Jafa39 – Trips, Tramps and Travel

February 1974, my first ever flight was looming, I had fears, naturally and was also excited but even at 14 I was beginning to rationalise my thoughts (yeah right…)

I had decided that if I found it scary (and I was pretty sure I would) I could just go to sleep and wake up once we had landed safely or plunged to our doom in the Alps.

I was reckoning on a 50/50 probability for either outcome.

My parents had gone without, without what, they never explained but a degree of sacrifice had been implemented to send me off on the trip of a lifetime, a school cruise on the SS Nevasa,

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Starting at Venice and trolling around the Med for a coupla weeks, calling at Greece, Egypt (if the war ended in time) Sicily, Naples and back again.

We were flying out to Venice (a float plane already?) and back from Naples, LGW was the UK end of the experience.

So, the interminable bus journey eventually came to an end after leaving at god-knows-when-o’clock and arriving at LGW in the dark (this was in the days before traffic was invented so we didn’t sit in interminable traffic jams but the M25 was merely an activist’s nightmare so the roads were small and dark).

I recall handing a wodge of paperwork over to “Nilocs” our headmaster and being introduced to his rather attractive wife, her knowing smile and gravity-defying breasts started my life long obsession with older women on that day.

I also learnt on this day also that flying involves lots of sitting around in terminal buildings, they are called this because the waiting seems terminal when you are 14.

The sun pushed gently over the horizon revealing a few a/c on the apron, compared to the rush and tumble of LGW today the scene would seem almost deserted but to us young school kids it was a most exciting spectacle.

Once it was fully light and our boredom and anticipation thresholds had been well and truly breached we were led in a gaggle to the rear of British Caledonian BAC 1-11 G-AWWX and boarded through the tail stairs.

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Wow!!! It all got very exciting, the interior seemed huuuuge and very jet-set/space age/Rothmans advert.

I seem to recall the seats being the same rusty red colour as the seats in the departure lounge, the sort of colour usually encountered on granny’s sofa and smelling of dust and dog hairs (Granny’s sofa, not the a/c).

I had a momentary panic but remembering I could always sleep through the ordeal I strapped in and nervously awaited our fate(s).

The Captain said stuff and we taxied out to the runway, the noise level grew to a crescendo and someone let the handbrake off…I felt a massive push from behind, the noise grew and grew and suddenly we were airborne!

I stared at the ground utterly agog and fascinated, the cars were tiny, the roads, slim rivers of grey and then the clouds blotted out toy-town.

There was a tap on my shoulder and Lorraine Smith, a girl I normally had problems being nice to, flashed me the sort of smile that could melt permafrost in a 40 mile radius, “Hi Andrew” she giggled and turned around in her seat to face me.

One glance at her thrusting blouse and impish smile had me turning my opinion of her completely on its head, the mix of sunlight as we penetrated the cloud layer (this was England in Feb after all) and the excitement of the flight mashed my hormones into gravy and I became pleasant towards the opposite sex for the first time ever.

The whole a/c was full of excited chatter as we fought for space to gawp out of the windows.

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One thing that really blew me away was how the cabin flooded with bright sunlight and the pressurisation made everything seem a little bit unreal, like a dream or some really mellow drugs.

The Captain pointed out Mont Blanc and various other euro-sights.

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“Between heaven and heaven” I thought as I stared from Lorraine to the sky outside.

All too soon we were howling in to land at Venice, banking over the sea, the sunlight reflecting off the wings made us screw up our poor English eyes, more accustomed to seeing in the dark and fog than this glorious Mediterranean day. The Captain treated us to a smooth landing and an unseemly scrum to the exit stairs.

I was completely blown away, to be in another country and in Venice of all places, gondolas lined the promenade as we made our way to the ship.

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After 2 weeks touring the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean, running the original Olympic stadium at the ancient Greek city of Olympia:

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I recall entering a port by night, past a statue and a plaque bearing the words “Vous et ipsam civitatum bendicimus” a free beer in AKL to anyone who can tell me which port has this written at the entrance.

Seeing the pyramids was a total trip! (our mana was such that they stopped the war for us, although Nilocs got a bollocking for filming a train-load of tanks).

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 We played with pornographic pottery monks in Taormina and climbed up a volcano in Naples but the high point of the European part of the voyage was Pompeii:

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After all this I was a changed boy, hooked on travel and especially flying, forever.  

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Jafa39, aged 14, (in the brown trousers) …changing….forever! 

The return journey is all a bit of a blur, I recall standing in the lobby at which one end was a rank of x-ray machines, hands overflowing with 110 type (remember them?) film cartridges panicking like hell in case the machine fogged my precious (and precocious) memories.

The a/c was a DH Comet, I can’t recall the rego number but it was a Naples –LGW charter flight on the 9^th March 1974, if anyone can provide a rego number for this a/c I will be totally impressed!

 I spent almost the entire journey staring transfixed at the patch of ice that forms around the pin-hole in the outer window of the Comet….fascinating….marvellous.

Eventually the dream, like all dreams had to end, the Comet wriggled through the cloud cover. As we burst through, the first thing I saw was an old stately building, one of those red-brick Georgian manors, it’s roof black with rain, leafless trees standing forlorn in the March drizzle and the lawns emerald against the drabness that is England at the end of winter.

I tried whenever I was in the south to find this building but not having a clue which direction we were approaching from I never did…until one day in November 2006, on the bus from Brighton to LHR, returning to New Zealand from a conference in Scotland, I saw the house, exactly as I remembered it! I had missed it all these years because it was hidden from view by the boundary wall which a bus passenger can easily see over……..funny old world, it really is.

Touchdown! Once again my feet were on the earth but my head has remained forever in the skies and my heart always yearns for foreign lands and the exciting aromas and sounds of “elsewhere”…..

    

We sat on the pavement, 5 people, 10 massive suitcases and our hand luggage. It had all gone smoothly so far until the shuttle bus turned up, I had explained that there were five of us and we each had 2 huge suitcases and hand luggage, so they send something 2 sizes too small.

I phoned the taxi firm.

“The bus is too small”

“But there are only five of you”

“I told you we had heaps of luggage and we would need something pretty large, or a trailer”.

“I’m afraid there’s not much we can do, everything is booked”

“I will get another taxi firm to sort it, bye..”

