The lands west of Brisbane are brown and dry. Except for the irregular patches of irrigated bright green. Grey smoke streams from a patch of revenant dark green bush. Everything is tinged with sepia, coloured by the electrochemical shading of the Boeing 787 windows, golden hour come early.
Now we are turning towards the coast. The air is smooth. May it stay that way.
There is still 7 and a half hours to go.
We are running late. If only we had known the night before, we could have slept in.
I wake at 6.15 am before the alarm clock sounds. I would love to shut my eyes again. I had a rotten sleep last night. It was very cold and my head cold caused me to cough as soon as I got comfortable.
The whole day was pretty rotten. I hurt my lower back doing a pointless task and the afternoon was cold and wet, taking away the option of a calming walk by the sea. I was too stiff anyway.
I was anxious about the flight, too.
But at least the morning sunrise is beautiful.
They’ve dimmed the windows further now as we cross over the scars of the open cut Callide coal fields.
Fortunately the shading is not locked. It is too dark in here.
We bounce around a little more. Just gently, nothing bad. Yet.
The tide is out, exposing coastal mudflats as we cross Queensland’s Whitsunday Coast and make our way out to sea. There is a gap in the clouds, allowing us a view of the islands, before the carpet of white returns.
I dropped B and Alex off at the bus stop and they went ahead, with me walking and riding the next one to the train station. The sky is a hazy grey of high cloud, the air smells of woodfire smoke.
They check in first, I only have a carry-on bag and a mobile phone boarding pass. The airport is busy and there is a huge snaking queues to security and immigration. It moves very quickly.
At security, which has been updated since last trip, a young Asian lady is asked to open her bag and remove the two jars of manuka honey that contravene the 100ml limit. I feel very sorry for her when we discover that it probably cost her $300 or more.
Breakfast is at the Qantas Business Lounge, taking advantage of Qantas Club Membership and supplying them with more private information to be stolen. I’m starving, having only eaten a boiled egg and a little rice flavoured with soup for dinner. But I only take a single mini chicken sausage, some soft scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. Oh, and a couple of Licorice Allsorts on the way out.
We don’t stay that long. The comfy chairs either have bums or bags in them.
Do we have a more substantial meal of a Malaysian breakfast at PappaRich? No, too rich to stomach on a flight.
Our gate is 54, down the south end of the terminal that we rarely visit. This time we are looking into the fishtank of the food court, not the other way around.
It’s nice down there, with lots of charging points. Kind of important with my battery-running-out-too-fast Pixel 7 Pro.
Eventually it is time to board. Note to self, seat 24A is a good one. At least until Jetstar reconfigures the cabin.
This is the first time in a long time that I have boarded a Jetstar 787 in Sydney and not Cairns. I like their selection of movies, if I can focus later. That’s not guaranteed. Unfortunately, there’s only the Spider-Man No Way Home soundtrack available in audio. Although I have brought my entire music collection on my devices so it’s not a disaster.
The cabin door closes with a loud clunk and we are soon underway to the south end of the main runway. Captain Stuart, whose name sounds familiar, says we are third in the queue and it should be a mostly smooth flight. Good.
Turbli warns of a bumpy tale-off ascent into skies covered by a veil of pale high cloud.
It isn’t.
Instead it is one of the most gentle take-offs that I can recall. The light outside is gorgeous, Sydney so clear as we head northwest, over the suburbs, past the new Western Sydney Airport.
The Blue Mountains are a fantastic maze of valleys and sandstone cliffs walls. Then they fade into the cloud. We rise through it and above.
We have a food credit and it’s lunchtime. B and Alex choose the lasagna, which is actually pretty good. I have a cold chicken wrap, playing it safe with my stomach.
I try to sleep. Maybe I get a few minutes, my head warmed by the sun against the window. Neither The War of the Rohirrm nor Memoirs of a Geisha engage, though the music is beautiful.
I’m too tired to focus. Maybe later?
Papua New Guinea greets us with mountains of cloud hiding dark mountains and rivers below, revealed only in glimpses of peaks and silvery threads.
Flat skies in the middle, but the northern border is guarded by squat monoliths of storm clouds, their tops disappearing into Ill-defined expanses of white. They cling to the edges of the land, do not venture out into the sea, but I daresay they will be more in wait.
The mists do not want to give us up so easily. The high cloud strokes us, it’s ethereal touch enough to shake is, just a bit.
Around the equator, fantastical cloudscape a, layers reaching down to the ocean surface.
The high cloud continues with breaks. As usual, things get tenser around Guam, with spears of high cloud reaching out from the storm clouds embedded within. We turn to avoid storms, but it is definitely bumper. Itis not until a few hundred kilometres north of Guam that the orange dusk horizon reappears.
We are offered supper. I have pre-ordered the vegetarian quiche and spinach roll, which are a bit soggy. The others have snacks.
We are scheduled to arrive at bedtime. Hope we can find some reasonable food and we need cake!
I have been half watching Dune: Prophecy, which I son a streaming service I don’t subscribe to. There should be enough time to complete on the way up and back, if I push myself.
As the journey goes on it is getting harder and harder to keep track of time. We lose ourselves in high cloud and the orange glow is barely visible before it disappears for good.
With a little under an hour to go I feel the aircraft beginning its descent. Then the first officer announces it, saying that the skies over Osaka look clear. Excellent news, and we appear to have dodged the other turbulence that Turbli warned of. It has still been a bit bumpy through the high cloud, but not really anxiety inducing bumpy.
The approach to Kansai International Airport via Shikoku and Awaji islands is a bit disappointing with few lights visible below. It is probably low cloud.
I see a couple of aircraft in the sky, then a bright light races past with a bit of a trail behind it. A jet fighter with its afterburner or a meteor? Exciting!
It’s a pretty smooth descent. I am listening to Nigel Westlake’s score to Paper Planes and it works well.
Down, down through the haze, and landed!
All in all, a good flight.
I am so stiff when we finally leave the aircraft. Immigration is quick, luggage is slow.
We are back (briefly) in Japan!
Thanks to our late arrival, most of the food outlets are closed. We snag a couple of mango mousse cakes from Le Pan just before it closes and the shop assistant kindly gives me candles when I tell him it is someone’s birthday.
We end up in Sukiya eating pork and rice bowls. It is either that or McDonald’s. Alex is collapsing from exhaustion.
A quick trip to a Lawson convenience store for ice cream, then we make our way to the Hotel Nikko opposite the terminal, where they give a small teddy bear as a birthday gift.
So at least somebody’s birthday is made a little special.
Initially I wanted to book a hotel with a spa in Rinku Town across the causeway, but I’m so glad I didn’t. We have absolutely run out of energy and can barely manage a shower.
Heh, I recognise Daigo and Nobu on the television from Last One Standing on Netflix.
Ice cream, cake, sleep.