Day 549: 26hrs on QF1

25/01/2023

Tuesday morning, the boys were up bright and early making sure they both got their Weeties in for the day. Liam then did a final check of the passport and suitcase.

It was then final hugs with Nali and Grandpa DAVE, before checking out of Hotel Fensom for a second time in as many years. Liam was heading back to Glasgow with off-the-charts vitamin D levels. Super Mum and the kids are continuing their holiday for an extra couple of weeks for those yet to see the circus in town.

We made good time cutting through the city during peak hour, past the Tour Down Under gigantic bike. So much so, after lots of smoochy kisses and hugs, Liam actually had time to dash in the opposite direction to the terminals on the hunt for the new Vickers Vimy exhibition.

Adelaide Airport’s Vickers Vimy Exhibition commemorates the first official flight from England to Australia – the Air Race of 1919 with Adelaide brothers Ross and Keith Smith. The restored Vickers Vimy converted bomber (Registration G-EAOU) flown by the famous aviators is housed inside the terminal for public display. The epic long-distance flight was made just 16 years after the Wright Brothers flew the first-ever powered aircraft. The Vimy crew set out from Hounslow, London on November 12, 1919, and reached Darwin 28 days later to claim the £10,000 Commonwealth Government prize as the first Australians to fly from England to Australia in less than 30 days. The Smith Brothers were knighted by His Majesty, George V, on December 22, 1919. Sir Ross was born at Semaphore and Sir Keith in North Adelaide.

It was actually a fairly busy airport, much busier than when the family flew out of Australia during Adelaide’s COVID-19 lockdown in 2021. This was it, I was leaving the “Defence State”.

After dropping Dad off at the airport, Super Mum and the kids made their way to the Harbour Town Outlet Shops. Lachlan was in the market for some new shoes, on the way, Eloise was doing her best to convince Super Mum that she also needed a new pair, nice try Eloise. Sadly there was no luck in the shoe department but a lot of fun was had on the small rides and playground.

When we returned it was serious time, Eloise was deeply focused with her new head torch helping Grandpa DAVE fix Lachlan’s toys, fast becoming a full-time job.

The kids had their final swing out the front and run about the garden before Grandpa Nicholls picked them all up, HQ was moving up to the hills.

Liam started his flight hopping by going the wrong direction, across to Sydney Airport. It was a beautiful clear day, no chance of the fog problems we had when arriving in Australia.

Luckily Qantas had got some of their paperwork right as I arrived in Sydney, “Qantas Adelaide-to-Perth flight returns to Adelaide because of incomplete paperwork” and “Qantas’ week has gone from bad to worse after another plane was forced to land with a mechanical issue”. After stepping off the plane in Sydney, I did not have to walk far before running into Glasgow advertisements.

I had a few hours in Sydney to kill, disappointingly the Qantas Heritage Collection Aircraft Museum within the Terminal 3 had closed down during COVID-19, bummer, it was always a good way to kill time. After a late lunch, it was then time to board my first Airbus A380 on Qantas Flight 1 (QF1), “often referred to as the Kangaroo Route“. It is possibly the longest single-flight ticket you can purchase, Sydney to London. However, an A380 cannot actually fly that far so the aircraft lands in Singapore for an hour to refuel before you fly on the same ticket to London.

The Airbus A380 is a large wide-body airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. It is the world’s largest passenger airliner and only full-length double-deck jet airliner. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the project was announced in 1990 to challenge the dominance of the Boeing 747 in the long-haul market. The then-designated A3XX project was presented in 1994; Airbus launched the €9.5 billion ($10.7 billion) A380 programme on 19 December 2000. The first prototype was unveiled in Toulouse on 18 January 2005, with its first flight on 27 April 2005. It then obtained its type certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 12 December 2006. The full-length double-deck aircraft has a typical seating for 525 passengers, with a maximum certified capacity for 853 passengers. The quadjet is powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 or Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofans providing a range of 8,000 nmi (14,800 km). As of December 2021, the global A380 fleet had completed more than 800,000 flights over 7.3 million block hours with no fatalities and no hull losses. As of December 2022, there were 237 aircraft in service with 16 operators worldwide.

The movie selection was not the best. However, strangely there was a two-hour documentary on Bearsden Academy, the local school in our neighbourhood in Glasgow, how strange.

Back in Radelaide, Super Mum was putting the kids to bed, luckily by this stage, the kids seem to just go with it and are not frequently asking why they are in a new bed.

Just as the clock ticked past midnight, Singapore Standard Time, into Wednesday, we landed at Singapore Airport, flying in an A380 certainly felt a bit more spacious, although I did not get as much sleep as I would have hoped for, even flying kid-free. Everyone had to disembark for an hour while they refuelled the aircraft. It was nice to stretch the legs while not having to worry about changing terminals and gates. After an hour of pacing, it was then time for round two, the long one.

This morning, Super Mum and the kids were back at Stirling’s Steamroller Park catching up with more cousins, no waffles today though.

I must have managed some sleep on the flight to Heathrow as it did not feel as long as the flight to Singapore. It was certainly cold and foggy as we touched down. No wonder there had been Heathrow flights cancelled a couple of days ago. I was just thankful to be back in the UK, QF1 had done it! It has recently had issues, “a Qantas flight from Singapore to London has made an emergency landing in Azerbaijan, as the plane was flying over central Asia, due to concerns there was smoke in the cargo hold, with passengers now worried they could miss Christmas”.

As soon as I was in the terminal from hell, I gave the kiddies a quick call before their bedtime. Two weeks separated from them and Super Mum, this is going to be the longest I have been away from either of the kiddies.

It was then the annoying Heathrow to Glasgow leg, again, pretty sick of planes by this stage. Amazingly, Janet, who had kindly dropped us off at the airport, swung past to pick me up. Thank you again Janet!

It had been so nice seeing everyone in Adelaide and thank you all who helped out our stranded family. It felt a bit strange driving through Glasgow, it actually felt like I was home again. Perhaps it was just due to the fact of having our own place and own car again? We will always call Australia Home, this is just our other confusing, cold, upside-down home.

Luckily there were no water problems, pipes had not frozen while we were away, Jo and Emma had done a terrific job checking in on the place, thank you! Plus water to the house had been restored as there had been a serious water supply pipe rupture yesterday. “Water has been restored to nearly 100,000 properties across Glasgow after a water main burst. Children were evacuated from a nursery in East Dunbartonshire when the burst pipe caused a road to split open and nearby streets to flood. Scottish Water said a 3ft (91cm) main ruptured in Milngavie, affecting the supplies in Glasgow”. Luckily, the Scottish water supply in winter is fairly low on the list of concerns.

Tired and a tad disorientated, I had been completely caught off guard, tonight was Burns Night. I had to make sure to pick up a haggis and Irn-Bru as I whipped around to restock the house. In hindsight, the budget haggis was not my best choice, absolutely no good compared to Nathan’s last year’s Burns Night celebration, I even forgot to read the poem, jeez. In my defence, I was really just going about the motions at this point and this haggis didn’t really deserve it.

It was a different story back in Adelaide with the Glaswegians. Looks like they were tucking into a far better haggis, it is great to see they are keeping the traditions going.