“Oh! Wait, sir, we have a 20 seater round the corner, it is only picking up 3 people, put your driver on the phone please”

The big rig arrived and we took one last glance at our house in the mid-morning English sunshine. There were no tears, no fond farewells and no regrets and no-one to wave us off, the farewell parties had all been very drunken affairs, at one I drank so much tequila I started hallucinating, I think most of our friends were in no fit state go anywhere.

It was done, the ultimate life laundry, Mrs Jafa and I had reduced 19 years of marriage to 64 kgs each, the kids, 19 & 14 years of life respectively and for me personally, 42 years of life on this earth honed down into 3 suitcases (and a cardboard box, stashed at my mother’s).

Chas (father in law) had cheated and condensed his ¾ of a century into 3 bags and half a container but he had more crap than us.

It was a gloriously sunny day, the English weather Gods had turned on their best show for us and we were all becoming absorbed into our own private thoughts as we watched the Downside Estate slip by for the last time.

Chas was probably worried sick about whether he had made the right decision but he worries all the time about everything so I couldn’t take that on board.

Mrs Jafa, not a backwards glance, no regrets and no intentions of ever having any, the English class system had treated her badly and she couldn’t give a rat’s arse if England sank without trace the moment we took off, you gotta hand it to Mrs Jafa, she may spend a lot of time fence-sitting but when her mind is made up……

The Boy, who knows what he thought, I dare say he was expecting his immediate future to consist of lots of casual sex (not to be confused with causal sex, that’s something entirely different!) and cheap beer but he is a deep dark horse and it may be years before I ever find out.

The Hormones, 14 and a very sociable creature, she was imagining a house in the middle of nowhere with Maori’s on the beach and worrying about what her new school would be like.

Me? I was hoping the M25 wasn’t about to grind to a halt, emotionally I had switched off weeks ago, Feb 25^th to be exact (it was now 6^th May), the day I heard I had got the job and I was just going through the motions but life currently looked like it was shot on 8mm film and I could feel the memories being burnt into my brain.

  

It all felt very fated, the M25 traffic seemed to part like the Red Sea did for the children of Israel and we were soon in the manic hell-hole known as LHR.

It really doesn’t matter where one is flying to, or why one is going there, a long queue to check-in at LHR is the same every time you do it, seemingly chaotic and static but in reality a living entity of humankind, slowly and inexorably surging toward the weigh-in like a sluggish tide.

We had a minor hiccup due to ANZ having the wrong surname down for The Boy (he is my step-son) but it was sorted without any panic, we all headed off to acquire some food, I took the kids to “Muck Dees” and Mrs Jafa took her father off to somewhere that actually sold food.

I could tell The Hormones was nervous, she kept clamping her lips together and inflating the front part of her mouth, something she does in times of stress, it was harder to tell with The Boy as he hadn’t seen daylight for weeks and so looked dazed and out of sorts.

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We tracked down the other two and joined the queue for the x-ray machines that lead eventually to the departure lounge.

Apart from two lighters, a craft knife and a pair of compasses, we emerged into the departure lounge basically intact; the melee of humanity was beginning to wear me out, so many people, so much happening!

We took turns guarding the hand-luggage as the entire family visited the restrooms in rotation, I spent my allotted time pondering on how many people I had left without saying goodbye to properly and gave up as my attention wandered to why airport loos always feel like airport loos even though they could be anywhere.

The Hormones needed retail therapy so I took her to look for bottled water, teenage magazines and something cheap and useless, we returned with the water, a copy of Just 17 and a wordsearch book.

Mrs Jafa looked ready to throttle her dad as he invaded her space and rambled on incessantly about some people we have never met.

The time to go to the gate arrived; our family shambled down the corridor and spilled into the lounge.

ZK-NBU sat in the May sunshine looking well travelled and enormous, The Hormones was impressed, The Boy tried hard not to be and Mrs Jafa phoned her auntie in Milton Keynes. I struck a conversation with the woman next to me, who was also emigrating with her hubby and two kids, bizzarely enough, she ended up living round the corner to us in NZ, we can see her roof from our deck!

But at this point she was just the mother of the little boy who had tried to run under the safety rail, which caught him smack in the forehead and I winced as his feet carried on forwards and upwards, his tiny body slapped down onto the carpet like a sack of dead cats, he wailed and wailed but showed remarkable resilience and the larger the bump grew, the quieter he got.

Boarding time!!! Row 56 became our temporary home, except for Chas who was tucked up in Business Class, hooray!!

The interior of NZ jets is all pacific looking, with those bluey-greens (Paua?) so you feel relaxed and on NZ turf already.

The Boy looked at our row of 4 seats and asked horrified: “Is that all the room we get?”

I reassured him that there were no hammocks in this end of the a/c, he wasn’t too happy, a restless sitter at the best of times and awake during daylight to add to the sins of his parents and this wrench from his comfort zone!

I gave him the aisle seat, Mrs Jafa the other and I took centre-left, so that I formed an insurmountable barrier of flesh, bone and attitude between him and The Hormones, they have given me 14 years of back-seat hell in various cars…”Dad! He’s sitting on MY side…no I’m not you bitch…I’m in the middle!….Waaah, He pinched me….well she started it!…..” You know the drill, well I wasn’t about to inflict that on my fellow pax, I like to travel unobtrusively, except for my divine aftershave that is!

An FA came in with The Boy’s correctly named ticket, as a family we loaded the seat pocket with bottles of water, sweets, magazines and books, I had “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” a very apt leaving present from one of my more high maintenance staff members, who believes it is every girl’s divine right to be so…and I am not about to argue the point…I have two daughters!

The Hormones isn’t massively keen on take-offs, she has only flown twice before, once to Guernsey and once back again, her tiny hands gripped the arms of her seat, all pale and delicate, The Boy shuffled about and looked uncomfortable (a look he managed to sustain for the next 26 hours), Mrs Jafa sat there impassive, regarding the flight to be a minor inconvenience on the way to paradise, I sat there, head twisted to the side like a demented bouncer (I have the right beard for it) gawping out through the window across the aisle.

That wonderful thrusting I had experienced for the first time….is this the right story?….only two months before, hurled us skyward, family Jafa heaved a collective sigh….we were on our way, only a stroppy incident at LAX could stop us from getting to NZ.

I started reading “8 Simple Rules” and for the next few hours laughed my ass off, I kept nudging the Hormones, tears rolling down my cheeks with laughing, she tried to pretend she understood and laughed politely.

