised as possible, given the fact that I travel with a shelf full of books, and a cupboard full of chocolate biscuits.

I do, many times. The UK 1 carry on rule plus combination of cold snowy climes and hot tropics in the same trip was a challenge, until I realised I could exclude the coat and anything in the coat pockets, plus the liquid baggy, from the 1 carry on.

Then again I don't carry food with me (unless I have a special request delivery) and I've only dropped off one book plus a few magazines along the way (so far).

Antici...
 

Half the fun of these trips lies in the anticipation. Like the tourist brochures, one tends to focus on the good things, the parts of a trip that make travel fun, exotic and pleasurable. If we think of the expense, the tedium, the frustration, the petty officialdom, the industrial landscapes, the sleeplessness, the headaches and the general embuggerance of moving around overseas, we might not be quite so keen in advance.

But I think on the pleasures and I dismiss the grim details with a cheery wave of my mind. I pack the headache tablets, hoping I won’t need them.

On this trip, I don’t have quite the time to plan as I’d like. Family matters kept me at home indefinitely, and it wasn’t until mid March that I was sure that I could go at all. Once I saw Tessa, I had less than two weeks to get everything planned, to fill in the spaces between the flights. A flurry of emails and phone calls to arrange accommodation with friends along the way. And there you have half the pleasure of the anticipation right there. Chicago, for instance; I look forward to seeing a couple of old friends, staying with them, in fact. I had missed their wedding last October and it would be so good to see them as relative newly-weds, full of joy and love.

Not to mention the long anticipated delight in seeing some of the great art that I knew Chicago had hidden away. And architecture – home of the Prairie School, Chicago has some wonderful buildings. Walter Burley Griffin, who had laid out Canberra, came from Chicago. I put on Sinatra and dreamed of that toddlin’ town.

I teed up hostel and hotel accommodation in other places. London and Frankfurt, I’ve staid there before and I know what to expect. The London hostel is close by St Pauls – one wakes through the night to the sound of the bells, but oh, what an atmosphere! – and I love the cheap and cheerful nature of the bunkrooms and common rooms. Frankfurt is more of the same, but with the restrained nature of Germany.

I picked the cheapest of the hotels on the Tokyo airport list. Hard to judge from the Engrish of the website, and for around fifty dollars a night I wasn’t expecting grand lodgings, but at least it wasn’t sleeping on the floor of the airport terminal, which was a plausible and affordable alternative for the short night between flights in and out

The Singapore airside hotel was a similar price – for six hours. Convenience ruled my plans here. I could check my bags through to London from Tokyo, save myself the time and trouble of going through immigration (and the expense of a taxi) and enjoy the snacks and internet of the airport lounges, with a bed close at hand for at least a few hours. Comfortable though airliners are these days, nothing beats lying flat in stillness and dark. Planes always have lights and noises, not to mention the constant engine rumble.

Charleston, for the convention, I’d be sharing a room at the Marriott with a friend. Hard to beat the convenience of staying at the convention hotel – close by the sessions and meals, always people hanging around the lobby to make up a party for drinks or a walk.

The trip back I left as one big straight run. Charleston to DFW to New York, and then Qantas all the way back to Sydney via LAX. Forty hours airside. At least I could sleep when I got home on Anzac Day – I’d be no good for a twelve hour taxi shift.

I went out and bought a couple of guidebooks to cover the blanks. Istanbul was going to be a whole new experience, and I studied the maps of the Blue Mosque, Topkapi and Haga Sophia with oriental visions whirling around the dancefloor of my mind.

And then I was into packing, planning the stages of my trip, selecting clothes and what I would need in each place. I washed and folded the clothes I would wear, selected the books, loaded up my laptop with music and finally my planning and preparation time ran out and I was loading it all into the boot of the family car, hoping I’d remembered everything.

