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Three Flights Home

I checked out of the hostel on Stewart Island early in the morning and walked down the road to the tiny airport terminal which doubled as a post office. There were a few people already in there. I checked in at the counter, and as in Invercargill, they weighed me with my pack on.

The building was rather dimly lit, and it didn’t help with the sky still being overcast. I waited on one of the hard plastic seats. There were two young ladies heading to Christchurch to study with the university year beginning shortly. This was their first time with leaving home, leaving this tiny remote island community at the end of the earth to migrate into a city existence. I wondered how they would cope with the culture shock.

I then realised that by the end of today I will be back home in my city Brisbane. It seemed to be an absolute world away.

Finally the minivan came and picked us up, taking us along the narrow road through the dense forest towards the runway.

The van arrived shortly before the plane. After having passed through the locked gate we parked near the runway. The plane roared low overhead and safely landed on the runway before taxiing its way back to this end. We climbed out of the van as the plane unloaded with its load of passengers.

Now there were two crew seats and six passenger seats, yet there were seven passengers. This meant one of the passengers had to sit with the pilot. I jumped at the opportunity seeing no one else seemed brave enough to do so. The pilot (who was the sae pilot who had taken me across from Invercargill the other day) let me into the right hand side – effectively what I thought would be the driver’s seat.

I had a full set of controls in front of me, and an identical set in front of the pilot. Obviously I didn’t want to touch anything. Once all the other passengers were loaded the pilot climbed in beside me and started the engines. The plane rattled along to the far end of the runway. Apparently the wind had changed direction. Then again there was no wind today. It was rather a long way to the other end, but once there, he turned the plane around lining up with the runway.

The plane rattled as it accelerated along the runway. Amazingly it left the ground and headed through a bit of unexpected turbulence towards Invercargill. I could see the northern coastline of the mysterious Stewart Island before we were enveloped by cloud. It was only a thin layer though and we were flying between two layers of cloud.

The tiny plane bumped along through the turbulence. The cloud below occasionally cleared to reveal the angry swell of Foveaux Strait below us. Soon I was getting glimpses of the coastline. The grey water gave way to brilliant green grass as we began to descend towards Invercargill Airport.

Once through the lower layer of cloud, I could clearly see the runway ahead. On flights I had been on until now I could only see out the side windows, so would always hope the pilot would land correctly. I took comfort seeing we had lined up perfectly with the runway. The landing was straight forward with the runway not being as bumpy as the one on Stewart Island.

I had nearly two hours to wait for my next flight to Christchurch, but I checked in straight away anyway. The lady at the desk said it will be a real rush getting through immigration to make my connecting flight to Brisbane, so she rescheduled me to the next flight which was boarding in five minutes time. She said that will give me plenty of time to get through Christchurch and guarantee making my flight to Brisbane. I asked if I could get window seats and fortunately there were some available on both flights.

Once checked in I rushed to the departure gate and minutes later I was walking back out on the tarmac boarding a much larger plane to head north to Christchurch. It was a very cloudy trip the whole way to Christchurch.

Upon landing in Christchurch I explored the terminals. With two hours to spare I found the outdoor observation deck and watched planes for half an hour before returning inside to go through immigration.

Passing through immigration was easy enough, apart from at the security checkpoint where I was pulled aside with the advice that there was something the shape of a shell in my daypack. I initially wasn’t sure what they meant by that but then realised the arrangement of camera batteries and pens in my top pocket looked like some form of bomb. The officer opened it and as he thought everything was okay.

Once through immigration I waited another hour in the DMZ before boarding the jet to cross the Tasman.

Having a window seat ensured a view of the outside world. The low late afternoon sun made for spectacular cloud formations as the plane hurtled across the Tasman Sea homeward bound.

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