At one point I went forward to check on Chas in Business Class, back in Feb this had been no problem. A sweaty ginger-headed boy of an FA barred my ingress through the curtain.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked in a Scottish accent and none too politely I might add!

“To check on my father-in-law, he’s 75 you know” I answered politely.

“Well you can’t!”

“They let me last time we flew”

“People pay a lot of money to be in there away…” He checked himself

“Away from people like me do you mean?” I pressed home the advantage, not because I need to win but because the opportunity to win had arisen.

“Well I’ll have you know that I am a relative, I won’t use the loo, sit down, breathe the air or in anyway upset the splendid isolation these people find themselves in but for your information, money is not a guarantee of good breeding, now will you let me go through or would you like me to ask the purser?”

I must add that this is the only time I have ever had dealings of a sticky nature with an NZ FA, they are almost all utterly marvellous and understanding.

“Ok sir, but don’t be too long, or make a habit of it.”

“I can assure you that I never spend longer than is necessary in the company of my in-laws.”

He tried to smile but his face started to crack so he sucked it up, nipped his butt cheeks a few notches tighter and went and reported me to the purser.

The purser was a frosty bugger too but when I explained that I was related to the person I wished to visit and mentioned that other crews (NZ2) had had no issue with the arrangements she softened a touch and said (and I am paraphrasing) that riff-raff like me were normally not allowed through the curtain but as I hadn’t punched the FA or raised my voice she would allow us to visit the old sod at will…but don’t touch anything!!!! Of course, if I had mentioned just which member of an old and powerful European family was at the head of the organisation I allegedly work for, she may have been less fusty but I don’t name drop unless the police are involved, and even then I try to avoid it.

I went to see Chas, the FA on the other side of the curtain (the posh side) was a sweetie, she had no problem with me being there (I apologised profusely for the intrusion), offered me water and indicated where the loo’s were; now that IS breeding!

Chas was fine, he was fairly disorientated and called me by someone else’s name but that isn’t so unusual, he was happy, comfy and not too bewildered.

When Greenland had been and gone and we were over Canada I was out of my seat, the others followed; we gawped at the tundra in unison while Mrs Jafa took the opportunity to lie across all four seats.

It all looked a bit different to last time, the thaw had progressed and there were lots of slushy swampy bits, I could only wonder at how bad the mossies were down there.

The landing in LAX wasn’t super-smooth but you won’t find me complaining, 300 tons of metal, beggars belief how they get the thing to land without just going “Splat!” and bending.

LAX!!!!!!!! The air looked pink, I don’t know if this is a result of light refraction or pollution or the time of day but the air was most decidedly pink…which was nice.

What was nicer still was that the rumours were true…the Transit lounge was open again!!!!!! Yay!! Oh joy of joys!

We staggered in, seedy and bleary, grabbed the Air NZ coffee and cookies and dodged the people with their heads down the toilet hauling an a crafty ciggie before someone shoved a truncheon up their arse and hauled them off for “Anti-American Activities”, one guy found a stray power outlet near the loos and plugged his lap-top in to charge up, arms folded, defiant as if to say “No, I wont unplug it” or even “I am sooo cool, I have a laptop!”.

The kids found their way to the TV and watched American Idol as Mrs Jafa and I curled up together on the floor, behind the security desk, spooned together like tired and worn out porn stars, blissfully detached from the filth and shite that inhabited the carpet, the ability to stretch out and lay horizontal overcame all other considerations, decorum, dignity, risk management and health issues, all could go to hell as we grabbed the most longed-for and therapeutic 45 minutes of sleep that any man or woman right back to Adam and Eve ever had……..

We awoke because the vibe had changed; stuff was occurring, or about to occur. As we swam back into consciousness the strip lights seemed to be brighter, the carpet redder than before and the pungent smell of ground-in dirt became noticeable. We sat up, groggy but rested, sought out the Kids, made sure Chas was alive and with our numbered plastic paddles in hand started to re-board.

Push back, take off, woosh and away we go, a meal was served, quite what meal it was I cannot recall, sort of brunkfastupper or whatever, it was yummy though and I had The Boy’s brown thing as he never eats what he can’t identify, yet he likes Pizza….hmmmm, curious…..

LAX-AKL is a long, long haul, all this talk of 18 hour ultra long-haul routes you see on a.net…you can keep them. Doing LHR-AKL for the second time in 8 weeks just makes it worse, damn it’s a trial.

I did my usual wandering about the cabin, blagging water off the FA’s or hot chocolate, staring out of the window, hiding in the toilets and reading but my butt just couldn’t cope, it really was hurting.

After a prolonged session on the rear door jump-seat I managed to stay in my seat long enough to watch “About Schmidt” or something like that, Jack Nicholson film, he’s always watchable. During this time The Hormones curled up on my lap, head by my knees, bum in my stomach and feet on Mrs Jafa, thumb in gob, Slipknot hoody pulled over her head, bless….oh to be so small that you can do that!

This new team of FA’s were a very jolly bunch, going home you see! They let us go see Chas whenever we wanted, brought round water and were so accommodating I wondered if the boss had phoned them up……….

You know, the FA’s make or break a flight, especially long-haul, it must be hard to be nice when you probably feel like shit and can’t just kick your shoes off, scratch your belly and have a good fart whenever you please, this bunch were a credit to the profession and I stood by the kitchen area in the middle and had a long chat with one of them, she was genuinely interested in our move, asked about the kids and made hot-chocolate.

Well, as with all ordeals it ended, the oxygen was turned up, breakfast was served, and we made to descend.

This is when The Boy’s delicate constitution really came into his own, he started a nose bleed as soon as we made headway into the descent, not just a little bleed, he was pouring the stuff! We patched him up with bog-roll but it just dissolved in his hands, a very kind person across the aisle gave him some “real” tissues and he at least managed to stop making a total mess of the upholstery. FA’s came and gave him advice on how not to bleed so hard and apart from looking like death on a stick he survived the descent.