Canberra to Perth 6 April 2007
 

Flight 1: Qantas QF 719 Canberra – Perth
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800 VH-VYK “Moree”
Seat: 2F
Date: 6 April 2007
Scheduled: 1930
Boarding: 1910
Pushback: 1930
Takeoff: 1940
Descent: 2130 (Perth time)
Landing: 2150
Gate: 2155

You should have seen the expression on the face of the young lady at the check in desk when I handed her my book of tickets.

“I’ve never seen an itinerary like this!” she gasped, leafing through them.

“Maybe,” she said, spotting my flights from Canberra to Sydney via Perth, “we can improve this for you.”

This time it was my turn to look startled. “Ah no, that’s about as good as it gets. The idea is to go the long way around.”

I’m flying again. Unsettled, nervous at leaving my familiar routine. After weeks of anticipation, my heart should be soaring, but instead I wonder on the uncertainties, the details forgotten, the things I’ve left behind.

I’ve made a mistake or two. What happened to the book I was reading last night? Did
I pack it? Did I put my taxi moleskine in a bag? If so which? I wasn’t sure I’d gotten my small camera until I checked specifically at Canberra airport. I’m still not convinced that I haven’t left behind some vital item of electronics, a cable or plug that won’t be missed until I need it urgently.

My daughter came into the lounge with me, a kindred spirit in the delight of air travel, and we sipped coffee and gazed at the airliners with approval.

Time for boarding and I gave her a farewell hug, saying goodbye to Canberra and my normal life.

A long taxi straight up the runway, turn at the end and roll faster and faster until we’re off, climbing away to the south. They say it’s a vacuum over the wings pulling us up into the sky, but I can’t understand this. To me it’s magic.

Early evening and Tuggeranong is lit up, the roads rivers of gold, the suburbs glowing pools, the familiar intersections and roundabouts sweet miniatures under my eyes. Here are my taxi routes made plain, the nights spent driving along playing jazz, making conversation with mellowed passengers and dodging kangaroos. I lean out the window and feast upon the dwindling landscape, a tiny police car flashing red and blue and red upon some unlucky motorist as I soar away from my cabbie nights to Hong Kong and Istanbul.

And that was pretty much it for the flight. Unbroken night and moonlit clouds when I glanced outside, maybe a homestead light, and once a small bushfire.

Dinner was a choice of salmon crusted with herbs, a vegetarian pasta and some chicken meal. I had the fish dish and it was delish. Coffee and dessert to follow.

I watched a brief and unenlightening news bulletin, and then a long and romantic comedy. The stars, handsome and beautiful according to gender, worked their way through various love dilemmas, not least being intercontinental separations, and we finished with smiles all around.

Especially for me. I’m now well over my nerves, at one with the sky, helped along by a glass of spiced tomato juice. Mark me down as a mellow passenger.

Perth 6/7 April 2007
 

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/4...6540a93e_b.jpg

Arrival from Canberra on QF 719: 6 April 2007, 2155
Leave to Sydney on QF 518: 7 April 2007, 2335.
Time in Perth: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

It’s a reasonably long flight to Perth, and once the dinner has been cleared away, the dishes are done and the cabin becomes quiet, I consider something to mark all of my flights. I’m not an extroverted personality, and I’m generally happiest alone with a book and my thoughts. But I take a delight in the smiles of strangers. (Even more in the smiles of friends and family, though I don’t have to stretch out for those – they come free with love.)

I’m travelling with a companion this trip. It’s my codriver, Ringbear, a toy bear with a bell on his neck and a t-shirt with the BBC Radio Shropshire logo. Jim Hawkins gave him to me last April when I was invited on his show when passing through Shrewsbury. I talked about BookCrossing, demonstrated the Tim Tam Slam, and generally had a great time with Jim, a wonderful radio host.

Ringbear has been around the world a couple of times, and I’ve taken to taking pictures of him in front of various landmarks. Diamond Head, the Golden Gate. He’s shared every taxi shift, wedged into a corner of the dashboard, sliding across if I take the corners too fast. More lately I’ve strapped him in behind the taxi meter with a rubber band. People smile when they see him, a big man with a teddybear.

