From Melbourne to Dresden

My life compass has just moved to the northwest again so now it's Euros to load on my travel cards, new bits for 'Ava' the bicycle (Avanti) and I must include head-to-toe thermals for those potentially cool but long Scandinavian days. I want to journey through those spaces I missed last time - most of Germany, Denmark - Scandinavia, Poland, Southwest UK, Wales, western France and possibly Spain/Portugal. I only have 90 days to travel under the EU Shengen agreement but that works out nicely for the European summer.

The magnificent Airbus A380 carrying me and 543 others

As I glanced through the dirty windows at Melbourne's international terminal I felt intimidated but impressed by the size of the winged structure that would take me on the first long leg to Hong Kong. I thought to myself “my goodness she's a big girl!” but totally confident that the famous red kangaroo would get me there safely. Glad it wasn't another Boeing 737-800 Max which I discovered took me to Singapore last Dec which a dear friend told me “you just escaped a bullet!”. For the curious just do some Youtube viewing on the recent two multiple fatality crash stories on the poor safety of the flawed 737-800 Max aircraft Flawed MCAS and new engine location Boeing 737-800 Max.

This is what happens when greedy corporations put profit before people aided by a negligent US Government Aviation regulator who relinquish signoffs and approvals to the aircraft manufacturer. Like putting the bank robber in charge of the bank. Expect to see a number of class actions soon. My SwissAir flight to Zurich was the previous relatively safe 737-800 model. The SwissAir flight was quite a comfortable one because despite the full aircraft by some luck the two seats between me and the other passenger were vacated - some folk unfortunately missed their flight. Because I can fit into small spaces quite happily I worked out a system allowing me to sleep across the two seats but keeping the flight attendants happy with seatbelts fastened keeping me secure for those moments of turbulence. This made the 12 hour journey bearable only to be occasionally interrupted by happy feeding sessions.

It might appear that I'm labouring the point of flight experience but my first four and a bit career years was in the Avionics industry so forgive my interest but some of you may remember a number of Malaysian Air crashes or in one case a complete disappearance. One particular flight MH-17 bound for Kuala Lamper from Amsterdam was apparently shot down by a missile over eastern Ukraine with wreckage spread over 50 square kms. The flight manifest indicated that over 2/3rds of the passengers were Dutch nationals many of them children on their summer holidays. At the time of the disaster on 7 July 2014 the Ukranian military forces were fighting the separatist Ukrainian militia backed by the Russian government and mainly concentrated in eastern Ukraine.

There were many daily domestic flights above this area in the so called 'safe' zone above 32,000 feet or roughly 10kms. The tragedy for those people above the skies unfolded when a missile exploded just above the left side of the cockpit instantly killing the three cabin crew as they were showered with schrapnel. The first class section then broke away end eventually the rest of the aircraft separated into large sections with nothing but gravity to determine the fate of all those souls on board. Even to this day both sides of the conflict blame each other but there appears to be growing evidence that Russian forces had made their way across the border into eastern Ukraine with equipment capable of firing that particular type of missile.

Our SwissAir flight avoiding Ukraine airspace - Kiev is the capital

Knowing the flight path for my Zurich destination could take me in this area I took particular interest in the direction the plane flew. A direct flight from Hong Kong would southwest China, across Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, The Russian Federation and most likely Ukraine air space. I actually monitored the flight path on the media/movies screen between viewings of  'The Mule' and 'The Wife' (thanks Sis) - both very good movies by the way. The flight actually took us outside Ukraine's northern border then back south to continue on to Zurich. I'm aware that a number of airlines now avoid Ukraine airspace, especially eastern Ukraine.

Ava’s solo side trip to Munich in Bavaria

After arriving in early morning Zurich there was a short rest before connecting with the SwissAir flight to Dresden on a much smaller domestic plane. Unfortunately Ava decided she wanted to visit Munich instead Fortunately when I arrived in Dresden the airport staff sorted out the lost bike with box and eventually it arrived at my Dresden hotel that evening.

Even my own balcony 👀