Five minutes to take off
Warning!!! For those of you who get bored easily, I’d skip this post. There’s only so many moves you can watch on a plane. This post filed in some of that other time!
Well, here we are onboard QR 907 safe and sound, just five minutes from take off. Most of us arrived at Kingsford Smith airport, at the designated time, checked in our luggage without problems and bid our parents and loved ones a fond farewell. I think for some parents it was a sadder occasion than for their kids.
We cleared customs with only one hitch, one Venturer had a 200ml bottle of hand sanitiser instead of the regulation 100ml and a full bottle of water. This was despite our advertising all the restrictions in the newsletter. They do say Scouts learn by doing! This works for most things, other than hanging of the end of a cliff on a knot you haven’t practiced.
Once through customs, it was time for some lunch. Interestingly enough, the Venturers wanted to go to Maccas (obviously getting ready to fully embrace Scottish culture) while the Scouts preferred a more refined cuisine in the form of sushi. This made the decision easy, we set a meeting time for the Vinnies at the departure gate and Elizabeth (the other leader) and I joined the Scouts for some sushi.
13:50 and the Vennies kept up their end of the bargain and met us at the departure gate. They even surprised us by hearing the change of gate number announcement and turning up at the new gate. Time to board.
We are the first of two groups leaving Australia for Scotland and Ireland to attend the first Irish national Jamboree in 10 years. The second group are destined to leave Melbourne about half an hour after us. From a Facebook post, it looks like they all made it to the airport in time and were soon to board as well.
Our group whole group comprises of seven Venturers, who are with us, 10 Scouts of whom we have three, and six leaders. One with me (Elizabeth), two leaving from Melbourne and two who are already on their way. One of these two, Adrian, who left at 6:30 this morning from Darwin, didn’t have quite as easy a ride as we did. Adrian arrived at the airport in Scout uniform (Scouts always travel in uniform) only to be questioned for several minutes by customs about who he was and what he was doing. I have to say it’s the first time I’ve heard of such a thing, but eventually they let him leave.
Two and a half hours in and we’re flying over Alice Springs. Unfortunately, two and a half down means we still have twelve and a half to go - and that’s just to Doha, our stopover point. After two hours there, we change planes and have another seven hour flight to Edinburgh - a long trip.
A quick check on the Scouts and most are content. Why wouldn’t you be, a three course meal, hundreds of movies and TV shows to watch and a gaming console right at your fingertips. There were two with slight headaches, but they assured me, they were going to try and have a sleep. One of them was to polite to put her seat back because a regular passenger was sitting behind her (Scouts are great aren’t they?), but a quick chat to the gentleman and I was able to assure the Scout that he was fine with it.
After a long 15 hour flight, we landed at Doha international airport. Spirits were higher than was expected given the lack of sleep. Doha is the home of the next Football World Cup and despite it being four years out, from their advertising they want to get the biggest business benefit from it. We have a two hour layover here before our next flight. The airport was huge but rather sparse. Not a whole lot to do other that to pose next to a twenty meter high, wooden carving of the next World Cup mascot. Being a youth led (adult supported) organisation, one of our Vennies (Conner) said he would find us somewhere to go. After walking around the airport for 10 mins, it became pretty obvious that he was walking us around in circles (just for fun). A quick vote amount the group and a new leader was elected who took us down to the food court. At $16 each, take away hamburgers were off the menu. This gave us a chance to have a chat about the jobs the Venturers were going to do at the Jamboree. While Scouts get a full week of activities, Venturers have three days of activities and three days of supporting them. There’s a vide range of activities to choose from and two of our Vennies have already been allocated to the official media team for the Jamboree. They’ll be tasked with photographing the whole event and and putting together the official video. Well done Australia!
We arrive at the gate about 40 minutes before we board and a few of the Venturers took the opportunity to have a power nap. The Scouts were wide awake playing cheat.
