While relaxing on a yacht in Croatia a few weeks earlier, I had called the Southampton airport control tower. The city lies on the river-like Southampton Water, an estuary that drains into the Solent on its way to the English Channel. Southampton’s waterways provided a perfect landing spot for the Empire flying boats. The city is a two-hour train ride to London, and the water is shielded from the open sea by the Isle of Wight.
Today, the whole of the airspace above Southampton Water is under the control of the airport. But the water is supervised by a harbour master, employed by Associated British Ports, a company based in the city. The airport controllers described my plan to land briefly on Southampton Water as ‘interesting’ – a very British adjective, the precise meaning of which in this context was unclear. Flying a few feet above the water was all right, I learned, but I would need AB Ports’ permission to get the Sun wet.
The port manager, Clive Thomas, put me in touch with the Deputy Harbour Master, Ray Blair. Although he sounded helpful, there was a problem. Southampton is Britain’s biggest port for shipping, a busy location for ferries coming to and from the Isle of Wight and France, as well as a popular yacht-racing venue. The famous ‘Round the Island Race’ starts and finishes from Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, each summer. To reduce congestion, seaplanes were not allowed to land on Southampton Water. That was bad news.
I summarised the Southern Sun’s mission to Blair. As a former Royal Navy officer and long-time port manager, he was familiar with the link between Southampton and the historical flying boats. He was also, to my huge relief, sympathetic to the idea of trying to retrace their journey. We amicably negotiated two areas of Southampton Water that would be suitable. He had just two conditions: it would have to be a touch-and-go only, and on a weekday, when there would be fewer recreational sailors to dodge. I would then fly to nearby Southampton International Airport to clear customs and immigration. I was ever so pleased.
So, after six hours of flying, at 1.48 p.m. British Summer Time on Friday, 12 June 2015, the Southern Sun descended over the town of Hythe, a patch of coastal land and a sandbar abeam several dozen moored boats, and landed gently on a shallow stretch of Southampton Water for several seconds. She had made it.
Fifteen minutes later, having landed at Southampton airport and been advised by my ground marshal that I had ‘a welcoming party inside’, I walked into the private aircraft terminal. There were indeed over a dozen people awaiting my arrival. I was still on a high, and I remarked aloud: ‘Wow, now that is a welcoming party! That deserves a photo!’ I pulled out my phone and took a snap.
When I look at that photo now, I see hints of an uncomfortable encounter I didn’t know was about to take place. A few people off to the side are laughing at me, while several men in the front and middle of the room have their backs to me. In the time it took me to take my phone from the pocket of my flying suit, they spun around to hide their faces from the camera. The group was made up of officers from three law-enforcement agencies: Immigration, Customs, and Special Branch, which is a Metropolitan Police unit responsible for national security. The agent from Special Branch was impeccably dressed. The British really know how to cut a fine suit, I thought. The other men wore uniforms. They told me they were investigating my ‘unannounced arrival’ in the United Kingdom.
‘Huh?’ I said, now surprised. ‘I’ve been in contact with British authorities for weeks. So has my clearance agent, and I filed a flight plan in France this morning stating that Southampton was my destination.’
One officer told me that the French aviation officials hadn’t transmitted any plan, which meant the British officials were unaware of my impending arrival. That seemed strange, if not unlikely. I had been handed over from controller to controller on the route from France without any suggestion that I wasn’t expected, including by British air-traffic control.
I was so happy about arriving in Britain – for the first time since the year before, when I’d faced a photo of the Queen at the British Consulate in Melbourne, put my hand on my heart and pledged allegiance to Her Majesty, in doing so obtaining British citizenship – that I was amused by a situation that should have worried me deeply. The officers didn’t see it that way. The British government takes the security of its borders very seriously. So too does the British public, as evidenced by its vote to leave the European Union the year after my arrival. And of course, since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, aviation security has become much stricter, even if it’s an amphibian aircraft retracing a 1930s mail and passenger air service.
I didn’t believe I had done anything wrong but the officers were in control – and it seemed they did. Although I was potentially in deep trouble, I was determined to keep a positive frame of mind and not become angry, defensive or resentful. They asked detailed questions about the trip, my reasons for visiting Britain and my professional and personal background. They emptied my bags, went through all my clothes and electronic devices and examined all my paperwork. There was no more demeaning moment on the trip than when a customs officer wearing latex gloves held my boxer shorts up to a light and ran his fingers over the seams to check for contraband. Perhaps he’s just appreciating the amazingly lightweight and breathable merino wool? I mused, hoping it was a clean pair.
While the search was taking place, a few of the immigration officers wandered over to a counter used by Signature Flight Handling, which I had hired to manage my arrival in the United Kingdom. Two of the company’s staff, Chloe and Helen, were perusing my website and reading about the trip, and oohing and aahing at some of the photos. Soon the customs staff were checking out the screen too, leaving me to answer Special Branch’s polite but firm questions. At the same time, there was a flow of airport staff and airline crew coming into the lounge, saying hello, taking photos of the Southern Sun and asking disbelievingly: ‘Seriously, from Australia . . . in that?’
