Times of the Symes' 2

We all woke up feeling quite excited, knowing that we were finally going to be on our way. After packing the cars and taking a couple of photos with Wayne’s Mum and Dad we all piled into the cars to make the drive from Tuncurry to Sydney. We stopped at ‘the Rock’ (the ill fated Leyland Brothers tourist attraction in between Karuah and Bulahdelah) for one driver change and then had lunch at Tuggerah (Central Coast, between Newcastle and Sydney) before we were dropped at Kingsford Smith domestic terminal with a couple of hours to spare.

Much to our delight we flew through the booking in stage. We were particularly pleased that our luggage was booked in (without being overweight) and would be transferred in Melbourne without our having to deal with it. We grabbed a bite to eat and walked around for a while before our flight to Melbourne was called. Because it was really a Qantas domestic flight (even though we were International transfers) we flew down on a 767, but we were confident that we would have a 747 for the flight to England. Touchdown at Tullamarine was a bit rough, but as this was the first time in Victoria for Meg, Brock and Quinn the view from the windows was quite exciting, although it is a shame that the airport is so far from the city of Melbourne itself.

We knew we were in for a 4 hour wait till QF29 was due to leave at 11:59pm but had anticipated that going through customs and immigration would take sometime. Imagine our surprise then when we breezed through and found ourselves in the International Terminal with a number of hours still to spare. We watched an Emirates Boeing 777 board for Singapore and Dubai from Gate 9, which our flight was also to leave from. Wayne recalled how 2 days earlier another 777 had crashed at Heathrow, a story which helped everyone feel much more comfortable. Once they had left, we were the only people at our gate.

Between us, we explored as much of the International Terminal as we could, making use of some of the facilities, and established a camp right in front of the windows where we could view all the aircraft landing at the airport. At times it was possible to see 3 different planes all making their descent, one behind the other. However, the lack of anything really to do made this way quite dull. Eventually, Brock discovered that we could access the Airport website on our laptops, although going any further than that site would involve paying a substantial fee. However, this gave us access to the radar, which informed us that our aircraft had been delayed at Hong Kong on its way to Australia, and that our flight would similarly be delayed leaving the country. This was not good news.

By 11pm many more people had arrived and as the next hour passed our aircraft also landed and taxied around to Gate 8. Occasionally, despite the fact that no announcement had been made, groups of people would start to form a queue and the boys would excitedly say, ‘We are boarding’ and want to rush over. As more time passed, and the only announcements were about a Cathay Pacific flight and one flying Thai airways, this became more and more frustrating. Finally, with another possible movement, we went over to join a queue at the boys’ insistence, an insistence which they would come to regret as it was still another 35 minutes before the plane actually began boarding.

At 1:30am the plane was fully loaded and we began to taxi to the runway to begin the 8 hour first leg of our journey from Melbourne to Hong Kong. Everyone was fairly tired, so Wayne and the boys fell asleep quite quickly, leaving Meg to snaffle the chocolate being brought around by the stewardess. Watching movies and television were the other ways that we broke up the flight which, the pilot informed us, would be travelling as quickly as possible to Hong Kong in order to make up for lost time. Consequently, we landed only an hour late and our layover time in Hong Kong was reduced to 50 minutes. This was somewhat disappointing, because in meant that we had very little time even to look at the shops in Hong Kong, let alone see anything of the sights outside the airport. Instead, we were herded around the airport, before being allowed back onto the plane to make the journey to London.

Despite being the longest (13 hours) part of the journey, it also proved to be the most exciting. We travelled up over China to Russia before turning left to head along the Northern part of Europe then down to the UK. While much of the journey saw enormous amounts of cloud, as we flew over northern China we saw kilometre after kilometre of snow covering the ground (it has been a very cold winter) broken only by the occasional mountain peak or cracks where canyons obviously lay below. Ice on the windows was also an object of interest, as were the occasional glimpses of light down below. There were a number of times where we wished that we had window seats rather than sitting in the centre section of Row 70 (there were only 75 rows in all, which did mean that we were conveniently close to the toilets). A particularly serious bout of turbulence which lasted approximately 25 minutes made everyone but Meg quite unhappy.

Movies and television formed the main part of our journey, which was also broken up by occasional bouts of eating. Everyone watched the last episodes of “the Vicar of Dibley” (a television show which we all loved), but otherwise different peoples taste were quite varied. Brock and Quinn tended towards comedies and movies that they had already seen. Meg watched quite a lot of television programmes as well as some comedic movies (although her review of Ben Stiller’s “The Heartbreak Kid” was scathing). Wayne tended towards documentaries and more serious movies including; “Control” a movie about Ian Curtis the lead singer of the band Joy Division, and a movie called “Pierrepoint” the gripping and dramatic true-life story of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's most notorious hangman. Both Meg and Wayne co-ordinated to watch “The Darjeeling Limited” near the end of the journey, but constant interruptions by the crew to make announcements meant that they were left hanging, 5 minutes from the end of the movie, as the entertainment system was turned off as we came into London. This was particularly frustrating when we spent the next 30 minutes in a holding pattern flying around London, however it was offset somewhat by the amazing views we could glimpse out of other people’s windows. The Houses of Parliament, St Pauls Cathedral and Wembley Stadium were all spotted before we finally touched down at slightly after 2:30pm.

Because there were so many aircraft, we had to disembark a long way from the Terminal and catch a bus across to Terminal 4 Heathrow, but once we were there things began to move fairly quickly. Immigration took a little while, largely because we still had no fixed address that we could give them for where we would be living in England. However, once that was sorted we flew through Customs to the luggage carousel and then met our driver Bob, who would take us out along the M25 to Cheshunt in Hertfordshire.

Bob was ex-military, and a rugby fan (Saracens and England) so he and Wayne had a good conversation in the front, while Meg and the boys stared at all the amazing sights from the back of the van. Trees without any leaves (we aren’t used to deciduous plants in Australia), different types of architecture, and assorted cars and number plates all drew our attention before we were let off at our landlord’s (Heather, who also drives a taxi in the mornings to Hailey Hall school where Wayne will be teaching) house in Cheshunt. After a short wait, she arrived and piled us all into her taxi for the trip to Number 35, Jacksons Lane, which was to be our home for the first 2 nights in England.