Mrs Jafa had a bout of “Landing ears” so I did reflexology on her to alleviate the pressure and pain. The Hormones was practically vibrating with anticipation and we all retreated into our private thoughts again, in 20 minutes the dreams, the worries, the plans, the fantasy would all become reality, the wondering was about to end and The Jafa’s were about to integrate themselves into Kiwi culture, The Boy was more hoping for some form of impregnation I fear, The Hormones was hoping the neighbour’s had a 15 year old surfer-dude son with blonde dread-locks and nice legs, I was hoping to make my mark within the organisation and hopefully take over the CEO’s job at some point (15 months later it actually happened) Mrs Jafa was hoping the curtains were nice and already plotting to paint the living room walls a combination of “Paprika” and “String” (now there’s an amusing story, some other time maybe).

We landed, smooth landing, soft and gentle, like the breeze that greeted us.

As we rambled into baggage-claim I sidled over, with Mrs Jafa in tow, to the free coffee stand.

“G’day mate! You back again?”

“????????????”

“You were here a couple of months back; I recognise that jacket of yours” (A Lowe Alpine Climbers Hoody).

“Cool bro, that’s amazing!”

“You back to stay?”

“You bet”

Customs was a lark, I had 32 kgs of Crampons, Ice-Axes, Ropes and assorted paraphernalia and MAF wanted to clean and repack my tent and my walking boots, this took no time at all and was free! And they made a damn good job of packing the tent!

None of us had any apples stashed so we escaped further scrutiny.

The shuttle was waiting for us and we cruised through the dawn, up Highway 20, East along Manukau Rd and onto Highway 1 at Gillies Ave. We stopped to ring the Real Estate Agent, who was not properly awake and carried on for another 36 kms to our new house, we pulled into the drive and Mrs Jafa exclaimed: “Is this our house?”

“Of course, you saw the photos”

“Didn’t think it was this big!!”

“Bet you say that to all the boys”

Half an hour later as we sat on the deck, eating pies, waiting for the keys to arrive, The Hormones piped up: “This is like so weird Dad…it’s not like we’ve gone anywhere, it doesn’t feel strange…its like we’ve come home…….”

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/jafa39/NorthView.jpg”

At last! After 2 weeks stuck in a campervan with my father in law I could look forward to 12 hours of solitude, he had decided to upgrade to business as he couldn’t cope with economy, whew! Result!

 

Chas went toddling off into AKL business check-in and I joined the queue for economy check-in, flight NZ2 AKL-LHR. The trip had been a resounding success, I got head-hunted, bought a house and a car, all that remained was to get home, resign, sell everything, spend loads of money on airfares for the whole Whanau and get back within 8 weeks.

 

More than that I had spent 2 weeks with Chas and hadn’t actually killed him with my bare hands.

 

Anyway, after checking in in a haze and trying to blag an upgrade I found myself at the security checks for gate 6. I went through OK but as Chas tried all hell broke loose, lights flashed, sirens…sirened? And a very large man with a badge asked Chas to open his hand luggage, after first making sure the scanner was between him and any subsequent explosions.

 

Out came a big pack of zantac (for indigestion) all covered in foil. He tried to go through again…same result…they ran a portable scanner over him..bleep…bleep..bleep.

 

From various pockets in the obligatory beige car-coat came packet upon packet of indigestion medicine, a packet of cold capsules, some English coins, a metal pen and the biggest tube of haemorrhoid cream I (or indeed the security staff) have ever seen, man I wouldn’t wanna have to live with them blood-buds!!!

 

Ok, we got through and into the departure lounge where ZK-SUH sat ready for the 12 hour flog to LAX.

 

I parked Chas next to a nice old lady and they instantly clicked, within seconds they were comparing ailments and medications. Slightly nauseated by this experience I wandered up to the glass and checked out our a/c..hmmm, big…

 

Suddenly a commotion broke out behind me, a group of Americans, all shouting at once with a collective look of absolute contempt, were hassling the big smiley Samoan on the desk, I edged closer….

 

“What do you mean there’s no more aisle seats?”

 

“They’re all taken”

 

“Well I want an aisle seat…move someone!”

 

“I can’t do that miss, then the guy I move will be mad at me”.

 

“Oh my god..this is goddamn ridiculous!”

 

“No shit, Sherlock” I mused under my breath

 

“Look” shouted the small but badly preserved “Power Gran”

 

“If you don’t give me a goddamn aisle seat I am NOT, repeat NOT, getting on that goddamned plane”

 

“That’s your choice madam, I can’t make any more aisle seats, it’s your decision to fly or not, you bought the ticket”

           

A younger man with a sneer and a bad shirt chipped in

 

“Why are you being so stupid? That’s what you are..stupid!”

 

I wondered whether being American was supposed to be grounds for preferential treatment and was about to go and have a word with the angry Americans when a security guard appeared.

 

Words to the effect of

 

“Shut up or go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 pounds”

 

got them all to simmer down and they sat in a bunch at the back of departure, muttering and glaring at the guy on the desk, no doubt making fists in their trouser pockets and wondering who ever gave such power to a mere mortal. The word “stupid” was repeated like a mantra.

 

In order to cheer up the Samoan guy I wandered over, pointed to Chas and said:

 

“That old guy in the pink shirt, he’s my father in law, he’s old and daft and might get confused, can you keep an eye on him on the flight, make sure he doesn’t get stressed…he isn’t nice when he’s stressed”

 

“OK sir, leave it to me, if you could get me his seat number, I’ll fix it”.

 

It was nearly time to think about how long it would be before boarding when a van turned up at SUH’s front landing gear and the PA in departure 6 fired up.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a delay of approximately 1.5 hours due to technical problems with the aircraft”

 

Most problems with a/c tend to be technical; I went and had a word with my new friend at the desk.

 

“S’up bro?”

 

“Ah, sir, the door seal was leaking on the last flight, they need to fix it.”

 

A stairway was pushed up to the front door and a tarpaulin wrapped round so mx could belt the crap out of the door with a hammer and not scare the pax.

 

Seated directly opposite the “trauma site” was a group of less aggressive Americans, they were not at all happy but in the scared sense.

 

“Do you know what’s going on, why are they working on the plane?” a sweet little grandma asked in a querulous voice.

 

I explained the situation

 

“Oh dear” she turned even paler than her usual pallor

 

“I don’t like the sound of that”

 

“Well, look at it this way, would you rather fly in a broken plane or a mended one?”

 

“I see what you mean…… will it be alright?”

 

“Absolutely, it’s an American plane after all”

 

“Thank you young man”

 

Hmmm, don’t get called “young man” very often these days.

