| BALI STORY 2000 - Getting There. |
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| Garuda Airlines 'Airbus Industrie A-330' leaving Adelaide Airport, 2000. |
| Up a bit after 5. AM that is. Been awake since the toilet trip at about 3 anyway. Max wakes up and is still groggy as I get dressed to take him for his normal walk at a somewhat abnormal time. He doesn’t care – a walk is a walk in his world and nothing starts the day off better. He follows so close that I can feel his ears brushing on my ankles as I walk around the house. It’s dark and cold outside. We don’t mind the dark. He’s grey in colour and I loose sight of him as soon as I let him off the lead at the oval. That’s not a worry because he knows the check points where we sometimes deviate from the well known track and will wait for me to point if we are going to change directions. Back home about 7 am, Claire is up. Get breakfast as usual. Check e-mail while I’m eating it as usual. Leave a farewell message for friends. Not usual and I smile inwardly as I do it. Finish packing and close the bags. Max knows now. Start loading bags into wrong car. Get the message and correct. No 1 daughter and Max get into car and off to the airport. At least this year we wont feel the need to apologise to a taxi driver for only taking a short 2 km trip. Max will be quite happy in the car while we leave and not so upset when Em returns and drives him home. Our departure in the Garuda Airbus Industrie A-330 is delayed 20 minutes. It’s nervous waiting. What do you do? You’ve said your goodbyes and checked the door into the departure lounge, gone through the list of things to be done at home while you’re away. Mainly you just stand mute and look. Eventually the door opens and you part with mutual relief I think. Off to the lounge and eventually to board. My seat is 38A, on the left side against the window and towards the back of the aft section. The plane taxis to the beach end of the runway and turns onto the runway. 10.10 am. No pause, just that surge of acceleration, the rumble of the wheels felt through the seat and the floor but not heard over the deafening roar of the two Rolls Royce engines. This is a roar that is to stay with us for nearly 5 hours before abating as we descend into Ngurah Rai airport. I expect the take off to be over the city but we begin to turn left soon after clearing the airfield, climbing at an almost unbelievable angle that I don’t recall from other aircraft in the past. The turn takes us over our house, or at lease looking down the left hand wing as we turn it seems that we are over the house. I can see the clear plastic sheets in the workshop roof quite clearly. The trees in the back yard rise above the shadow of the house stretched out in the morning sunlight. The turn straightens and we head almost due north up the coast of Gulf St. Vincent. Over the ICI salt pans and familiar fishing grounds at Outer Harbour where the sand drifts are clearly defined in the shallow water. If only they were as clear from our boat when we were looking for productive fishing drops! The other side of the gulf is also easily visible beyond the mangrove swamps that stretch up the eastern side of the gulf. The ground becomes a patchwork of many coloured fields, greens and yellow mainly, with an occasional brown. Spencers Gulf appears as we pass Port Wakefield and begin a left-hand turn towards Bali. We have never flown this way, always having gone on the round-the-world route with Ansett or Qantas via Melbourne at least. That route seems to always have a lot of cloud cover and is pretty dull, colourless and, eventually, boring. The enchantments of this track, up the gulf and then turn half left, are the variety of the scenery (even later as we cross the desert) and the clear skies which enables you to see. Time will tell if they are enduring enchantments I suppose. Port Pirie and Whyalla come and go under our left side wing, Port Augusta seen down through the windows on the right as we are allowed to walk around. The shallows and the ship channel are clearly visible. Past Whyalla the lines of the Stuart Highway heading north and the Trans Continental Railway going north of west at this stage, are visible landmarks and show that our track is north east. The occasional pattern of fenced paddocks quickly gives way to endless scrub, marked only by red tracks. The video screens along the cabin relay a steady stream of flight information before the movies start. I am curious and find this of interest. We are at 10,500 meters or 34,000 feet, travelling at 792 kph and we will arrive in Bali in 4 hours and 11 minutes. Maps of both large and small scale show our little ‘plane progressing across southern Australia, or across a much larger map of this part of the world, toward our destination. We are all sitting in a line directly across the cabin, which makes conversation impossible from end to end due to the noise. Some of us occasionally meet at the rear toilet/crew bay where we have a ‘hooligan soup’ or two. Urgent messages to see this and look at that are relayed across, mouth to ear. Into the heart of central Australia the earth patterns are wandering black lines against red. Shadows show an occasional change of elevation as a ridge appears or a gully is deep enough to be shaded along its bottom. These are the drainage patterns marked by vegetation along (presumably) dry river and creek beds in the Gibson Desert. Occasional red roads go straight towards the horizon where they disappear in the hazy mists of the distance. The graceful arc of the silver and grey wing rises from the yellowish grey of the inversion layer along the horizon up to the bright winglet at the tip that contrasts against the deep blue of the sky above us. Multicoloured salt lakes in whites, pinks, red, buff, tan and lemon yellow appear sharp against brick red sand drifts and a camouflage pattern of blackish green strips of scrub. How far out from the aircraft at this height can you see into the distance before the features are lost in the haze? If we are at 12,000 meters can we see 12,000 meters away from our track across the ground? This would mean that the line of sight angles downwards at 45 degrees if we