Let me begin with a somewhat audacious claim – I believe I am (probably) the first person ever to make a trip from Australia to the Faroe Islands travel via South Africa, Gabon and Senegal to do so.
I know it’s not the most intuitive route to take, but it made sense for me. I booked my travel in October 2022, some seven months prior to departure. I wanted to book my travel using frequent flyer points rather than paying for the flights if possible, so that immediately limited my freedom to choose dates and routings. To cut a long story short, this weird routing was the result of chasing points flights that connected me through to my destination.
The first leg of my journey took almost all of the day today, and what a long day it was. I set my alarm for 4:30am, caught the 5:25am train from West Ryde Station to Sydney Airport, and managed to check in and get through Immigration and Security before the main crowds arrived for the busy morning bank of departures.
Today’s flight (QF63) was from Sydney to Johannesburg on a Qantas Boeing 787-9, registration VH-ZNI. The scheduled flight time was 13 hours 45 minutes over a distance of 11,250 kilometres. Although pushback from the terminal was 20 minutes late (10:00am rather than 9:40am), a quick flying time meant we arrived in Johannesburg a little early ay 4:10pm (which was 10 past midnight in Sydney where I started the day).
The views of Sydney on take-off were beautifully clear as the city was bathed in late autumn sunshine. Our route took us over Wollongong, Canberra, Albury and Bendigo before leaving the Australian continent south of Adelaide near Mount Gambier. From there the only views were either of the waters of the Southern Ocean or clouds (but mainly clouds) as the plane flew towards Africa, crossing the coast of South Africa just north of Durban.
The last hour of the flight was over South Africa. The air was much more hazy (or smoky) than Australia had been, adding to the somewhat drab appearance of the dry, brown landscape. The approach into Johannesburg Airport was towards the north, so the views of Soweto from my window seat on the left hand side of the plane were directly into the sun through very smoky air – not very photogenic.
My connecting flight from Johannesburg was due to depart on Ethiopian Airlines at 11:00pm, meaning I had a transfer time of seven hours. I had completed an online check-in before leaving Australia, but I still had to collect my boarding pass while transiting through Johannesburg Airport as it was not available for downloading before I left. Unfortunately the transfer desks for connecting flights are only staffed from two hours prior to each departure, so I was facing a wait in a holding room for the Ethiopian Airlines staff to arrive for about five hours. The orange plastic seats were very solid and hard and there was no food or drink available. Fortunately the holding room did have access to toilets and, even more significantly as things turned out, glacially slow but functional wifi.
After multiple efforts, I managed to get the wifi to work on my laptop, went to the Ethiopian Airlines website and accessed the check-in page and therefore my boarding passes. I knew that if I could get copies on my phone I could get through the security check without waiting for the airline staff. After multiple efforts I got my phone to connect to the wifi, and even though I couldn’t get internet access, it was enough to transfer my boarding passes to the phone via AirDrop. The effort had taken an hour and a quarter, but it was worth it as I could leave the holding room and access the main hallway and lounge of the airport.
The incoming plane for my flight to Addis Ababa landed right on time at 8:00pm. In my mind, I was already moving mentally into day 2 of my travels – probably understandable as it was almost 24 hours after I had woken up this morning in Sydney.
