LIFE UNLEASHED

Nearly a year after leaving Sydney we found ourselves heading home to Manly.  Little did we know, the adventure was not quite finished.  After a fantastic dinner of mussels on Cottlesloe Beach in Perth we boarded our plane the next morning excited about going home and reminiscing about our adventures past.

BUMP BUMP.  A bit of turbulence.

“Would all passengers & crew members sit down immediately”  the pilot announced.

That was a bit brief, I thought.  But when 20 minutes past without turbulence and the seat belt sign went off I went back to my book without a second thought.  Ok, maybe my second thought was that the pilot needed to improve his ‘pilot-side’ manner.

BUMP BUMP.  About 20 minutes from landing.

“Would all passengers & crew members fasten seatbelts” the pilot announced.  “There’s a bit of weather in Sydney” I hear a stewardess say to a fellow passenger.

Oh well, we’ve flown in snow & wind in North America.  Can’t be that bad.

JIGGLE, JIGGLE, BUMP, BUMP, WOOOOOSHHHHH.  Seems a bit windy. The sky all of sudden goes black and we notice rain outside the window.  Followed by a few cracks of thunder.  Oh and lightning too.  That’s when the plane starts swaying side to side.  That’s when I grab Brad’s hand.  The kids around us are laughing.  It’s like a roller coaster afterall.

After a few more big BUMPS our plane drops a few hundred meters down.  Ooops.  I guess the pilot is finding the weather a bit worse than ground control told him.  That’s followed by the plane tipping sharply to one side.  By this point my hand has taken to gripping Brad’s and the tears are streaming.  Admitably, I’m also a bit angry too –after 30 flights this year it’s going to end on the last one!!!!  NO WAY.

This continues for 15 minutes as we fight through the clouds and past the increasing lightning outside the window.  You’d think when the landing gear came down we’d feel relieved but not on this flight.  As the landing gear deploys there is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard in my life on an airplane.  Like an engine ripping open or a train plowing into the plane.  HMMM.  I guess it’s a bit windy out there.  Do we still have landing gear?

As you can gather from the fact that I’m writing this post, the plane did eventually land.  I should correct – the LAST plane of the evening eventually landed as once off the plane we noticed all other flights had been diverted.

“Just wanted to thank you all for your understanding during landing.  We do our best in weather but obviously there were some challenges up there” the pilot announces after we’ve reached the gate.  I think he was too scared to say anything before that point.

I came close to kissing the ground.  WELCOME HOME!!!!!!

We then stood around for 11/2 hours waiting for our luggage because it was considered too dangerous for the ground staff to unload the luggage.

Too dangerous to unload the luggage but not to dangerous to land the plane.

The next morning we awoke to what seemed like Armageddon.  The Sydney dust storm turned the whole city orange and made many worry the world was ending.  As for me, I looked out the window, said ‘Hmm. That’s interesting” and went back to sleep.  After the night before, not even the end of the world seemed all that bad.