 

The delay turned out to be 2 hours, which meant the stop-over was going to be fun, it is only 2.5 hours anyway and at this time, transit was shut so you had to go in and out of the USA via LAX immigration, it took so long on the inbound flight that we got to the departure with nano-seconds to spare.

 

So, we boarded. Chas was escorted on by a truly lovely FA and I took up residence in a bassinette row, result! A fraction extra legroom and a big screen to lose myself in.

 

An UM (unaccompanied minor) sat down next to me and after introductions I started helping her with her crossword.

 

A startled looking FA approached me:

 

“Why are you sitting there?”

 

“Errr, its my designated seat?”

 

“But she’s a girl!”

 

“And?…oh! ah, er, I see, well… I’ll go upstairs if you like”

 

Bugger, that didn’t work, they just swapped me round with the woman sitting next to me.

 

I now had a charming photographer from LA next to me and he explained how Paul Masson wines did all their publicity shots in NZ because it looks like California and has a “logistically preferable summer as regards advertising deadlines”.

 

Next time you look at a bottle of Californian vino, see the picture and go “Mmm, California looks nice”.

 

Book NZ instead!!!

 

Eventually we took off and the captain, realising the problems with the stop-over decided that he would “Give it some welly”

 

I didn’t know you could thrash a 744 but this one got a pasting, it was patently obvious that we weren’t “cruising” this was flat out, throttles to the stops, excellent!!

 

After hearing how you can find an elephant and a troupe of performing dwarves at any time of day or night in LA and chomping down a wicked meal of brown/yellow/green followed by POACHED PEAR AND CREAM!!!!!..Yum!!! I fell asleep for 5 hours solid, oh the luxury of personal space again without Chas wittering on about the rates in Milton Keynes and other trivial bollox, yup, including the war!

 

I woke up and went to the back of the a/c to do my in flight exercises and afterwards decided to go check on Chas.

 

Predictably he was bending someone’s ear about Milton Keynes Council, I interrupted:

 

“You OK?”

 

“Yeah Andy I am, but one thing though, they (he indicated the FA’s) won’t leave me alone, they keep bringing me drinks and pillows and asking if I’m alright..now that’s what I call service, ‘ere, meet Dorothy (the pax next to him.)..she’s been to Milton Keynes, reckons it’s a right dump!”

 

I made my excuses and left

 

One of the reasons I can be totally unsociable on a flight is that I just slip into my own little world, I love flying and especially looking out of the window and letting my thoughts drift, sleeping is good too and I snatched another 45 mins somewhere along the way but the LA photographer was a really interesting guy so I passed the time of day with him when not wandering about the cabin, looking out of the windows, spending 10 mins in the lav so different parts of me would go numb for a while and spending time on the jump-seat by the starboard rear door, gazing into space.

 

The FA’s don’t always let you do this but this crew were a credit to the Koru and very laid-back.

 

Presently we landed in LAX, incredibly only 40 mins or so late, I grabbed Chas and we steeled ourselves for ordeal by immigration.

 

There must have been 2 744’s arrived at the same time, immigration was a total zoo and at one point half my size 12 foot was over the “yellow line” and I got bawled out by someone in a brown uniform who must have had closely related parents, I hesitate to use the word “asshole” because mine does a good job…..

 

LAX is a dump, I know some people like it but in my opinion (and I have been there 3 times now) it is a crapulous cess-pit of brown and grey and the staff seem to hate people, fair enough, I hated them, with the exception of the guy in Starbucks who was great.

 

It eventually became apparent as we tried to disembark, that we would not get through all the various queues and the poxy escalator that would only take 5 at a time.

 

I pointed this out to an Air NZ FA who grabbed the “Tensa-Barrier” ripped it aside and yelled to the immigration bods:

 

“This lot need to come through right now”..way to go! I could have kissed her but she was at the immigration kiosks pushing all the NZ2 ers to the front of the line.

 

The strange little man at the desk made me quite scared when he said he was off shift in 10 mins and could he come away with me…dunno, was it the big feet or the English passport he desired???

 

We re-boarded, all good, I had the same seat as before but some new neighbours, a biker type, his wife and a baby.

 

We got into conversation and the wife mentioned she worked in Perth (Australia) for a magazine.

 

“Which one” I enquired

 

“Oh, Woman’s Ways” (I have changed the name).

 

“I know someone who works for them! Or rather her sister works for me”

 

“Who?”

 

“Joanna-Maria Anderton”

 

Jade (The wife) squealed “She’s my mate, we stayed at hers the night before last!”

 

“Bugger!” I was already assimilating the Kiwi ways. What’s that, one degree of separation?”

 

Well, you could have slapped us all with a wet fish and called us Julie.

 

The rest of the journey was a total blur of conversation, JD (The hubby) was a top bloke, their baby was soooo cute I could have eaten her and she didn’t cry once on the whole journey, she actually spent most of it trying to give me her Air NZ teddy, which was nice….

 

Jade was so small she could curl up and sleep on the seat so to avoid pangs of jealousy I did my usual wandering about trick whilst the 3 of them slept.

 

The last thing I saw of the USA was what looked like an Island, stuck out on the east coast, all lit up with street lights, I wondered what was occurring down there, how they lived their lives and did they ever wonder who was overhead.

 

Between bursts of conversation, trips to make sure Chas was being looked after and anti-DVT walks the flight seemed to take no time at all, pretty soon we broke through cloud over Twickenham and London looked as grey and crowded as ever.

 

We touched down and reality hit with a bump, time to stop dreaming, I have a family to migrate, forms to fill in and some explaining to do to the boss.

 

“Oh, Hi Mark, yes, I am a day late but Chas had to upgrade or die…..my new contract? Yes, I signed it this morning….er, um…well…….you see……something happened in New Zealand and…well…………..here’s my resignation too……….”

  

This may take some time…but then so does the flight!!

It’s a long walk from the departure lounge in LHR T3 to the gate, eventually the miles of reddish carpet, missing ceiling tiles and general sense of heavy and somewhat overdue maintenance came to an end, I forget the gate number but as I passed the last wall pillar and ZK-NBW hove into view I stopped in my tracks…”Holy shit! Look at the size of that beast!”  My 75 yr old father–in-law, Chas, stood slack jawed and glassy eyed but he often looks like that so it was hard to tell if he was impressed or just replaying some long ago memory from when kids were seen and not heard and Mr Hitler was still in short pants.

I had flown long-haul before on an A330 to Goa but never in a 744, I had been looking forward to it for weeks and now the reality was upon us.