ignore the earth’s curvature. It seems to me that I can see at a shallower angle than this. Not as little as 30 degrees down from the horizontal, I think the yellowish mist is at about that angle, but perhaps 35 or 40 degrees down. If I am right how far am I seeing? How far away are those distant lakes with the black borders? I resolve to ask old friend Ralph who’s a boffin and does lots of flying with a laser mapping mob. He’ll come up with an answer in a wink, and he’ll probably be right too. Is that meandering track the stock route from Godfrey Tank to Liberal Well? Is that patch Tobin Lake or Percival Lakes? And there are two roads that actually intersect! What meetings might occur at that lonely place? Do drivers stop when they arrive here? Does one give way to the other on his or her right if two vehicles actually arrive together? Have two vehicles ever arrived together? A station property appears just under the haze. As it approaches sheds are clearly visible, and a dirt airstrip stands out in a broad stroke of colour. Many tracks lead out from the hub of the buildings, meandering away into the scrub. From here there are no visible reasons for their changes of direction, seemingly at random but probably not so. I look up again from making notes. It is gone! Were there people down there looking up as I was looking down? Did anyone see our track and remark on it? Are we leaving a track to be seen? Ah ha! Lunch. Now here’s the acid test. I select the prawns from the menu, I think they were described as '‘spicy'’, rather than the chicken. Accompanied with a white wine that I’ve never heard of but which turns out to be a nice surprise. And so are the prawns. They are very tasty and the salad is crisp and cold with a good dressing. Prawns seem to be the favourite all around me and everyone agrees that they are good, even magnificent for airline food, certainly not to be complained about anywhere. The dessert is chocky sponge pud with raspberry sauce. Sweet for some but the two and a half that I had were all OK. Some of us are still boozing but I’ve chickened out on this trip of the refreshment cart and gone for lemonade. There are no complaints about the regularity of its visits, with those who developed a thirst between trips quickly served at the push of the cabin crew button on the seat handle. Full marks to Garuda. Our concerns about flying cheaply now all dispelled. The scenery out the cabin window is pure central Australia in all of its spectacular desert wilderness best. Row upon row of sand hills, standing in serried ranks off to the murky horizon. Silver-grey salt lakes on a bright copper background. Occasional green-grey trails wander across the canvas. Dull colours, but sharply contrasting one with the other, and colourful none the less. For over half an hour the sandhills march on. This must be the Great Sandy Desert. It is great. The red turns to a bright coral pink but the ridges go on. It looks far more fascinating than the whorls of dots on the map that I am following. More of the same and yet more of the same follows more of the same. Then the roads begin again, red lines through the mandelbrot patterns of scrub and sand. The coast must be near. Will I see enough shape to pinpoint it on the map? There it is. An enormous pattern of sweeping scallops and deep indentations pointing to what must be rivers. Wide bays and narrow inlets, with short lengths of cliffs separated by splashes of broad cream coloured sandy beaches edged with white surf separate what must be deep swathes of mangroves. I have no idea where we are and the scale of the map is obviously no help in pointing to the reality of the landscape shapes seen out of the window. Never-the-less imagination reigns supreme and I convince myself, with the aid of the little plane on the map covering the video screen, that we are over the coast near Broome. But if the great circle route takes us north of a straight line on the map then we are nearer Derby and King Sound. If southwards then closer to Lagrange Bay at the top end of Eightymile Beach pointing further south towards Port Headland. (The trip home suggests that this might be the more accurate location.) Magical names of mysterious places – heard of but unknown although clearly pictured in the imagination. The curve of the wing, lifting towards that elegant winglet at the tip, has remained rock steady against the azure of the sky for so long that it comes as a bit of a surprise when there is unexpected turbulence which lightly shakes the seat as we cross the coast. The blue and featureless expanse of the Indian Ocean swallows the land features that I can point at. Somewhere between Rowley Shoals and Scott Reef I’m sure. (I can imagine Ralph the Rabbit reaching for the LADS maps I’m sure he would have created with DSTO surveys he was doing before retiring.) The ailerons on the trailing edge of the wing have not perceptibly moved for as long as I have been able to stare at them. We seem suspended and immobilised. Absolutely static in a world consisting of dark blue sea and deep blue sky with that thin yellowish haze marking the boundary. We seem to hang in that line between space and sea. Only the steady roar of passing air and jet engines establish life, motion and reality beyond the window. Then, at the precise time that the toilet called, turbulence began. It is difficult to control bodily functions when the whole world between the incredibly close walls of an aircraft comfort station is pitching and rolling. It would be incredibly embarrassing to miss. Perhaps the enclosing size is designed deliberately to keep one facing the right direction and more or less upright. Relief at last. Stagger to the safety of the seat and collapse into its welcoming security. Below us those little puffy cotton balls of clouds stand out against the sea and the streaky white washes that appear to move above the more defined clouds. Where do the cotton balls come from? What suddenly creates them here in the unchanging, featureless emptiness of sky and sea? The clouds begin to disappear but the turbulence continues with the wing tip now describing vertical arcs across the sky, dipping down towards that yellow haze and then rising