Darwin Pg 2

The plane banked suddenly and my instinctive response was to grab at the arm.  And then I laughed at myself as I was hardly going to fall out of the plane!

We straightened out, then we went up some more, then we straightened out, then we banked, then we went up some more, then we banked.  And on it went, up, down, roundabout.  Ergh!  I couldn’t look out of the window any more and as soon as the seatbelt light went off, went and almost-stood [it was shorter than me] in the ‘bathroom’.  David stood outside the door, which I hadn’t shut, and took care of me and chatted up the hostess at the same time.  He’s always been multi-tasking like that LOL

I soon felt a lot better back there, or standing, whichever one it was that improved things, and David talked me into returning to my seat.  I brought a cold wet paper towel out with me and dabbed pathetically at my neck and temples with it for the rest of the flight.  I still couldn’t look out of the window much, although I did try a few times because it was exciting and wondrous.  After a little while we swapped seats so that David could have a turn at looking out and I felt better in the other seat, so stayed there.

The hostess had said that she would come and get us and take us into the cockpit because that would make me feel better.  We’re still waiting which is a bit of a shame.

I didn’t know that turbulence happened regularly.  I thought it was something that only happened on occasional flights.  So we alternately went smoothly or bounced along.  I felt sick and went white a couple of times but managed to ‘come back’ each time.  David asked me a thousand times if I was OK and the hostesses did the magazines and drinks rounds.

Time for food.  I said no thank you.  What a fool!  David had a baby chocolate bar on his tray!  I should have said yes just so I would have got my chocolate bar hehehe.  On each of our 3 flights, the food always smelled like satay when they first opened it up back there in the depths!  David had a lunch of lasagne, chocolate cake, cheese and biscuits, the chocy bar, and 2 cups of coffee.  There was also an orange juice on his tray so I sipped on that.

More looking at scenery – cautiously in my case – and then it was time to start descending for ‘The Alice’ [Alice Springs].  Ooohhhhh!  The hostesses handed around some minties for us to chew.  More downing and banking and levelling and, this time, what seemed to me like violent shaking.  I couldn’t cope with it at all and had to shut my eyes.  I had my forefingers shoved in my ears to stop them popping, and was holding the cold towel across my face somehow.  I was just conscious of lurching around in my seat, being forced in all directions!  After a while David gave me a rough nudge, and the hostess was offering me a little sachet smelling of eucalyptus to hold in front of my nose.  This was supposed to help the ears, so I balanced this under my nose with my ‘spare’ small fingers, still with my forefingers shoved in my ears, and breathed like billyo.  What a sight I must have looked!  But then my eyes were shut so no-one could see me eh?  It all carried on still.  Would it ever stop?  There was such a bump and feeling of braking at one stage that I thought we had landed but, when I opened my eyes, we were still on a fair-ground ride, so I shut them again.  It went on and on but eventually there was another bump and, this time, I could feel terra firma under us and the buffeting stopped.  Eurgh!  Let me off this thing!

We were given 30 minutes.  We got off and walked past the aviation fuel smell of the engines and my mouth went dry.  David stopped along the path to take a photo of the plane and I spat out my mintie into the garden because it was making me feel worse and hoped he would hurry before I keeled over.  I felt so sick.  We went through the airport, went to the toilets, and then into the main foyer where I flaked out, laying on a seat and couldn’t stay awake.

Too soon, David started to say that we had to get back on the plane.  “I can’t.  I can’t!  I feel dreadful.  Isn’t there a coach?”  “No.  There’s no other way, we’ve got to go”.  “I can’t.  I can’t”.  I stood up and went green.  David said that the toilets were just there – to the left but I wouldn’t have made it.  The great outdoors was closer in the other direction! so I raced that way.  There was no garden, and I wouldn’t have made it any further anyway, so I had no choice but to throw up on the paving with all the taxi drivers lined up watching!  Why be discreet when you can get some attention?!  Thankfully it was only orange juice anyway.  I took my next dose of motion sickness tablets and David found a staff member to apologise for the mess on the paving and let them know it needed clearing up.

We walked back to the plane with me grumbling and saying ‘I can’t’ all the way.  David offered that I could wait outside the plane until the last minute.  You’ve got to be joking, I could smell the engines there and I changed my tune fast to  “Let me in!”  The only way I got back on was by resigning myself to the fact that I was just going to have to be sick to get to our holiday destination.

David said afterwards that he thought he was going to have to leave me in the Alice and sell the house to come and join me.

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