Beginning a journey to Australia by flying the wrong way — north-east, to Amsterdam — looks a little unhinged, and I’ll own that. The honest reason is money: long-haul fares out of several European cities undercut London by enough to matter, and I’m not too proud to chase the saving.
There’s a quieter reason too. It was a Dutchman who first joined this far corner of the world to the European map. Abel Tasman, sailing in the 1640s for the Dutch East India Company, became the first European to sight New Zealand, and Tasmania still carries his name. His ships actually set out from the company’s Asian base at Batavia — modern Jakarta — rather than from the Netherlands itself, but the whole enterprise was Amsterdam’s, and there’s a certain rightness to pointing ourselves at the underside of the world from the country that once did the same.
So: onwards to Nederland. We left from London City Airport, which I love without reservation. It is small in the best way — security doesn’t grind down your spirit — and the flying in and out is, frankly, a little thrilling. That isn’t only nerves.
London City is wedged into a tight pocket of the Docklands, so aircraft drop into it on a 5.5-degree glideslope — nearly twice the three degrees used almost everywhere else. The angle is steep enough that both the aeroplane and the pilots need special certification to fly it, which is precisely why the take-offs and landings feel more alive than usual.
The terminal has a character all its own: a single main lounge, mostly solo businessmen, very few children, little conversation — a room of people bent over their phones. A long corridor runs down to the gates, with decent seats and, if you look up, good views of the runway.
The crew boarded late and we pushed back twenty minutes behind schedule, but the flight itself was smooth: up through the cloud blanket into clear sky and a long late-afternoon sunset, and then, sooner than felt fair, back down again. A little turbulence as we sank into the white nothingness, and then the world resolved — fields, roads, cars moving like ants, the runway lights coming up red, then green, then blue. Touchdown was a solid thud, the brakes pitching us forward, the whole thing pleasingly physical. A long taxi, the chunky control tower sliding into view, and we were at Schiphol, fifteen minutes late.
The internet had been dramatic about Schiphol — avoid it if you can, and if you can’t, arrive absurdly early and steel yourself. The reality was gentler: the way to immigration was briefly confusing, the non-EU queue was long, and after that it was fine. Worth knowing, as you stand in that hall, that you are standing below the sea — Schiphol sits about three metres beneath sea level on the bed of the Haarlemmermeer, a lake drained in 1852. The water was pumped away; the ground it left behind now carries one of Europe’s busiest airports.
The hotel shuttle eventually gathered us from stop A9. We checked in and ate at the hotel restaurant — Moldovan chicken soup, roasted vegetables, sweet potato fries — which was better than it had any need to be. The single glass of Malbec was not.
It is cold in Amsterdam, and after weeks of cold and rain at home we are thoroughly ready for warmth. In truth this was never a city stop; it’s a positioning move, a night on the way to a long-haul flight tomorrow. The real distance begins in the morning.
Further reading: Abel Tasman’s voyages · Why London City’s approach is so steep