Travel The Hangar Travel Thread

[Doss]

Nice.

Where is lake Manapouri?

Not far from Te Anau; about 20km south of it. Beautiful spot; our hike there was along one of the lake beaches, waves crashing ashore with surprising force because of the wind.

 

[DERO]

Probably a little bit self-indulgent but I thought I’d post a couple more photos for y’all. My kids when not being carried up the steep terrain did a great job ofpboto-bombing. Whilst we could not do as much “tramping” as we would have liked, we still managed to get to a lot of the good stuff.

 

[HirdyLannister]

On route to Austria, Ireland and Norway for 5 weeks. Will post some snowy pics!

I'm no photographer but here are some from my uncles place in Austria and northern Norway where the gf parents live.

 

[monty1104]

Not as exotic as some, but I was really taken by how nice Smith’s Beach, Phillip Island is.

 

[raskolnikov]

Have just booked Europe for three weeks in April. Flying into Munich. Not really sure where I'll go. Open to suggestions. I'm flying via Melbourne and get back to Melbourne on the 24th so I can go to Anzac Day the next day.

 

[raskolnikov]

Thinking at this stage of East Germany (Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden) as well as Poland (Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw).

 

[GUMBLETRON]

It's all close enough together that you needn't confine yourself to just a couple of countries. Vienna and Prague are both worth the visit.

On the flipside, I'd love one day to just spend a month bouncing around little Bavarian villages, eating schnitzel, sipping beers and enjoying the mountains.

 

[Zephyr Spirally]

A photo I took in Agrigento, Sicily, last week.
It was sublime.

 

[boncer34]

Vietnam is an amazing place to visit.

 

[tesla1962]

In the heart of Calvados country - will seek out an iconic Tarte Tatin later

 

[Zephyr Spirally]

Ive just spent 7 weeks in Italy, often at near zero temps.
I have just sat down by a pool in Singapore. It’s beautiful, breezy, warm and I’m only wearing one layer of clothes. It is absolute bliss.

 

[Zephyr Spirally]

This is the English part of the trip. Not Italy!

 

[boncer34]

Does anyone else have a fear of flying?

 

[Lore]

Does anyone else have a fear of flying?

I don’t have a fear of flying. But I have a fear of crash landing and after the last time, a fear of the neverending cries of infants in the immediate vicinity, leading to sleep deprivation on a longhaul flight which in turn led to travel sickness.

 

[Beerfish]

I dislike it. I also fear crashing rather than flying, inevitably start thinking what if then have to just try and turn that off and think happy thoughts. Sleeping helps.

 

[Doss]

I don't fear it.

I also wouldn't advise thinking too much about what can go wrong when you're on a particularly long flight though, especially when your flight path is this:



Luckily I was able to distract myself with an in-flight movie, but it struck me as a particularly sadistic time for my brain to start playing tricks on me; I reckon I was somewhere between a third and halfway through the flight at the time. That's a whole lot of ocean and nothing of anything else.

 

[boncer34]

I have an irrational fear when I'm in the air. The slightest bit of turbulence and my brains telling me the planes going down. It's a horrible experience for me, though I love visiting new countries.

 

[DERO]

I’m normally uncomfortable during take-off up until we even out. I’ve never liked it.

On the kids and flying thing. We had a really bad experience on our last flight when a woman who I can only describe as a mean person was giving us a hard time over our kids. My wife had the two youngest and I had the eldest and as soon as we sat down she turned around and introduced herself to my son (more to send a message to my wife) and said that “if he did not kick the back of her seat we would get on fine”. From then everytime we did something like fold the tray up (which is hard to reaching across two seats one handed) or one of our kids made a noise she turned around and eyeballed my wife who was feeling the pressure. At one point my son was having a bit of a tantrum and she turned around and started telling him off and I was forced to interject, telling her to turn around and to not turn around again because my wife was really struggling. We were doing the best we could.
When we landed, the couple behind my wife came up to me and commented on the woman and told me that if I had not told the woman to but out, they would have as they had watched the way she was behaving throughout the flight and could see that my wife was getting frazzled. The kids were actually not too bad but it the woman had made us feel terribly awkward.
I get how frustrating this can be for people but we do our best and it is really tough with little kids. People need to be more tolerant.

 

[Doss]

That's the thing, really it is irrational but that doesn't make any less appalling to experience I'd imagine. We drive cars every day and statistically that is much more dangerous than flying.

Turbulence is a funny one. Horrific to experience without doubt, but these days there is next to no chance turbulence alone brings a large plane down.

