I still call Australia (my grumpy, self-interested) home.

Recently I travelled back to Australia as a pregnant woman of eight months, with my soon-to-be-two year old and numerous pieces of luggage as my sole travelling companions. I had assumed that my waddle combined with her toddle were a clear enough cry for help for any onlooker at any of the many critical points in her transit.

Times appear to have changed …..

It was at our first customs queue that things began to look shaky. Smelling faintly of vomit (us both) and wearing my t-shirt back-to-front to overcome the waft, we waited desperately in the diplomatic line for the three Korean tourists in front of us to produce the third missing passport and write something, anything on their arrival cards. At this point, my little traveller decided to lie flat on the ground, chase the customs dog and run under all the security barriers. People stared. I restrained my child by holding her, along with three other bags. Ouch. Eventually we moved forward, and by this time I think I had seen our bag go around the carousel about seven times.

Interestingly as I approached our bag, a gentleman took it off the carousel and placed it near his trolley. I was about to thank him, before I realised he was actually going to take it. I got a luggage trolley and loaded up. He returned and asked very loudly what had happened to his bag. I said I had taken it, and then had to endure a ridiculous scenario of proving my ownership to him. He merely shrugged off my questions regarding how my baggage identifiers may have applied to him … I eventually showed him my name on the barcode and he grudgingly accepted it. There was no apology or even faint embarrassment on his part; I guess it was my fault.

I perched my kid where the handbags normally go in the luggage trolley and raced to the domestic check-in counter thinking we may somehow still get on our connecting flight which was leaving in 45 minutes. I showed the nice lady from Virgin with the cat’s bum face my itinerary and she declared with some disgust that she “couldn’t touch it”. WTF? I wasn't asking her to give it a remedial massage.

So off we went to the train to make our way to the domestic terminal, unaware of what our fate would be.

The next train was in 27 minutes …. needless to say we waved at our plane from the platform as it took off. I mumbled like a crazy woman at the inefficiency of Brisbane airport and wondered aloud how many people had paid five bucks to miss their plane, like we just had.

I somehow managed to get my kid, the pram, our suitcase and other miscellaneous bags off the train and headed to the lift as fast as was pregnantly possible under the circumstances. Many people with no foreseeable need for lift-use pushed in front of me and headed down to the ground floor with their single suitcase and lazy ass, as I stood and waited. I was simply in their way, and they had their bogan holidays to get to (yes, I said it).

At the Virgin service desk I started to cry. It had nothing to do with airports or missing my plane, but I was most certainly a mess. As a result, we got on the next flight for a very small cost and the ladies were awfully nice to me. During this transaction a citizen came in from the side i.e. not from the queue, and introduced herself as such; “Hello, I’m from New Zealand.” My tears almost turned to laughter, but my general anger/fury with the world at large pushed any feelings of amusement back down to where they came from. She told us that her niece was arriving tomorrow and she had no idea which gate to meet her at. As we waited for the rest of her story to unfold, we realised this was her story. I wondered, almost aloud how she even managed to leave her house today to get to the airport. As it turns out, she was making her enquiries with the wrong airline. Godspeed my friend, I suspect it will be a long and confusing road ahead.

On board, it was all the usual things, full plane, straddling strangers who preferred to stay seated, one airsick bag for two seats, a public scolding from the cabin crew for buying my kid a seat and requesting an infant seatbelt (apparently these are mutually exclusive, and therefore we didn’t get one), kid screaming because she could not sit on my lap, kid eventually throwing up again as the plane touched down. At least I was largely prepared that time, most went in the bag and only a little bit on the Virgin seats which I diligently cleaned up, before straddling the stranger next to me one last time, desperate to get off the plane. I may have hit him in the face with the nappy bag, but it was a spatial thing more than intentional.

At last, we were in Sydney. The big smoke, my old home – but now a confusing metropolis that moves too fast and makes a lot of noise. Last time I lived there I don’t even think we had the internet connected in our house, for instance. Anyway, we were directed to Bay 10 in the taxi queue, but I thought there must have been some kind of mistake so stood in Bay 9 as it was vacant. How wrong I was, I was yelled at and quickly moved to Bay 10 where a taxi van waited for us. My load was heavy and were both weak. I think the guy cottoned on to this and was awfully gentle on both of us. He lowered the ramp and told me to get on. I am not sure how/why what happened next did – but he raised it and we were hoisted into the taxi, as though too weak to simply walk in. It was hilarious. An able-bodied, emotionally wrought woman and her pram getting the hoist into a maxi taxi.

I arrived at my destination, burst into tears and got us both out of vomit-stained clothes. We’d made it.

Some days later, I had to travel again. I was not expecting anything nearly as inconvenient/arduous; it was just a simple Sydney-Brisbane flight. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Qantas terminal at Sydney, but it looks more like a Mac outlet these days than an airline. Just lots of big open spaces, and people floating about checking in their luggage by retinal scan or some such thing. I desperately searched for a dated/vintage staff member to help me. After checking in the luggage, we went through security where the kid did her usual body flat-line on the floor while people pretended not to notice, and I took off items of clothing, got out the laptop etc etc. It was a blast! 


We went to a café, ordered a milkshake and sandwich, which required me to leave my child, computer, cash and bags unattended at numerous moments, as no-one could bring anything to my table; “sorry, we don’t do that”. We sat and drank and I attempted to give my lady some Panadol to help with her ears on the flight (doctor’s advice). After her screams and back arches, I managed to get her in a position where I could get some inside her mouth, she swallowed, sat up, and then threw up all over both of us. Just another plane ride really.

When it was time to board, we stood in the line. Various men on very important business calls came and stood alongside us … “hello, do we know each other?” before then proceeding ahead of us, as is their way. I became the crazy mumbling expectant mother again and declared that allocated seating simply was not enough assurance that we were going to get on the plane … we had to push in! As we got to the staff/boarding passes point, my lady flat-lined again on the ground. It’s her specialty at critical transit moments. As I was bending down with my three bags to pick her up, several more important businessmen passed us, and in order to do so – they had to STEP OVER HER, which they did. They stepped over her, as though she was a newspaper.

I had no recourse, and nor did I really want it. But when one offender was attempting to go against traffic on the plane to put a very large inconvenient box somewhere, my huge belly and nappy bag may have knocked him off course.

The stress! It was so nice to come back to PNG where everything is slow and unreliable and as a result, people are in no real hurry, do not mind helping strangers and smile. Everyone smiles. I wanted to hug the guy on the tarmac with the orange headphones as he gave us that uniquely PNGian nod/salute combo.

A strange feeling of familiarity and affection came over me yesterday as I walked in the baking hot sun with my family towards the terminal, past the Air Nuigini planes that were no doubt delayed by at least 1.5 hours, past the welcoming band that play the same songs on shedule for every flight (whether or not the flight actually arrives at that time), through to the short queue where the lady smiled and gave my kid a stamp on her hand.

I think it’s probably a first – but the slow tropical life with all of its bizarre characteristics felt more familiar to me than the hectic pace of grumpy Australia.