Maybe time to start heading home

So at last we are on the way to Australia and New Zealand to see my family, I know this is my last opportunity for a long time to see Mum and all my brothers, sisters and their families and its important for me to spend some time with them while I can.

We left Seattle Monday evening on Virgin America and had a lovely flight, just as we landed I started to chat to the guy in the seat between Joe and I. He turned out to be a manager with Virgin Australia so I was able to ask him if I would be able to power my computer on the flight. Apparently not as we were in cattle class. When we found the checkin desk he was there waiting for us and instructed the girl checking us in to find us a good seat. When we boarded our Virgin Australia flight we found ourselves in Premium economy – the equivalent to business class on United. Woo Hoo – I will keep chatting up strange men 🙂 It was sooo nice, great food, great service, nice big seats and hardly anyone in the section so I snagged two seats and had lots of extra room to sleep. What a wonderful start to our journey.

We woke to breakfast and the brightening sky and a strange colored storm, white fluffy clouds floating on a sandy sea. The captain came on and told us we were heading into a sand storm and that they would only be able to land if they had more than 600 meters of visibility. We started heading into the storm, outside it became redder and redder, an eerie light in the cabin but you could see nothing. We started watching the map in front of our seats, counting down the altitude, we were at 400ft from landing, still unable to see anything, when the engine roared and we headed straight back up. They told us if we would try again and if we couldn’t land then we would be diverted to Brisbane – exactly the wrong direction from where we were headed. The second time was a winner and we landed to sighs of relief and clapping from all the passengers. As we taxied in we couldn’t even see the terminal or the other side of the airport. Only an hour delay and we were on our way to Melbourne. We listened to the news later that evening and found out that we were one of the very few flights that landed in a sand storm that was the worst they have seen in 70 years.