Wed 24 Jul 2019
Why is it always so difficult for us to set off travelling? Every time, there is something. And, every time, it is something different.
On this occasion, we knew the first problem that we were going to hit and, even though we weren’t happy, there was nothing we could do to change it. Many months ago, and at greater than our usual expense, we had booked a civilised, early afternoon flight on the first day of our school summer holidays, heading direct to St Johns, Newfoundland, with a flight time of just 5½ hours, so that we could arrive in good time to pitch the tent, buy gas for our stove, cook tea and begin adjusting to the new time zone.
But the 737 Max aircraft type we were booked on had been mysteriously falling out of the sky and the whole fleet was grounded a couple of months before we flew. The airline, Air Canada (company motto, bless ’em, “Why be pleasant and helpful when you can be rude and obnoxious?”), had swapped us onto another Air Canada flight. It now required us to depart from home around 4:30 a.m. on the morning after school broke up and change flights in Toronto, and the flight time (including connection) would now be 13 hours instead of 5½, meaning we’d arrive at our campsite rather late for pitching the tent and cooking. Despite the much greater inconvenience and relatively high price we’d paid for our original flights, Air Canada wouldn’t offer any sort of compensation and the e-mails from their Customer Disservices representative were abrupt and nasty, to say the least. She had been trained well in the company branding.
After a short and poor-quality sleep the night before, suffering a UK heatwave (yes, they do happen!) complete with very sudden and very loud midnight thunderstorm taking place directly overhead and lasting well into the early hours, none of us felt too great as we got up for our pre-dawn taxi, packed away our last few things and made sure the house would look after itself for six weeks whilst we were away. As usual, I’d done my magic trick of packing everything for 4 people for several weeks of camping into just 2 hold bags, 3 cabin bags and one 25 litre daypack – that’s everything including the tent, airbeds, sleeping bags, pillows, stove, washing up bowl, kettle, saucepans, crockery, cutlery, utensils, basic food items to cook a first meal, hiking pole, clothes, spare shoes, flip-flops, swimming costumes, towels, washing powder, toiletries, sunhats, suncream, insect repellent, full waterproofs, games, electronics, chargers, and the list goes on.
At Heathrow airport, terminal 2, we were sent to their brand-new security conveyor, which was under trial. It might even have been its first few minutes in trial operation: the security guys certainly seemed excited about it. The idea is that you don’t have to remove your bagged liquids or electronics from your cabin bags as it easily scans them through the bags. Unfortunately, though, two of our bags containing liquids didn’t pass automatic muster and still had to be checked by hand. Nice idea though.
We smiled at the juxtaposition of adverts on the large, electronic advertising screens in the airport: the words ‘fast and unlimited’ in big text (I think highlighting the airport’s wifi) just couldn’t have been more perfectly positioned – they were directly above an advert for Imodium.
Despite the unfortunate Customer Disservices, the staff on board the first Air Canada flight to Toronto were friendly, the flight was comfortable and straightforward, and the girls were pleased to receive individual child packs in little, red drawstring bags to keep them occupied during the flight (and their things organised during the next few weeks). The cabin crew fed us a small (long-overdue) breakfast meal well into the flight and a couple of little snacks.
The in-flight entertainment was good. I particularly enjoyed listening to a ‘meditation’ compilation: a soothing 1hr1min of rain that I initially thought was introductory applause going on for far too long. A good hour of rain really got me into the mood for camping. I found myself beginning to drift into a state of total tranquillity. I was starting to feel a little bloated and gassy from the flight. Every ... last ... bit ... of me ... was ... relaxing. Suddenly, a stark memory sprang into my mind and reminded me not to get too carried away with relaxation in a public place and to remember my manners. It was a story my eldest had recently told me. A lad, also feeling rather gassy in public, decided to let rip under cover of the extremely loud music (in my case, it was loud rain, a heavy downpour punctuated by thunder). No doubt the lad timed things according to the dynamics of the music, so as to offer maximum camouflage. But, after a fantastically noisy series of offloads, he suddenly noticed a number of people looking at him strangely, even with disgust. Only then did he remember that the loud music was merely into his personal headphones. Everyone else had been in silence.