We soon boarded QR031 at 1:00 am and settled in for a 7 hour journey to our final destination and our first port of call - Edinburgh.
Well, here we are onboard QR 907 safe and sound, just five minutes from take off. Most of us arrived at Kingsford Smith airport, at the designated time, checked in our luggage without problems and bid our parents and loved ones a fond farewell. I think for some parents it was a sadder occasion than for their kids.
We cleared customs with only one hitch, one Venturer had a 200ml bottle of hand sanitiser instead of the regulation 100ml and a full bottle of water. This was despite our advertising all the restrictions in the newsletter. They do say Scouts learn by doing! This works for most things, other than hanging of the end of a cliff on a knot you haven’t practiced.
Once through customs, it was time for some lunch. Interestingly enough, the Venturers wanted to go to Maccas (obviously getting ready to fully embrace Scottish culture) while the Scouts preferred a more refined cuisine in the form of sushi. This made the decision easy, we set a meeting time for the Vinnies at the departure gate and Elizabeth (the other leader) and I joined the Scouts for some sushi.
13:50 and the Vennies kept up their end of the bargain and met us at the departure gate. They even surprised us by hearing the change of gate number announcement and turning up at the new gate. Time to board.
We are the first of two groups leaving Australia for Scotland and Ireland to attend the first Irish national Jamboree in 10 years. The second group are destined to leave Melbourne about half an hour after us. From a Facebook post, it looks like they all made it to the airport in time and were soon to board as well.
Our group whole group comprises of seven Venturers, who are with us, 10 Scouts of whom we have three, and six leaders. One with me (Elizabeth), two leaving from Melbourne and two who are already on their way. One of these two, Adrian, who left at 6:30 this morning from Darwin, didn’t have quite as easy a ride as we did. Adrian arrived at the airport in Scout uniform (Scouts always travel in uniform) only to be questioned for several minutes by customs about who he was and what he was doing. I have to say it’s the first time I’ve heard of such a thing, but eventually they let him leave.
Two and a half hours in and we’re flying over Alice Springs. Unfortunately, two and a half down means we still have twelve and a half to go - and that’s just to Doha, our stopover point. After two hours there, we change planes and have another seven hour flight to Edinburgh - a long trip.
A quick check on the Scouts and most are content. Why wouldn’t you be, a three course meal, hundreds of movies and TV shows to watch and a gaming console right at your fingertips. There were two with slight headaches, but they assured me, they were going to try and have a sleep. One of them was to polite to put her seat back because a regular passenger was sitting behind her (Scouts are great aren’t they?), but a quick chat to the gentleman and I was able to assure the Scout that he was fine with it.
After a long 15 hour flight, we landed at Doha international airport. Spirits were higher than was expected given the lack of sleep. Doha is the home of the next Football World Cup and despite it being four years out, from their advertising they want to get the biggest business benefit from it. We have a two hour layover here before our next flight. The airport was huge but rather sparse. Not a whole lot to do other that to pose next to a twenty meter high, wooden carving of the next World Cup mascot. Being a youth led (adult supported) organisation, one of our Vennies (Conner) said he would find us somewhere to go. After walking around the airport for 10 mins, it became pretty obvious that he was walking us around in circles (just for fun). A quick vote amount the group and a new leader was elected who took us down to the food court. At $16 each, take away hamburgers were off the menu. This gave us a chance to have a chat about the jobs the Venturers were going to do at the Jamboree. While Scouts get a full week of activities, Venturers have three days of activities and three days of supporting them. There’s a vide range of activities to choose from and two of our Vennies have already been allocated to the official media team for the Jamboree. They’ll be tasked with photographing the whole event and and putting together the official video. Well done Australia!
We arrive at the gate about 40 minutes before we board and a few of the Venturers took the opportunity to have a power nap. The Scouts were wide awake playing cheat.
We soon boarded QR031 at 1:00 am and settled in for a 7 hour journey to our final destination and our first port of call - Edinburgh.
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