Flying from Cape Town to Brisbane was in parts painful and for more than one reason. There’s a lot to be said for taking the cheaper routes whilst we travel, we have more money to spend doing fun stuff in each country for example but there’s also a lot to be said for not being a cheapskate! The saving grace was that we were flying with Emirates, so we hoped they would live up to our expectations.
Our journey from Cape Town headed to Dubai first, ten hours on a flight which was really good. Lots of films, food and drink with screaming children only heard in the distance. Looking back now, this flight was absolute bliss compared to the horror that was to come.
The highlight of the entire flight was watching 22 Jump Street, one of those films where you don’t realise how loudly you are laughing because you are sat with earphones in. Needless to say our laughter was contagious because twenty minutes into the film the people around us had also started watching it. I’m sure our laughter isn’t as annoying as a screaming child though. I hope.
Feeling nostalgic (having only left South Africa three hours earlier), I then watched Blended. A rom com with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler that sees them on family holidays in Africa together. With the food, films and alcohol flowing the flight seemed to go really quickly. Rich was happy being back in the vicinity of organised food trays and I was happy that the flight attendant gave me two Baileys when I asked for one.
“When I boarded the plane I was seated next to a three year old girl on my left and Rich on my right.”
We only had a one and a half hour layover at Dubai airport. By the time we had changed terminals we didn’t have to wait long at all before we boarded our next flight to Perth. Another ten hour flight lay ahead only this time when I boarded the plane I was seated next to a three year old girl on my left and Rich on my right. I have to admit I muttered a swear word or two under my breath when I sat down next to a little kid. Rich was not up for swapping seats at all, needing to remain in his aisle seat so that he could ‘stretch his legs out’. Not once did I see his legs stretch out into the aisle during the flight!
Having said that, I was seriously impressed by the little girl sat next to me. Before I had managed to get settled in my seat she had opened the inflight comfort pack, put her flight socks on (which were knee high on her as she was so tiny), had her eye mask on her forehead ready for when she wanted to go to sleep, her earphones were in and plugged into the entertainment system and she was scouring the channels looking for her cartoons. Without any help from her mum a three year old got herself settled in for the ten hour flight way before Rich and I were even halfway there.
I dreaded the time when she got fed up of cartoons and started crying but that time never came. After a couple of hours she lay her head down on her mums lap and fell asleep for seven hours. I was jealous. Seven hours sleep on a night flight!! I was really jealous because she didn’t seem to hear the two screaming brats two rows behind us that kept me awake for hours. I figured out that those two little girls were flying with their nanny whilst their parents were at the front of the plane enjoying what could only be described as luxurious child free travel. The nanny wouldn’t say boo to the kids so they followed tantrum with screaming tantrum as they cried for their mummy and daddy. Rich managed to sleep through the torture, having discovered listening to music whilst sleeping was much better at blocking out the sound of screaming kids than wearing the earplugs provided.
“I could not have been happier to arrive in Brisbane, mainly because we were going to stay with my old university housemate.”
I wasn’t the happiest person in the world when we arrived in Perth, especially as I was sleep deprived and we had a five and a half hour lay over before we boarded our final flight to Brisbane. The only saving grace was that we were able to watch a few episodes of Homeland on the laptop while we waited. If it hadn’t been for that Rich may have left me in Perth in my bad mood.
After a four and a half hour flight we finally arrived in Brisbane at 5.30am on 9th December, two days after we left Cape Town. It felt like a lifetime ago that we were sat waiting to check in at Cape Town airport.
I could not have been happier to arrive in Brisbane, mainly because we were going to stay with my old university housemate, Rebecca Bayliss (nee Strachan) and her husband Tom. There was a tiny part of me excited about the prospect of lying in a bed and falling asleep too, I can’t deny it.
By 6.30am we had our hire car and were at their apartment and at 8am we were fast asleep. In fact we pretty much slept for two days straight and had to force ourselves to do something other than sit around in the evening chatting to Becky and Tom.
Fortunately we pre booked a trip to Fraser Island that we had to leave Brisbane for otherwise we may never may have made it further than the shops near their apartment for a few more days.
Lambs on the loose 