Some may think 12,000 miles is a long way to go for a job interview but the opportunity to cast off the shackles of Dunstable and the daily commute down the M1 to NW London was too good to turn down and made the effort of getting there seem pretty small beer compared to the prize on offer, hell, I’m no gambling man but Chas was financing the trip as long as I took him with me and Mrs Jafa was convinced the omens were good.

We sat in the departure gate and I started to slip into the semi-coma that is Jafa39 flying long-haul…any haul really as I love travelling….. planes, trains, boats, rickshaw….anything, the part I cherish most is just sitting back and watching it all go by, soaking up the otherness of it all and absorbing the memories.

This is why travelling with Mrs Jafa is a joy as she does the same, just soaks it all up and doesn’t freak out about things like dodgy rooms or suspect food. Travel, as someone once said, broadens the mind and loosens the bowels.

Now Mrs Jafa’s dad is the opposite, he seems oblivious of the wonders of the world and spends the whole time gibbering on about utterly random and trivial bollox, let me fast forward a few days to give you an example:

We are in a camper van, travelling through New Zealand on highway 1, just come down off the desert road and into some pretty gob-smacking scenery, Chas has been sitting there quiet for a few minutes and then suddenly:

“70 quid! 70 effing quid! And what for?….. A bleedin’ plastic bag!”

Stunned and a trifle concerned I switch my attention from the glories of Aotearoa and ask him what’s up.

“70 effing quid! That’s what those scheming bastards at Milton Keynes council charge a month for me rates, 70 effing quid!” he slapped the dashboard of the Maui campervan with all the bile and hatred he could muster (and that is quite a considerable amount for an old crusty git).

“And?” I almost dreaded the answer.

“And they effing well expect me to sort my rubbish out into re-effing-cycling and non-re-effing-cycling..I ain’t effing doing it! Eff ‘em, bastards! It’s rubbish to me…nuffin but effing rubbish..I don’t give that (snaps fingers with a decisive and triumphant gesture) about re-effing-cycling…70 quid! For an effing plastic bag…eff the lot of them!”

So, you see, I was looking forward the spending 24 hours in 52E with him in 52D like captured soldiers look forward to interrogation.

Not only does he gibber on but he is a space invader too, he gets as close as he can and tries to keep eye contact the whole time, be it 10 seconds or 10 hours….”great, this is going to be a blast!” I thought to myself.

Outside the window NBW sat gleaming in the February sun, the colour-scheme seemed to me to be indicative of what NZ is all about, clean, simple and deeply influenced by the icons of the Pacific Ocean and the Maori culture, I’m sooo glad I didn’t take those cheapo tickets on Korean, nothing against Korean but their a/c reflect a different culture and for me, it is as important to travel as it is to arrive, flying NZ meant I felt I was there before I left UK soil.

The boarding process began, 1^st class, Biz class and once it came the time for the paupers to shuffle on board I was pleased to note that families with babies were allowed on first, with the zimmer-frame brigade and the poor lad with his foot in a plaster-cast.

Chas was getting restless but seats also come to those who wait.

I was bowled-over by the sweet and smiling FA at the door, I may be married but I still think the Kiwi accent is the sexiest on the planet…although an angry South African woman can still make the hairs on my neck stand up with joy and anticipation.

Hmmmm, I digress but that is the Jafa way I’m afraid. I wandered into NBW and let out a gasp, the bloody thing was even bigger inside than out! So many seats!!!

We bagged our brace of 52’s, had I been as much of a flying whore then as I am now I would have arranged a window seat and an aisle at the back (then I could have suffocated Chas with an Air NZ cushion and no-one would have been any the wiser.).

I made my acquaintance with the pretty Irish girl next to me in 52G, she was going to a meeting or two in the states and claimed she was “Over commuting to LAX, it was fun for a while but it gets to you eventually”.

I fiddled about with the headphones and the in-flight mag and was totally impressed with Zane Lowe’s selection on channel 7, or was it 9, who cares, the sounds looked to be right up my street.

I eventually persuaded (with the help of another lovely FA) Chas to take off his beige car-coat and get himself sorted rather than just perch there expectantly.

FA’s scurried about getting stuff stowed and everybody to sit down and shut up for long enough to get airborne, forget about kids making long-haul wearisome, I bet any time-served FA will claim that old people are far worse, certainly between boarding and push-back at any rate.

I plugged Chas into some classical music and tweaked up the volume on Zane Lowe, push-back began and we started that odd lumpy journey to the runway that seems to be a feature of every flight.

As we sat there getting all spooled up my fave track ever came on the headphones…”Red Hot Chili Peppers, Zephyr Song”..

“Gosh!” I thought to myself, “Here am I about to fly to LAX, which is where the Chili’s live and I am listening to Zephyr Song!”

The omens really were good!

At that point the pilot let the brakes off and with a really impressive shove in the back, followed by some extreme acceleration; we hurtled down the runway and…I kid you not….at the very moment the wheels lifted off the deck I heard the immortal line….”rev it up to levitate her, super friendly aviator” in the ‘phones…..bugger! Omens indeed!!

The rate of climb seemed pretty steep to me, I caught glimpses out of the windows to my left and revelled in the feeling that something huge was blasting skywards at a rate of knots, the 744 seemed to have settled into the climb and we seemed to be at this nose-up angle for ages, probably about 20 minutes in reality.

As we levelled of for the cruise we seemed to be a long way up, 11,000 metres as I recall.

“Maybe Tomorrow” a track by an Auckland band, Goldenhorse, forced it’s way through the earphones, as Zane explained who the band were I felt some connection with Auckland developing, a musical thread and an image of a band rehearsing in a back-room. I was to follow that thread for the next 24 hours as the play list repeated, each time the Chili Peppers or Goldenhorse came round I felt a sense of satisfaction, of contentment and oddly enough, nostalgia for events that were yet to take place.

Mrs Jafa claims that when we were born our hearts were already in Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud, I usually dismissed it as the hippy ravings one would expect from a hypnotherapist but now, eating up the miles between me and my hoped-for spiritual home, after 2 years of dreaming, I could quite see where she was coming from.

Food!!!! I have a bit of a pash for airline food, its probably universally yuck but I have lived on mountains and eaten “expedition rations” for many years, if you can survive “Raven” dehydrated foods, you can enjoy airline tucker, even so, NZ serve up some excellent nosh, you could even recognise it as what it was supposed to consist of and the poached pear in cream…yuuummmm!!!!!