He’s got his own platinum frequent flyer tag, just in case he gets lost somewhere, maybe he’ll find his way back home.

But for the moment, I have him right here in my carryon, I’ve got my small camera, and I’m a mellow fellow. I get up; push through the curtain into the galley.

“Uh, could I be so bold as to ask for a picture?” Ringbear offered in one hand, camera ready in the other.

Smiles break out. I’m on a winner here. Big Paul and petite Kimberley pose with Ringbear. Human landmarks of the trip, the people who make my flights so very pleasant. I look forward around the world and see many more smiles to come.

I like Perth. It’s an interesting airport with a far greater variety of aircraft than we see in Canberra. Qantas Boeing 717s and Avro 146s, both little regional workhorses. International airliners, jumbos and airbuses. I’m nose to the window as we taxi in.

Still chewing my descent gum, I’m one of the first down the jetway. I’ve only got a couple of hours here, and every moment counts. Quick look around the shops – nothing to catch my curiosity. Outside on the taxi rank is where the action is, and I look it over with an eye more keenly open than my weekend here last April.

Perth has set up a series of platforms, like a railway station. Canberra has just one kerb, where taxis deliver passengers and accept them from a short rank. With any sort of busy it becomes a tangle, not at all efficient, and not what hurried passengers need. Unsafe as well, and there are any number of close shaves and heated words between drivers.

Perth has a better system. Closest to the doors is the taxi rank, a steady stream of cabs coming from some offscreen feeder. Passengers looking for a cab are naturally directed to the first in the line, and presumably all these cabs have paid some airport fee to get into the line.

Next platform out is the drop off area, and here cabs and private vehicles mingle. Drop offs take time. Fares are paid, luggage unloaded, farewells made – it’s not the structured rush of the pickup area, and it makes a lot of sense to separate the two activities. A lot of the bigger airports have different levels for arrivals and departures, which works even better, keeping baggage-laden passengers out of the vehicular traffic.

A third set of platforms are for buses, which have their own, slower rhythms. Buses also have their own visibility problems. The more I analyse Perth’s system, the more I detest Canberra’s.

Here there are many taxi brands, many different liveries. I notice that all have the older character based radio despatch displays, now becoming history in Canberra in favour of a larger graphics screen with integrated GPS mapping.

I take a few photographs, endeavouring to get a taxi, Ringbear and the “Perth Domestic Terminal” sign all in the same shot. Security guards give me the eye, passing me off as a genial idiot when they spot the toy bear.

Time’s passing and I head back inside, where I release a book near someone slumbering, curled up on the floor. Nietzche, a slender pocket edition, just right for travelling.

The Qantas Club is up a set of escalators, offering a view out over the ramp, where I can see the 747 for my next leg waiting for me to finish my coffee. It’s the redeye to Sydney and I’m feeling tired, with only a few hours of sleep since a frenzied Easter Thursday shift ended at four thirty this Friday morning.

I plug in my laptop and am horrified to see that I’m nearly empty on battery. The salesman promised five hours plus, but I barely used it on the flight. I find an online review of this model, and the reviewer is particularly cutting on the subject of battery life. This could be a major problem on some of my longer flights. Worse yet, it’s taking its own sweet time about charging up. Some of my transit times will be too short for me to find a power point, let alone recharge completely. I’m going to have to invest in a bigger battery, I can see.

I’ll worry about that later – for now they are calling my flight and I want to see how much sleep I can squeeze in.

Perth - Sydney 7 April 2007
 

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Flight 2: Qantas QF 518 Perth - Canberra
Aircraft: Boeing 747-338 “City of Wagga Wagga”
Seat: 3A
Date: 7 April 2007
Scheduled: 0010
Boarding: 2335
Pushback: 0020
Takeoff: 0032
Descent:
Landing: 0640 (Sydney time)
Gate: 0646

Well, if there’s anyone else on this flight who is crossing the continent for the second time in twelve hours, chances are that they are wearing a Qantas uniform.

