Tag Archives: airport

Nov 19 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Visitors’ parking, Bradley’s Camp

Thursday 18th November 2021, 9.20am (day 3,738)

Bradley's Camp view, 18/11/21

After eight days in a row in the house, a morning out — so I could have something stuck up my nose, and then be returned. Somebody, somewhere, thinks there’s a point to all this. (I will add that I had things stuck up my nose both before flying here, and on arrival, and have been in isolation since.)

The island has a verdant interior but the rim is very barren. Out by the airport sits “Bradley’s Camp”, a bunch of prefabs surrounded by barbed wire and personal security that is presumably where the local authorities stick the asylum seekers, people with a 0.0001% chance of having a currently fashionable communicable disease, and other undesirables. But at least it has parking facilities for visitors.

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Nov 10 2021
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Daily Post, Transport

Arrival on St Helena

Tuesday 9th November 2021, 12.25pm (day 3,729)

Arrival on St Helena, 9/11/21

Is this working? Hmmm, seems to be.

OK then, I am successfully online on one of the world’s most remote islands, 1,200 miles from the nearest other land. The landing — on a bare airstrip perched on top of piles of volcanic cinder — was not as rough as I’d been led to believe it might be. Ten days of quarantine await, however; you and I both will have plenty of opportunities to inspect my accommodation between now and my release on Friday 19th.

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Oct 18 2021
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Daily Post, Transport

This is why it’s called Iceland

Sunday 17th October 2021, 6.30am (day 3,706)

Snow at Keflavik, 17/10/21

I have never seen snow falling anywhere as early in a year as 17th October, but Iceland lived up to its name this morning and duly delivered, as my first flight home returned me to Keflavik. This seems even to have caught Icelanders unaware, seeing as it caused my second flight to be delayed two hours while we waited, seemingly endlessly, for the wings of our aircraft to be de-iced (“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking…. We are eighth in the queue for de-icing…. [45 minutes later] We are sixth in the queue….”). But I did get home in the end.

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Dec 01 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

Arrival home (MAN T2)

Saturday 30th November 2019, 6.30am (day 3,019)

Arrivals tube, 30/11/19

Flying reduces one to a platelet in a bloodstream, being pushed through a number of tin pipes and artificially-lit domains, with little sense of the outside world passing, particularly on a night flight at this time of year. I left Salatiga just after taking yesterday’s shot, so about 11.30am Indonesian time on Friday, and this shot depicts my arrival in Manchester on Saturday morning, having seen only darkness for about 18 hours since leaving Jakarta. The journey went well, though…. at least until I got to Manchester Victoria and Northern Rail took over. But that’s another (unending) story.

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Nov 04 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

Loading the plane

Monday 4th November 2019, 1.25am (day 2,993)

Jeddah old city, 3/11/19

Artistic merit is one thing but the photos on here have to somehow epitomise the day, and as my journey home occupied the whole of the first ten and a half hours of 4/11/19, this was what had to be shown. It gets the ‘very early monring’ photo count up a notch, as well. Shot taken out of my window seat at 44K on the Jeddah – Frankfurt leg of my trek.

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Jul 11 2019
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Daily Post, Interior, Transport

Incompetence (not even peaked)

Wednesday 10th July 2019, 11.35am (day 2,876)

iIncompetence, 10/7/19

Our last day in Iceland was supposed to end around, oh, say 9am? And we were due home in Hebden Bridge by 2pm.

As you can see from this, this didn’t happen. In fact, we did not leave the airport until 9.30pm, after a litany of farce that I do not wish to begin to recount. Thus, another two hours after this take-off time was promised to us.

You can’t completely see the flight number to identify the budget carrier who inflicted this joke upon us (with no informational updates); let me just say they wear orange. A shame because otherwise this has been an excellent week in Iceland, if you get to visit it I highly recommend it.

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Jun 05 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

Reasons to fly

Tuesday 4th June 2019, 5.10pm (day 2,840)

Wet airport, 4/6/19

Yes, I’m going away again. The North European Monsoon missed out 2018 but it has hit on time, and wetly, this year. I wasn’t the only one here today happy to be heading out somewhere away from it. (No endorsement of airline implied. Other budget providers are available.)

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May 06 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

Departure lounge, Sunday morning

Sunday 5th May 2019, 8.20am (day 2,810)

MAN T1, 5/5/19

The departure lounge is a kind of limbo state. You’ve sort of left the country, the real world, behind, but you’re not yet at your final destination or even properly travelling yet. Time stops behaving as it does out there. A beer at 8.20 on a Sunday morning is quite tolerated. But there’s nothing really to do: the system may as well suck some more money out of you while you wait. I would like to see libraries, cinemas and gyms in departure lounges. But I doubt it’ll ever happen.

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Apr 16 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

Check-in line

Monday 15th April 2019, 1.00pm (day 2,790)

Check-in line, 15/4/19

So begins the long journey home. Allowing for the time difference, some 28 hours elapsed door to door, between leaving the office in Melbourne city centre at about noon (Eastern Australian time) on Monday and getting back home on what was Tuesday morning UK time, but felt like late afternoon to the body clock. This first shot of two was taken only an hour or so into it all. There is a strange levitaty quality about the bag, don’t you think?

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May 19 2018
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Daily Post, Interior

Zagreb airport

Friday 18th May 2018, 12.45pm (day 2,458)

Zagreb airport, 18/5/18

And another picture of Zagreb’s transport infrastructure to mark the end of this week here — the airport being a considerably more modern construction than the railway station. An impressive space, in fact. It’s been a good week and I will probably be back at some point next year.

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