Flying from Santiago to Buenos Aires across the Andes where they're almost 7,000 metres high is the worst turbulence I've ever experienced; the winds off the Pacific hit the mountains and the air is forced up in a very strong updraft.

About ten to fifteen minutes of nasty bouncing around is the result when you fly over it; that was in a massive 777 and I am thankful it wasn't a smaller plane.

 

[Lore]

I’m normally uncomfortable during take-off up until we even out. I’ve never liked it.

On the kids and flying thing. We had a really bad experience on our last flight when a woman who I can only describe as a mean person was giving us a hard time over our kids. My wife had the two youngest and I had the eldest and as soon as we sat down she turned around and introduced herself to my son (more to send a message to my wife) and said that “if he did not kick the back of her seat we would get on fine”. From then everytime we did something like fold the tray up (which is hard to reaching across two seats one handed) or one of our kids made a noise she turned around and eyeballed my wife who was feeling the pressure. At one point my son was having a bit of a tantrum and she turned around and started telling him off and I was forced to interject, telling her to turn around and to not turn around again because my wife was really struggling. We were doing the best we could.
When we landed, the couple behind my wife came up to me and commented on the woman and told me that if I had not told the woman to but out, they would have as they had watched the way she was behaving throughout the flight and could see that my wife was getting frazzled. The kids were actually not too bad but it the woman had made us feel terribly awkward.
I get how frustrating this can be for people but we do our best and it is really tough with little kids and we do our best. People need to be more tolerant.

Regular kids doing regular kid things is part and parcel of cattle class. If you don’t like it fly business or ask for a seat at the back of the plane, away from the cots and with no one behind you to kick your chair.

In my particular case it was the middle of “night time”. With the time difference I watched a few episodes before trying to sleep coz it felt like 8.30pm lol, when this poor kid started screaming blue murder. Looked like he had a fever, probably about a year old and didn’t really understand what was going on. The mum was trying to soothe him walking around the plane when they turned the seatbelt light on expecting severe turbulence and she had to sit down with him.

The kid kept screaming and screaming though and eventually the mum decided to risk it and went walking around with him again while the seatbelt sign was on since we hadn’t actually had any real turbulence (and didn’t get any either in the end). Then the flight attendants get on the PA while the lights are out and it’s meant to be “night time” yelling at this lady to sit down.

Took another hour after the seatbelt sign went off for the kid to settle but not before the flight attendant came over and read her the riot act. Didn’t help that my chair wouldn’t recline either, I basically just didn’t sleep all night because of it and then got travel sick when the plane landed

 

[DERO]

That's the thing, really it is irrational but that doesn't make any less appalling to experience I'd imagine. We drive cars every day and statistically that is much more dangerous than flying.

Turbulence is a funny one. Horrific to experience without doubt, but these days there is next to no chance turbulence alone brings a large plane down.

Flying from Santiago to Buenos Aires across the Andes where they're almost 7,000 metres high is the worst turbulence I've ever experienced; the winds off the Pacific hit the mountains and the air is forced up in a very strong updraft.

About ten to fifteen minutes of nasty bouncing around is the result when you fly over it; that was in a massive 777 and I am thankful it wasn't a smaller plane.

When you say turbulence do you mean bumps or full on plane rocking from side to side stuff?

 

[Beerfish]

There was this one time flying to work where out of nowhere the plane just dropped so hard my head hit the roof. Then nothing. Some of the worst turbulence I've flown through has been in clear blue sky. The scariest times though were landing in the wind and rain. I swear we came in sideways a few times and you're just thinking please make it please make it please make it.

 

[CourtzMajora]

So it's just over 5 weeks till we leave for USA/Canada and I'm starting to get real nervous!

Our flights got changed a couple of weeks ago so we've lost a day in Hawaii and have to stay a night in Auckland on the way there and on the way back (no direct flights from Adelaide to USA anymore).

We've paid off all our flights and accommodation and have roughly $300 USD and $250 CAD spending money per day while we are over there (only in Canada for one week).

We haven't really planned much except for a day tour in San Francisco (Alcatraz etc), NBA game, NHL game, Disneyland, Disneyworld, Universal Studios & going to the Northern Lights Wolf Centre (all has been paid for).

Husband thinks we will need more money and wants us to get a small loan but I'm thinking $300 should be enough for the two of us? We have never been over there so not sure how much food and transport cost.

 

[Beerfish]

$300 a day sounds like heaps to me. Take some warm clothes.

 

[CourtzMajora]

$300 a day sounds like heaps to me. Take some warm clothes.

I thought so as well but husband is stubborn I'll talk with him again haha.

Yeah we're going to Vancouver and Banff so definitely packing warm tights and a big jacket.