Flight Night

Well the time had come to leave Melbourne. I had my bags packed and started walking the short walk to the train station. My mind drifted back to my first day in Australia, that morning I had checked out of a rather rubbish hostel the Danish Geneticists had taken me to. Heading off into the unknown exploring this new country carrying with me all my worldly possessions. It sounds like a romantic idea, maybe it was the lack of a sunset but in reality there is nothing romantic about walking around carrying something really heavy and being lost.

I was booked on a Jetstar flight, Jetstar are the kind of airline that make even Easy Jet look luxurious I could imagine the advert on telly:

"Are you tired of having room to put your legs between the seats?
Do you wish the person sitting in front of was so close you could smell the them?"

My 1000 mile flight only cost me £40! How good is that? It was actually cheaper to fly up north than it was to get the Train or the Bus and they both took more than one day to get there. I've spent more money getting to London and back in a weekend. For this kind of price I was willing to put up with a lot.

The plane was leaving from Avalon Airport, a more accurate name for that establishment would be shack in the middle of nowhere with a run way next to it. I loved this place, admittedly I had seen more impressive bus stations than this airport. But it was just well ... cute, I was a little early so they wouldn't let me in as they only have space for two planes worth of passengers. The check in desk was literally just a desk, they only had one x-ray machine and you would be able to comfortably walk from one side of the airport to the other while holding your breath.

When I got on the flight I played the normal game of looking at the people coming in and hoping that person does/doesn't sit next to you. I hit gold! A blond 24 year old nurse was mine to talk to for the next couple of hours. Obviously at the time I didn't know she was a nurse it wasn't like she was wearing her nurses outfit with a badge saying 24 on it, that would be silly. All I had to do was not say anything to stupid or offensive for the next couple of hours, it was tough but I managed to pull it off. We exchanged numbers and were planning to meet again on Friday.

The flight was really rough it was raining and stormy so the plane was almost constantly buffeting and would occasionally feel like it was falling for a few seconds. I started to wonder why I was trusting my life to the cheapest possible airline. We had life jackets under the seats but as we where flying over land I couldn't see how they would be helpful.