I love the light at altitude and I love that slightly spaced out feeling you get when flying, it was all too much, far too exciting for words and despite being old enough to have more dignity (I was 42 at the time) I wandered off for a tiki-tour of the cabin, clockwise like any good mountaineer should do and ended up at the back, near the lavs, doing my anti-DVT exercises and chatting to the first real live Maori I ever met, I lapped up her words and stored them away for the forthcoming job interview, an understanding of Tikanga Maori (customs) and Te Reo (language) are highly necessary when interviewing for govt depts in NZ.

Eventually I headed off to check if Chas was being a nuisance to anyone but he was watching a film about people who talk about their feelings all the time and it was heading for a very predictable end. I read the in flight mag, jotted some notes about Maori protocol into my “NZ pack”, drank heaps of water and fell asleep, at some point before I drifted off I contemplated whether it was possible to hold the fuselage together with my feet should a crack appear…don’t ask why, I am prone to random thoughts in that precious space between awake and asleep that people spend their lives trying to attain.

As I write this I can hear NZ 2 passing over my house on its long journey to LAX, hope everybody on board is enjoying themselves!

From deep in the depths of slumber I could hear Chas:

“Andy, are you asleep?” He kept this up until I was awake, I resisted the urge to rip his lungs out and wear them for a hat.

“I was”

“Oh, sorry, why didn’t you say”

“???????????????????????????????????????????!”

He then proceeded to tell me the entire plot of the film he had just seen (which was really depressing) and how it had related to his life, I can’t be horrid about this as you don’t lose a child to drugs and get over it, not even after 20 years, he may drive me nuts but I am not without compassion.

It is my firm belief that during a long flight they (The Iliterati? The Freemasons? G. W. Bush? who is this “they” that sits behind all decisions that are out of the hands of mere mortals?) turn the oxygen down so everybody goes to sleep, there is an odd atmosphere around the middle of a long haul sector, as if you are living life in one of those faded, grainy home movies (where everybody smiles, drives gorgeous American soft tops and is proud of their kids) from the 60’s and 70’s, it isn’t often one gets the feeling of actually living in the good times, usually this is a fleeting event, a few seconds of good cheer, the first beer of the summer with achingly pretty girls and guys who aren’t complete dorks.

Fly long haul, you get 5 or 6 hours of such illusion!

Chas had me pinned down for quite some time but I managed to stem the flow of painful reminiscence by insisting he walk about the cabin to keep the blood flowing as I wasn’t really sure if I could enter NZ with a dead rellie in tow…might attract the flies you know!

We ended up at the back again and I watched in total wonder as what I assumed to be either the Northern Territories, or Canada (there is a difference?) slip by the exit door window, I leant on the liferaft pack and pretended not to be sitting in the jump seat, watching the vast expanse of wilderness go by, hours and hours of it and not a man-made thing to be seen, ice, snow and tundra as far as the wandering soul could wish for.

Chas had hooked up with some senior citizens from Milton Keynes, of all the bizarre coincidences, and was having a good old yarn, funny how oldies never bore each other, must be the loss of memory, everything seems new! But he was happy and had pulled out of the depressed state he had slumped into watching Robert de Niro come to terms with his son’s addiction.

Back in row 52 I sat in a trance watching the video but listening to Zane Lowe’s selection, I just can’t focus on films when flying, it seems sort of disjointed as if there are things you do in the home that don’t sit in context whilst travelling, so I lay there lolling like a drooling idiot until “they” turned the wick up on the oxygen bottle.

The air seemed to refresh itself, people started to come alive again, the atmosphere inside seemed less thick and food was on its way, mmmmm, the last couple of hours of a long haul sector, one of my favourite times of any flight.

There was a lot more emptiness to be seen as we headed for LAX, only it was of the arid and dry variety, I recall seeing a railway line that ran arrow-straight for miles across the desert and ended at some random “facility” where people did whatever they did, in complete isolation.

But civilisation began to appear with greater frequency and the 744 started losing height, I was transfixed by the screen as it showed our outside temp drop from -60C down through the numbers, I totally got off on the feeling that the great bird was coming down from the stratosphere to mix once more with the comings and goings of mankind, the way it adopts that shallow dive and the sounds start to change, your ears pop and there is a general vibe of bated-breath and expectancy, as if no-one wants to disturb NBW in her endeavours to bring us all safely back to earth.

And then, by craning my neck to the left, there it was! LA!!! Oh my god! The Red Hot Chili Peppers are down there somewhere, rehearsing, or taking drugs or whatever, O-M-G, I’m in the USA and this is LA, oh look! Those funky palm trees, eeek! That must be Compton, where everybody wears their hat backwards and says “Yo, my Nigga, s ’up G?..S ‘appenin’?” and just to the right a bit someone might be going “Insane in da membrane”……..

Lucky all this was going on in my head or things might have gone badly for me.

The landing was as greasy as a greaser gets, utterly smooth and graceful and I nearly fell out of my seat at the sight of so many a/c and so many liveries, yikes! Hawaiian Planes, Jamaican Planes, a Virgin (pretty rare where I come from!!) and heaps more besides.

We sat at the gate for ages, the Captain apologised but he was waiting for someone to phone him say it was OK to disembark but the wait strung out interminably, eventually, things happened in the right order and we entered the living hell that at that time was “Post 9/11 security protocols”.

We had all filled in the little green cards, they cracked me up, questions such as “Do you intend to engage in terrorist activity whilst in the USA?”

You can imagine the conversation.

“Hey Osama, better put yes to that one, let no one call us liars! Insahallah!”

“Indeed effendi, only someone who’s mother bred with goats would stoop so low as to lie!”

We marched into immigration to be “processed”, the logic of the dept that decided it was safer to have pax going through immigration and out into the street, where they could get up to all sorts of mischief than to just keep them herded into transit where you can keep an eye on them, escapes me, talk about doing something just to be seen to do something.

This process involved endless queues, a brief few minutes on the pavement where I nearly freaked at coming face to face with a real US cop in a real US cop car, holy moroly, it really is like that! There is a strange building resembling a pink stucco octopus opposite the terminal building and there seemed to be helicopters everywhere.

