Skyring
Established Member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
- Posts
- 2,300
- Qantas
- Platinum
- Oneworld
- Emerald
Final flight
A couple of weeks earlier, my wife and I had taken this exact flight home after our Japan trip. In a month I'll be taking it again after a simple Brisbane trip – the local A/NZ BookCrossing unconvention.
A convenient flight with a longish transit after a dawn arrival. Time enough for a shower and a barista coffee, maybe a light breakfast of toast and marmalade.
Not entirely happy about the transfer bus traveling on public roads. If it's busy or there's an accident or other delay, what can you do but fume? Then again, if a plane decides to back out at the wrong time, an airside bus gets delayed anyway.
I wasn't going to miss my flight, no matter how slowly the bus went, not with a four-hour transfer. I let my taxidriver brain have a rest. Not a problem.
I like the special security lane direct to the Qantas business lounge. Whip through, holding your pants up while the belt gets x-rayed, reassemble everything and ride the escalator to glory. I think that this was the first security check where one bag or another didn't take a detour for special questioning.
Well, as much glory as a Qantas lounge can muster without having those fuzzy hexagons for decoration. Shower and a shave between the legs of a long trip always sets me up nicely. Even better when I have a comfy chair, some nearby power that my cables can reach, a flat white and a snack at my side, and the departures board in view.
There was toasted sourdough and blood orange marmalade to fill in the cracks. Time passed pleasantly enough and when my flight was called, I was quickly aboard.
An E190 with limited overhead space. My backpack couldn't possibly fit in the glovebox above 2A – and it's not a particularly large pack – so I stuffed it into the larger rack across the aisle and settled down with my Bletchley Park book on my Ipad. I may have dozed a little.
As a kid growing up in Park Ridge – it was pretty much bush with a few "farmlets" in the Sixties – I'd look up at the Ansett DC-9s and TAA 727s passing over within a minute of each other, my head full of Biggles dicing with Fokkers in his Camel above the Western Front.
There is a glory to flying, looking down on the everyday world, cruising through clouds as if they were nothing, looking at distant coastlines and mountains, enjoying light and patterns you don't see on the ground. I love a window seat.
OK, that shot's from the previous flight, somewhere around Rockhampton, I think, but you get the idea. No matter how old and bent I get, somewhere inside I'm eight year old Scooter, being given a tour of the Nebraskan sky by the Great Waldo Pepper. It's fun, and the worries of the everyday are set aside for an hour or two.
In the mid-Eighties, I packed my pregnant wife off, and drove down to Canberra on a public service promotion, stopping somewhere north of Dubbo to look up at Halleys Comet. Australia has changed since those days. I can scarcely recognise Brisbane and Canberra has become a different city entirely under the haphazard care of self-serving self-government.
But they haven't screwed it up completely. I like it here, even if it gets a bit chilly in the winter – and wasn't that a shock to a Brisbane boy when the hose froze and it began to snow! – and while there may not be too much in the way of golden beaches and sparkling waves, it's not bad.
The airport has changed along with everything else. It used to be basically a shed with free parking only a few metres away. Now, I can't ask my wife to pick me up because there's no pick-up zone and every other option that doesn't involve a hefty parking fee is a hassle.
I've added a woollen undershirt in Brisbane, discarding the skinny flight socks in favour of something fluffy and woolly and warm. I stand by the carousel, only moments away from being released into the free air, and check my Qantas app.
Here's glory! The final status credits have come through and I've notched over 1 400 SC. My next flights might be at the back of the bus, but I can pick up a licorice allsort with my tiny mug of espresso while I'm waiting for my plane.
7 July 2026
QF 1949 BNE-CBR VH-UYZ E-190
Scheduled: 1120
Boarding: 1100 Seat 2A
Pushback: 1130
Takeoff: 1140 to West
Landing: 1307 from South
Gate: 1310
A couple of weeks earlier, my wife and I had taken this exact flight home after our Japan trip. In a month I'll be taking it again after a simple Brisbane trip – the local A/NZ BookCrossing unconvention.
A convenient flight with a longish transit after a dawn arrival. Time enough for a shower and a barista coffee, maybe a light breakfast of toast and marmalade.
Not entirely happy about the transfer bus traveling on public roads. If it's busy or there's an accident or other delay, what can you do but fume? Then again, if a plane decides to back out at the wrong time, an airside bus gets delayed anyway.
I wasn't going to miss my flight, no matter how slowly the bus went, not with a four-hour transfer. I let my taxidriver brain have a rest. Not a problem.
I like the special security lane direct to the Qantas business lounge. Whip through, holding your pants up while the belt gets x-rayed, reassemble everything and ride the escalator to glory. I think that this was the first security check where one bag or another didn't take a detour for special questioning.
Well, as much glory as a Qantas lounge can muster without having those fuzzy hexagons for decoration. Shower and a shave between the legs of a long trip always sets me up nicely. Even better when I have a comfy chair, some nearby power that my cables can reach, a flat white and a snack at my side, and the departures board in view.
There was toasted sourdough and blood orange marmalade to fill in the cracks. Time passed pleasantly enough and when my flight was called, I was quickly aboard.
An E190 with limited overhead space. My backpack couldn't possibly fit in the glovebox above 2A – and it's not a particularly large pack – so I stuffed it into the larger rack across the aisle and settled down with my Bletchley Park book on my Ipad. I may have dozed a little.
As a kid growing up in Park Ridge – it was pretty much bush with a few "farmlets" in the Sixties – I'd look up at the Ansett DC-9s and TAA 727s passing over within a minute of each other, my head full of Biggles dicing with Fokkers in his Camel above the Western Front.
There is a glory to flying, looking down on the everyday world, cruising through clouds as if they were nothing, looking at distant coastlines and mountains, enjoying light and patterns you don't see on the ground. I love a window seat.
OK, that shot's from the previous flight, somewhere around Rockhampton, I think, but you get the idea. No matter how old and bent I get, somewhere inside I'm eight year old Scooter, being given a tour of the Nebraskan sky by the Great Waldo Pepper. It's fun, and the worries of the everyday are set aside for an hour or two.
In the mid-Eighties, I packed my pregnant wife off, and drove down to Canberra on a public service promotion, stopping somewhere north of Dubbo to look up at Halleys Comet. Australia has changed since those days. I can scarcely recognise Brisbane and Canberra has become a different city entirely under the haphazard care of self-serving self-government.
But they haven't screwed it up completely. I like it here, even if it gets a bit chilly in the winter – and wasn't that a shock to a Brisbane boy when the hose froze and it began to snow! – and while there may not be too much in the way of golden beaches and sparkling waves, it's not bad.
The airport has changed along with everything else. It used to be basically a shed with free parking only a few metres away. Now, I can't ask my wife to pick me up because there's no pick-up zone and every other option that doesn't involve a hefty parking fee is a hassle.
I've added a woollen undershirt in Brisbane, discarding the skinny flight socks in favour of something fluffy and woolly and warm. I stand by the carousel, only moments away from being released into the free air, and check my Qantas app.
Here's glory! The final status credits have come through and I've notched over 1 400 SC. My next flights might be at the back of the bus, but I can pick up a licorice allsort with my tiny mug of espresso while I'm waiting for my plane.
7 July 2026
QF 1949 BNE-CBR VH-UYZ E-190
Scheduled: 1120
Boarding: 1100 Seat 2A
Pushback: 1130
Takeoff: 1140 to West
Landing: 1307 from South
Gate: 1310
. Or am I addressing Claude now? 