into the blue. The ailerons are now moving perceptibly. The engine and wind noises continue without change. I have spilt the toilet perfume over me (I only meant to splash the wash basin surround.) and I stink. I think everyone is looking at me as they walk past in the aisle, wondering just what I have done that merits this excess. The immigration and customs forms are brought around. Confusion, and when filling it in I make an unforgivable blunder of blatant honesty without thinking. I must ask for another one. What will they think? Will they want the old one to inspect? The request is met without even a tremor of an eyebrow or a discernible crease of the immaculate forehead. The loudspeaker rasps into life at a pace, volume and pitch that each makes nonsense of understanding. What is being said? Even when it is repeated in English I can make no words recognisable from the accent. I have yet to become accustomed to the Asian pitch, and will find out that I am not to do so for the whole holiday. The movies are finished (the first one makes me chuckle aloud here and there as indeed it does again on the return flight) and the earphones are collected. The little plane appears on the big map again and flight data begins to roll through its cycle. 39,000 feet, 835 kph ground speed, time to destination 34 minutes. The picture of the little aeroplane is just below the name ‘Denpasar’. We are nearly there! Suddenly the engine/air noise dies to a whisper of its former self. In the silence people look at each other and remarkably change to normal speech volume in mid conversation. The fuselage tilts down. The seat belt sign comes on with its accompanying gongs. The video information is in English, Bahasa Indonesian and Japanese I think. Denpasar is 289 km away, with a temperature of 31 degrees Celsius. I can almost feel the warmth. How marvellous. We are on a long glide path to Bali. The pattern of the re-appeared cotton wool coalesces into broad sheets with dimpled tops. The aircraft banks left and then right for no apparent reason. Then a long sweeping bank to the right begins with the wing tip on my side climbing up into the sky, well above the now clearly defined horizon and I lose sight of the sea. Through the window on the far side I can see only cloud tops. The air is calm and smooth at first, then little tremors again. The clouds are in layers, one moving over the other as we pass, but the surface of the sea remains featureless. This is so peaceful! A sensation of just quietly floating (well almost if you can push the low noise of the passing air into the background) with only an occasional slight tremor in the floor to underline the reality of our motion which is actually quite fast. This is a proper way to approach Paradise; respectfully and peacefully. 714 kph ground speed – (444 mph) – 55 km to go – (41 miles) – 15 minutes. The flaps lower to their first stage and the noise and vibration increases slightly, the airframe trembling. The nose lowers to maintain airspeed as the aircraft sinks more quickly through the cloud. A long banking turn to the right and as we straighten out waves intermittently appear on the surface of the sea. Forehead presses close to the perspex window, peering as far forward as possible for the first glimpse of our destination. The little plane at the end of the red line on the video visibly jerks forward, closer to ‘DENPASAR’. Steamy clouds obscure the view briefly as the flaps go down further with an hydraulic whir. Similar noises terminating in a distinct thump as the landing gear goes down and finally locks into place. A line of surf appears forward in the distance, stark white against the sparkling deep blue sea surface that begins to turn turquoise over patches of sand within the darker coral reefs. The wake of a little boat powering along in the same direction as us and even smaller prahus or jukungs, traditional local fishing boats now devoid of their traditional crabs-claw sails, leave outboard motor trails in long loops as they troll for fish. We approach low and slow for a minute or so then, forward under the wing tip, appears the breakers of the Tuban reef just off the end of the runway that juts out into the sea at this western end. For what seems a long time we hang over the runway which flashes by, then thump and wobble, the deceleration of heavy braking and reverse thrust from the engines cause bodies to strain forward against the restraining seat belts. We seem to slow only just at the end of the runway and turn quickly into the last run-off leading to the taxi strip. Left turn again and we retrace our landing path back towards the terminal. My view now is across the airfield to the bordering banana trees and coconut palms rising over low, leafy growth and rice fields rising up the slight slope into the distance. How picture book, Hollywood, tropical, typical Bali! To complete the Hollywood atmosphere there is an old, vintage looking biplane parked at the edge of the runway. It is more remarkable because it is painted, totally, a bright lolly pink. We stop short of the terminal buildings and covered stairways are wheeled up to the doors while buses follow quickly to their bottom ends. We gather luggage from the lockers and join the slow queue to leave. As we near the doors the warm air surrounds us and perspiration pops out on foreheads chilled from the plane’s airconditioning. A short ride to the immigration building and we join the short lines forming at each counter. We have arrived, and it feels so good. Filo 2.10.00 |
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| . . . graceful arc of the silver and grey wing rises from the yellowish grey of the inversion along the horizon to the bright winglet at the tip that contrasts against the deep blue of the sky above . . . |
| * take you back to our Home page - * take you on to Day 1 in Bali - Day 1 covers the drama of the short ride from the airport to the Sheraton, the things that just don't work in Bali - no matter which hotel you're in, "Pool side"?, money changing and - what comes next? * take you to more photos of our first four days at the Sheraton Nusa Indah in Nusa Dua. |
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