The awful grey, brown and tatty beigeness of LAX was a bit of a let down, not what I expected at all, we struggled through endless queues and escalators that can only take 3 people, to end up in Starbucks, we grabbed a coffee and I was pleased to note that in the US they actually fill your cup at Starbucks, not like the stingy bastards in the UK ones where you get a splash of tepid coffee, three quids worth of foam and a bad attitude from behind the counter.

Say what you like about the USA but never diss the coffee shops!

Chas and I struck up a conversation with a couple from our flight, she was peroxide blonde and wearing far too many clothes, he looked ill, I mean desperately and terminally ill, he was sweating like a pig, red of eye and shaking, I made my excuses and moved away, wondering if I could hold my breath for 12 hours as I really didn’t want to look like him in a few days time! (I was racking my brains trying to remember the symptoms of Ebola)

After a quick trip to the lav we rambled over to the gate with nano-seconds to spare, they were frantically calling and you could see pax belting along the concourse, we ditched the coffees and legged it.

The very air in LAX seemed gritty and dark, twilight didn’t help but I was feeling utterly seedy by the time we re-boarded, grateful for the sanctuary of NBW after 2 hours 18 minutes of queuing.

We pushed back and it seems that LAX ground staff were far more willing to let us leave the gate than to enter it, we lifted of into the skies without a hitch and started that rumbling angled ascent into the heavens, it was dark and by my calculations it would remain dark until we got to AKL.

“There’s a story I know, we all leave and let go, there is nothing to hold us……….”

Ahh, Goldenhorse, how comforting to be back in your embrace, riding the lyrical wave to Aotearoa and the start of a whole new adventure.

Food!!!! Yes! Sorted! Can’t remember what it was but a rather good South island Cabernet Sauvignon washed it down nicely and I sank back, Chas looked done for, I showed him how to select the comedy channel on the ‘phones and slipped into blessed oblivion for the next 2 and a bit hours.

I awoke to find Chas looking neglected so I spent a few minutes chatting and headed out into the aisle, not many people looked awake, I did a tour of the cabin in the half-light and found “Mr Ebola” and his missus, they were spark out and were sleeping slumped forward, arms by their sides, heads perilously close to the brace position.

I totally wish I could sleep like that, I minced about for ages, almost tripping down the throats of several pax as they lolled about, heads back, glasses akimbo and dead to the world.

The very nice Asian-Kiwi FA let me sit on the rear door jump seat and I gazed through the night out onto the big wide expanse of wetness that is the Pacific Ocean, I wondered how big Captain Cook’s ship would look from 11,000m and decided all them early explorers were double-hard bastards and then some…and what about Kupe? the Maori explorer who did it in a Waka, which is really just an enormous double hulled canoe, how hard was he?

We take things like flight for granted sometimes but I was amazed at the 744, the fact that it just sat there going “whoosh” for hour after hour, such a technological marvel yet still possessing an animal grace and persona, too much to take in really.

I did my DVT exercises and spent 15 minutes in the lav to relieve the pressure from my butt and shuffled back to my seat, this routine was followed several times throughout the next hours, I watched Frazier and “Star Trek: Nemesis” a truly excellent film, thoroughly enjoyed it.

During one of my stints at the back, loitering near the toilets I met a rather agitated young man, he asked me the time, I asked which country, he said “England will do” and after I told him he said, “I dunno if I did the right thing, what do you reckon?”

He told me how he and his mate were professional DJ’s and were on their way to NZ to gig with “Salmonella Dub” a kind of Dance/Reggae/Drum ‘n Bass outfit of some note in Aotearoa.

All was going well until LAX, immigration looked in his mates passport and showed him a page.

“What’s this sir?”

“An American work permit”

“It’s 4 years old and you didn’t use it”

“No, there were family problems, I couldn’t come”

“I’m sorry sir, this is a violation of code xxxxxxxxx, you must leave the country immediately”

“The plane I came in on leaves in 2 hours”

“No sir, you must return to your port of origin”

“What!”

“And your baggage” he had all the vinyl and CD’s in his checked baggage.

“And that was it” my new acquaintance, shrugged his shoulders and asked what I would have done.

“Is your mate still going to make it to NZ?”

“Yeah, but it will be a hell of a journey, should I have gone with him?”

“No mate, you did the right thing, you never know how US immigration would have reacted, fact is, you’ll be there on time and you can wing it until your mate gets there, relax, you had no choice.”

We chatted some more and he seemed less agitated when we parted company.

I sat and listened to Chas for about a week and after an eternity I felt that subtle change in the air, the map screen showed we were not too far from NZ and I smelt the unmistakable whiff of airline food heating.

The screens showed a tourist info film about New Zealand and some Lord of the Rings stuff, we began our descent and I was too excited for words.

I watched the numbers on the screen and felt NBW easing herself back into the atmosphere, the whole cabin was filled with that expectant hush we felt approaching LAX, subdued yet pregnant with suppressed energy.

The Captain muttered something about a western approach, I looked to the side and caught a glimpse of some neon lights, only a few mind you, we threw a right and I could feel NBW heaving herself into position, things went “clunk”, flaps opened and the air went whooshing over them a few re-alignments a quick burst of throttle….”bump” “roar!!!!” that’s it, we were down, a blue neon sign said “Auckland” I was stunned…”we are here!” O-M-G! this is New Zealand!!!!!

The captain signed off with “If you’ve come from the UK, you are now officially upside down”.

Kiwi’s eh? Gotta love ‘em!

The scramble for the doors was very orderly, I suspect we were all feeling pretty much spaced-out, we dutifully followed the signs and were very impressed with AKL, it was colourful, clean and there was piped bird song! Chas and I joined the queue downstairs and I started texting my rellies in the UK, all of whom were glad to hear we had made it.

In comparison with LAX, AKL is a dream world, everyone was courteous, it was so clean!!! And even baggage claim was a nice experience; made all the more interesting by a lad whose rucsac was of great interest to the drug dogs…he was led away looking very unhappy.

I passed a little kiosk and a lady called out, “Welcome to New Zealand, have a coffee on us”.

“You my dear are a lifesaver”.

We grabbed our bags, hired a SIM card and headed out through gate 8 to catch the free bus to the camper van depot.

It was getting light; I took a deep breath of the warm and wonderfully scented air, stretched, yawned and turned to Chas.

“Well, better get this show on the road!”

“Too right Mon Capitan!”

It was the start of an awfully big adventure……

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