Me, I’m dead tired and as soon as we’re up and away, I’m flat out. This is a fairly elderly jumbo and nothing appeals enough to keep me awake, No personal screens, and of course they aren’t showing a movie on the cabin screens this early in the morning,

I actually manage to sleep reasonably well, a combination of fatigue and comfortable seats. A couple of hours out I wake for good and go in search of cabin crew, bear in hand. One crew member is reading in the galley and she poses with Ringbear. We smile together as the captain makes an announcement about air traffic control delays. “Bear with us,” he says.

Breakfast is a choice of Eggs Benedict and something cold involving muesli. That’s no choice at all.

As promised, there are minor delays coming into Sydney, and we circle for a while before descending through a cloud layer and gliding south past the Harbour Bridge into Mascot. One of flying’s most famous views, I should think, though I have to say that it’s not at its best looking east into the rising sun under a grey sky.

Sydney Airport is about as good as it gets for planespotting in Australia, and I’m hanging out the window as we taxi in. I caught a glimpse of Qantas’s first Boeing 707, currently being restored in their maintenance area, but there are other planes to gawk at. Once again I admire the lines of the Airbus 340. Of all the airliners in the world, or at least the currently operational ones, I like the looks of this one best. Something about its proportions. I’ve never flown in one yet, but I’m scheduled to take Cathay Pacific Hong Kong to Heathrow later on in one, and that’s an experience I’m looking forward to. From the inside, it will be just like any other airliner, I know, and heaven knows that the Airbus 330 has no power to thrill me, but there’s something special about the thought of riding a good-looking flying machine, irrational though it is. Bear with me.

Sydney 7 April 2007
 

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Arrival from Perth on QF 518: 7 April 2007, 0646
Boarding to Cairns on QF 167: 7 April 2007, 0755 (scheduled boarding: 0735).
Time in Sydney: 1 hour, 9 minutes.

Sydney was always going to be tight, but a delay in arrival and the usual tedious waiting for the transit bus put paid to any thought of ducking into the Qantas First lounge for a quick one.

A bit of drizzle made the transit bus less of an opportunity for photography than usual. I snapped a photograph or three of the Qantas Boeing 707 VH-XBA as we passed by the maintenance area, but the best shot had a big fat raindrop on the glass. It looked like they were preparing the bird, the “City of Canberra”, for a flight, and I hoped that I would be able to see it. I remember Qantas’s final flight of a 707 over Brisbane, some time in the early 80s, and how graceful and grand it looked as it banked over West End.

I remembered to get a stamp in my passport as I went out through immigration. I hadn’t known until a little while back that Australians could actually get Australian (and New Zealand) stamps, so my passport is a little less exciting than it could be, with four trans-Tasman trips unrecorded.

Incidentally, when I went through security, this was the first time I’d had to pull out all my liquids and gels. I’d prepared a ziploc bag for this, but they were passing out regulation-sized ones, so I grabbed the freebie. Apart from a water bottle, I carry anything liquid in my prepared amenities pack. Toothpaste, shaving oil, aftershave and cologne, all in small containers. Oh, and a little tube of that Occitane “Energy Face Gel” from the Qantas kits of a year or so back. I’m not sure what it does, but it sounds good. I just keep the liquids in the bag now, rather than putting them back in the zippered compartments of my kit.

What really pisses me off is the waste of drinking water. I take the position that I’m better off buying water than drinking the local stuff, and what with the ready availability of water on flights and in lounges, I don’t actually buy all that much. I’m sure that the local water in London, Hong Kong and Charleston is all good, but the sort of itineraries I fly, I don’t want to take a chance on a local bug.

Having to reset my drinking (and toothbrushing) water to zero at every security check is a pain in the bum (and hip pocket).

I went past the entrance to the Qantas Club, but with scheduled boarding only a few minutes away, I couldn’t stop. I was hoping for a shave and a shower, actually but all I had was a quick toothbrush in a nearby airport toilet, using local water for the final time on this trip (if you can’t trust Sydney’s water supply...). And, of course, boarding was delayed by twenty minutes, while I sat and pondered on the chances of fate.