Overall, we enjoyed this first flight and felt excited to be heading back to Newfoundland, our third visit across 18 years. Newfoundland exists in a world of its own. Not only does it have beautiful mountains and coast, with whales vying with icebergs for people’s attention, not only are the people so exceptionally friendly and helpful, but also it has some complete oddities. The food specialities of cod tongues and cod cheeks, scrunchions (deep fried pork fat) and Jiggs dinner (basically, a traditional British Sunday roast with a piece of ginger cake plopped on top) just don’t seem to have caught on elsewhere. Where other than Newfoundland would they consider the ‘ugly stick’ to be a perfectly normal percussion instrument? And where else would they insist on retaining a half-hour time difference (Newfoundland is 1½ hours ahead of the rest of east Canada and 3½ hours behind British summertime)?
Unfortunately, from Toronto onwards, things deteriorated. On arrival at Toronto, we were funnelled directly to the next departure gate, where we sat trapped for more than 2 hours across lunch time (with no food) awaiting our connecting flight to St Johns. Finally, about to board (½ hour late owing to mechanical problems), Air Canada sent us out of the queue to an adjacent, very slow queue to get updated boarding passes as they had changed our seats since check-in and not thought to tell us at any time during the preceding 2 hours. We were all very hungry and looking forward to a meal on the flight. We boarded, the flight proceeded ... but no food seemed to be forthcoming. I asked one of the cabin crew when the meal would be served. “Oh,” they said, “We don’t serve a meal on this flight.” They didn’t serve any snacks either, not even a miniature bag of pretzels. This flight provided one complimentary drink per person. I was none too happy: in what turned out to be 13.5 hours in the ‘care’ of Air Canada, between departing Heathrow to arriving at St Johns, they saw fit to feed us merely 1 small breakfast, 2 little snacks and 1 drink ... and that was it. On principle, I refused to buy food at their inflated in-flight prices. Instead, I asked to see the labels of their soft drinks cans and we each asked for a can of the most highly calorific, sugary drink we could find. I had a couple of emergency snack bars in our small rucksack, which I gave to the girls. We wouldn’t bother about cooking tonight (there wouldn’t be time to buy cooking gas anyway) – instead, having missed lunch, we’d head to the first fast-food place we could find to grab a filling evening meal.
Unfortunately, however, on arrival at the tiny airport and arrivals hall of St Johns, near-simultaneous with another flight that was landing, our 2 hold bags ended up coming out almost last from both flights (and both ripped, not that there’s any point complaining to Air Canada – “We take your money, what more do you expect?”), so we ended up right at the back of the queue to pick up our pre-booked hire car. And then encountered some problems at the front desk and again with the car itself. When I say that St Johns is a small airport, I mean small. To give you an idea, there was an announcement over the arrivals hall loudspeaker saying that a black digital watch (you know the type – a really basic, cheap one like mine) had been left at the counter and please would the owner pop back to claim it. Can you imagine an announcement like that at Heathrow ... or, in fact, anywhere else? Considering the miniscule size of the airport, the fact that it took us 1hr20mins between the plane landing and us managing to leave the car park is, quite frankly, astounding.
The car we were assigned (but hadn’t requested) was a ‘hybrid’. This is tech-speak for ‘half car, half useless’. With all our camping gear, we’d booked a car with a good-sized boot. This car had a large boot, but most of it was given over to huge electric batteries. We’ve driven a fair number of hire cars over the years, but this one took the biscuit with it’s unfathomable controls for switching the engine on, changing gears, operating the lights, etc. The seat was right back, so Dave activated the electronic control for bringing it forward. The seat duly came forward ... and simultaneously rose until Dave’s head was crushed against the underside of the roof. He pushed the button the other way, the seat descended but also ran back again so he couldn’t reach the pedals. With assistance from a passing airport worker, we managed to get some of the basics sorted – it definitely helps with driving if you can reach the pedals and see through the front windscreen at the same time – and set off unhappily. There wasn’t time to request another hire car more in line with what we’d booked as the daylight would be fading soon and we still needed to reach the campsite, book in and pitch the tent. None of us had eaten a meal since the small breakfast on the first flight, and now there wasn’t even time to find and drop by a fast-food place or a grocery store, otherwise we’d end up pitching the tent in the dark.
From leaving home to arriving at Pippy Park campsite on the edge of St Johns, complete with tent pitched and bedding ready, took 20½ (tiring and very hungry) hours. Everyone joined in and did their bit (the girls were superb). We were all so exhausted that we fell straight into bed on empty stomachs. Just five minutes later, the rain started.
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