After two hours, the security staff concluded that flying from Australia at 80 knots would have been a fairly elaborate cover story for someone trying to sneak into Britain. I was free to go.
To celebrate – my freedom, my arrival and the completion of my voyage – the Signature Flight Handling staff gave me a coffee and a slice of a chocolate cake that had been bought for a colleague’s birthday. In an unexpected and gracious act, they also waived their fees, perhaps because they found my trip amusing and interesting, or maybe just because they couldn’t believe I’d actually made it.
As for my unannounced arrival – it turned out I was in the wrong. Talking to pilots in London later, I learned that when entering or leaving the United Kingdom, a ‘General Aviation Report’ must be submitted to the UK Border Force in addition to a flight plan. The GAR, as it is not so affectionately known, requires very basic information: the name of the pilot and aircraft, where they took off and arrived, and the addresses of where the crew would stay in Britain. It would have taken about three minutes to complete, tops.
I had been grateful for Mike Gray and White Rose’s work and quick responses whenever a problem came up, and every other part of the sixty-day journey had gone flawlessly. But I was annoyed he hadn’t mentioned this simple form, which was required to enter his own country. Perhaps he had assumed I knew about it; and of course I was now a UK citizen, so I was effectively ‘returning home’. But Mike really had done a sterling job overall, and we laughed about this soon after.
Even though I had flown across the world, I was nervous about the short flight from Southampton to London, which would be along a narrow corridor between restricted airspace around Gatwick and Heathrow airports. I had to get it right.
Alistair, a commercial pilot who had checked out the Sun while I was being questioned, helped me work out a flight plan. I texted Anne, who was at the Tate Modern in central London, and confirmed I would soon arrive at Damyns Hall, an aerodrome in outer East London which has an old-fashioned long grass strip and is popular with vintage and modern light aircraft. I took off from Southampton and turned east fo
r the first time since leaving Rose Bay.
The sky was crowded with planes. The intricate green countryside of England was lovely, and I passed over Surrey, where my mother was born in the pretty town of Carshalton. London air-traffic control gave me permission to fly over the Thames River and London City Airport, which is the home of many private jets serving London’s big financial sector. It was like Disneyland for aviation enthusiasts.
The Southern Sun landed at Damyns Hall at 6.01 p.m. The Air Sport Australia Confederation recognised that the trip had set two world records: for a flight from Melbourne to London, and simultaneously from Rose Bay to Southampton, in an amphibious aircraft.
No one at the aerodrome knew I was coming. I had obtained permission from the chief flying instructor to store the Sun there for a few weeks, but he was away on a flying trip when I arrived. The temperature had hit a blistering (for Old Blighty) 27 degrees that day, and a shirtless and slightly pink member of the local flying club (a new form of high visibility?) directed me to a parking spot.
Anne was waiting to greet me. It had only been a few days, but I was ecstatically pleased to see her, and share with her this moment of triumph. She had been so supportive, and now she helped me tie the Sun down. We talked about how to get a container onto the field to ship the plane to Melbourne. We were soon ready to farewell the Southern Sun and take a holiday.
Anne told a few of the club members what I had done. Either they didn’t believe her or it didn’t sink in. ‘Did you say from Australia? Really, in that?’ This was becoming a theme . . .
Club member Alan Sutton kindly dropped us off at the nearest train station, and we headed into London. I planned to rest and relax, and to consider a question that had been nagging at me for months: could the Southern Sun go all the way?
17.
The Trip
‘Life is a journey, not so much to a destination, but a transformation.’
CHRIS VAUGHN, TO SAVE A LIFE (2009)
‘How on Earth did you make it here to London when you can’t even find the room?’ Anne asked when I took a wrong turn, for the third time, in the corridors of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.
‘There’s no compass and the GPS doesn’t work inside,’ I muttered.
I loved staying at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, which offered reciprocal visiting rights to my club in Melbourne. It overlooked Hyde Park, so you’d often see the Household Cavalry Regiment, which protects the Queen, trotting by on training rides. The traditional bar and dining room, the small but comfortable bedrooms – known as ‘cabins’ – and the atmospheric library and room of model boats celebrate history, boating and adventure tastefully but in a tangible way. It feels very British – tally ho indeed.
I slept ten hours after landing in London. The next day, after arranging to deliver Sophie’s rather slow airmail letter to her grandmother, Anne and I began a three-week holiday through England and Scotland. We walked along Hadrian’s Wall, the millennia-old defence against wild Scottish tribes built by the Romans, we toured various country estates that appeared in period movies, we visited Winston Churchill’s two residences and we also dropped in on a few cinemas. Never had a holiday been so wonderful. I felt constantly elated, and truly at peace with myself for the first time in years. The sky was bluer, the grass greener and the faces cheerier than I had ever seen.
