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At nearly 3000 metres above sea level, flying at close to 180 mph, carrying 300 terrified passengers whom have no idea what is happening as the aircraft decends below mountain peaks and into the cloud cover, and you’ve got to land a plane in the middle of a capital city. Due to the high altitude, you must maintain a higher velocity to keep the plane from ploughing into the buildings a few hundred feet below you. The runway itself has a ‘hump’ in the middle which means that when the wheels hit the runway you are going uphill and when you finally stop you are facing downhill. Although these are all constant, now throw a couple of variables into the equation and you have one of the highest risk airports in the world. Rain, hail and wind all make this a difficult piece of tarmac to land a few 100 tonne aircraft on, but when this is done at night…. it truly becomes exciting, The runway itself doesn’t have sufficient enough drainage so when it is raining, the pilots have to literally slam the aircraft into the runway to break the water tension and stop the aircraft from aqua planning off the runway into the residential and commercial buildings that surround the airport just past the perimiter fences.

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We have arrived in Punta Arena, the gateway to the southern tip of Chile, home of the Torres Del Paine National park, and is the southern most city in Chile, A short stop-over for our next destination, Puerto Natales. As we made our final approach into Punta Arenas international terminal we were hit with sever turbulence. The plane was buffeted around as the powerful winds that howl across the south pacific finally made landfall. It became apparent that this was not going to be one of those beach holidays where we could absorb copious amounts of vitamin D and moan about the sand in every crevice. This would be a holiday where we could finally utilise those thermals and woollens that we had carried for the past few weeks……

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Endurance is defined in the English Dictionary as “the ability to continue doing something difficult or painful over a long period of time”, and tolerance “willingness to allow people to do, say, or believe what they want without criticizing or punishing them the degree to which someone can suffer pain, difficulty etc without being harmed or damaged”. (more…)

We left with heavy hearts as we gave a goodbye kiss to our four legged companion with a nervous lick. This was by far the hardest thing about going away. The packing, the renting of the house, the stress of renovating a laundry was small in comparison. There is something about the look that our four legged friends gives you that has the ability to tear your heart out. Tears flowed freely, but it was not a goodbye, but more of a “see you in a while”. The flight out of Canberra was an earlierish one, but was met head on with a farewell from Vicki.

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Leaving Canberra on the 31^st of January 2008 for an epic journey we will arrive into our first destination of the country of Sydney Mascot Airport. Upon arriving at Sydney Mascot Airport we will begin exploring the fascinating cultures that one might find in this strange country. Rumours have it that there are strange creatures that set traps for the unknowing tourists that frequent this strange place. Occasionally the tourists that wander this Mascot Airport country are tempted inside of these traps and make a strange transaction and reappear outside of the trap with additional baggage (in case they were not carrying enough to start with). My fingers are crossed that we are able to resist the temptation of acquiring additional baggage from these horrible creatures, however I feel the temptation of this strange thing called “Duty Free” may be too great….. (more…)