Twenty-two hours in the air between Amsterdam and Sydney, and Cathay Pacific has done the carrying. I’m writing this from 35,000 feet somewhere above Darwin. M is soundly asleep and I am quietly resentful of it; I’ve been trying to follow for hours, but my brain has firmly declined.
This is the second leg now, Hong Kong to Sydney. The first — Amsterdam to Hong Kong — was about as good as long-haul gets: the food was genuinely good, the service warm, the whole thing smooth from wheels-up to wheels-down. Then came the scramble, a half-run through Hong Kong to make the connection with not much time to spare. A minor cardio event, but we made it, so on we go.
This leg has been less kind. Sleep won’t come, and the air won’t settle. The crew and the food are still doing their best, but it’s hard to give a meal your full attention while the aircraft is being shrugged about over the Timor Sea like a load in a washing machine.
There may be a culprit, and it has a name. Off the coast below lie the Tiwi Islands, and above them, on almost every afternoon of the wet season, a colossal thunderstorm builds so punctually that meteorologists have set their watches by it for decades. “Hector the Convector” climbs past nineteen kilometres — tall enough to nudge the stratosphere — and is reckoned one of the most dependable big storms on Earth. Wartime pilots used its cloud as a landmark; scientists still use it as an open-air laboratory. We seem to be skirting the edge of its weather, which would explain the churn.
Perhaps three hours left before Sydney. I have rarely wanted to land quite so much.
Further reading: Hector, the thunderstorm that arrives at 3pm