At the time, I wrote in my journal that my flight ‘had been a wonderfully rewarding adventure’. That was a true but somewhat glib description. A year later, I still felt incredibly proud. I have thought about the trip every day since it ended; a random encounter or event would remind me of tiny details of my experiences.
The trip had enriched my understanding of the world in a way nothing else could. It revealed incredible physical beauty, human hardship and endurance, and let me know the terrifying but rewarding experience of putting your life on the line for personal ambition. My most powerful discovery was of the generosity of strangers. In nearly every country, at least one person went out of their way to assist me. I became convinced that what I had thought of as regional and outback Australia’s ‘country kindness’ actually flourishes everywhere. The world is awash with good people.
Perhaps that is because human experience is more universal than many of us realise. Regardless of a nation’s politics, the average man and woman on the street is just trying to feed and look after their family, educate their children and take comfort and pleasure from being part of a community. We all want to belong.
Government does shape societies, though. I realised there was an inverse relationship between the efficiency of a country and the amount of paperwork required to get stuff done. In a sense, this was profoundly disappointing, although not surprising. The inefficiency and underemployment I saw in parts of Asia, the Subcontinent and the Middle East was dispiriting.
But there is hope. Mobile phones are changing the developing world in the way computers reshaped the developed world. Social media, in particular, is liberating communication. Mobile phone usage in the developing world has leapfrogged mere voice calls. Mobile devices are ushering in an economic revolution, one I hope will help make the citizens of developing nations as rich as those of the developed world.
In 1938, air travel was limited to the super-rich. Now almost everyone in wealthy countries can afford it. The new mobility has created a global tourism boom, so much that famous sites are swamped by people seeking the all-important selfie, which they will then immediately post online. All this drives an ugly trade in tourist kitsch. But discovery through travel is still possible in the twenty-first century. In India I visited Chittagong, Patna and Gwalior, towns I had not heard of until I was planning my trip, and they were immensely enjoyable. In each of those cities I didn’t once see another foreigner, which made me feel greedily pleased to have them to myself. The road less travelled is worth taking.
While not cheap, a private aeroplane is one of the most wonderful ways to explore. From the air – but not too high – the gaps between cities, national parks and monuments are filled in. The giant jigsaw that is the physical world starts to fit together. In far north-west Saudi Arabia I was stunned to see mile upon mile of green farmland emerge from the dry-as-dust desert. I captured the memory in photos. Watching the sun rising after flying all night is also implanted in my mind.
Strangely, I felt some sympathy for the passengers of the Empire flying boats. As incredibly privileged as they were to undertake their ten-day journey across the world, it was made at break-neck pace in 1938. They had time for just a taste of some of the greatest luxury hotel outposts of the British Empire, most of which would soon be shut down amid the darkness of World War II.
I like flying and I like boating – but I love travelling and exploring, especially with friends and family. While this was a solo trip, the experience was enriched by sharing it with others via my online journal. I didn’t know if anyone would find it interesting, and I was worried about being criticised for trying to undertake a dangerous journey with such little flying experience, so I had kept it very low-key. To my surprise, as word slowly spread, a lot of people who didn’t know me started following the Southern Sun online to make sure I was okay. They and others sent notes of support along the way. It felt like there was a community out there wishing the little Sun safely home on its great adventure. I was flying solo but I didn’t feel alone.
For thousands of years humankind has had a need to share stories, whether around a campfire or in a public gathering. Cinema is one of the latest incarnations of that need. If done well, it brings people together. The experience varies from culture to culture, but I consistently saw that comfortable and well-run cinemas were better attended and more popular than bare-bones supermarket-cinemas, no matter how wealthy or poor the host society. This observation might seem obvious, yet poor-quality cinemas are still being built. Those who make the extra effort to provide an attractive, comfortable environment with a community focus seem to be rewarded.
Th
ere is one simple improvement available to the cinemas I had visited in the eighteen countries thus far: the choc-top. This is not a universal delicacy: a scoop of gourmet ice-cream in a chocolate-lined wafer cone, dipped in liquid chocolate, adorned with nuts or a lolly, and bagged ready for consumption in a comfortable movie house. They are only sold in Australian cinemas. The rest of the world is poorer for this.
Act ii
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’
GANDALF, LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)
18.
The Year My Voice Broke
‘I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it’s not some place you can look for because it’s not where you go. It’s how you feel for a moment in your life when you’re a part of something, and if you find that moment, it lasts forever.’
RICHARD, THE BEACH (2000)
As a teenager, I wanted to study overseas, in part to escape my high school. I loved the stone fruit orchard my family lived on in Seville, a working-class small-allotment farming district on the fringes of Melbourne, but I knew there was a bigger world that I needed to explore.
Voyage of the Southern Sun Page 13
