Kuala Lumpur and London Stopovers

It wasn't intended, but it happened! I was on my way to Sunderland, UK, for the November, 2012 NEICN conference at the university, and before leaving home I had a formless premonition that something was not going to go according to plan. Sure enough, the journey was disrupted, but I can't say I wasn't looked after well in the long run.

I was flying Malaysian Airlines (loved the inflight beer and peanuts!), and the A380 (biggest airliner in the world) developed a fault that grounded it in Kuala Lumpur. (The header pic is a Qantas A380 on the ground in Singapore, on the 2011 trip, but it gives you an idea.) We were due to depart about mid-evening, but the time came and went. After midnight the airport staff handed out bottled drinks for the hundreds stranded in the departure lounge, but still no action—then they started to distribute a limited number of blankets because the air conditioning was so cold and apparently couldn't be adjusted (I didn't get one). All the while every child on the flight was rampaging at full scream because some lunatic had built an adventure playground in the departure lounge.

O-kay... Well, about 4am they announced the flight was not leaving the ground for quite some time, and gave folks the choice of being slotted into the next available flight or being put up at a hotel until the plane was fixed. By this time I was so tired I just wanted to put my head down, so joined the stopover queue. I was literally falling asleep on my feet and kept jerking awake before I could collapse—not an experience I'd want to repeat. I remember the airline handed out food vouchers and eating McDonald's at 5am—very little was open in the airport at that time and not everywhere took vouchers.

At last we were passed through customs/border control to actually enter Malaysia, and were taken by shuttle bus at high speed to the Marriott Hotel, where we got luxury treatment, all at the airline's expense. I got some sleep, emailed home with news, but had mislaid my contact details for the boarding house I was heading for at destination so couldn't let them know what was happening. The pics above are the view from the ninth floor of the Marriott.

Then there was a sumptuous free buffet lunch, and a bus back to the airport (yes, that's how the interior of the airport coach was decorated!).

The city is tropical but has almost the feel of Adelaide, looking across the Torrens. Palm trees everywhere reinforce the equatorial nature of the place, while the airport's futuristic architecture is always a delight.

Passengers rejoined the fixed plane, departing about eighteen hours late. I remember when the flight was formally announced there was a huge round of applause from the whole departure lounge. The weather was closing down, a tropical storm going through. The parked A380 shows the front moving in, and by the time we were moving the rain had arrived, note the spots on the window.

That of course meant arriving in London a day late (obtusely, the weather was bright and clear approaching Blighty), and the airline picked up the tab for a night in the Heathrow Hilton—I was not complaining! I had to buy a new domestic connection north to Newcastle Airport, but my trip insurance covered the missed flight, so all was well in the end.

The detour was something of an adventure, and I got to see a few things I would not normally have—such as Kuala Lumpu Airport from the outside! The extensive palm plantations of the city suggested to me at the time that palm oil was a major export, certainly every spare inch of land seemed to sprout palm fronds. The view from the Marriott was of forested hills, and the equatorial climate was certainly pleasant at that time of year. I can say I've stayed in two five star hotels and it didn't cost me a penny—which may be the only time I ever do, oddly enough.

Above is the morning light in the Hilton's main entrance, and the sign says it all in the last.

The trip had a bumpy start but was a wonderful one thereafter, including travelling with the band I support in the south country, plus an extension of a week so I could get to Cardiff to see the 'Dr Who Experience,' and to RAF Museum Cosford, near Shifnal, in Shropshire, for the “Flights of Fantasy' pop culture event.

Sadly, this was my last proper trip to the UK, as the 2013 NEICN conference was cancelled, and the event never resumed, but I did go up for a few days in 2014 for a sci-fi convention in London.

Mike Adamson

Flinders Ranges in a day ... can it be done?!

The plan had been a road trip to the Limestone Coast, but the pandemic changed all this, due to the proximity to Victoria, which at the time was on the strictest lockdown. Instead, we spent the week doing day trips ... and for a week when we had to dodge showers and dress for winter, we did an amazing amount. The forecast had been for rain and unseasonable cold, and this didn't tell the half of it ... snow fell in South Australia on Friday -- luckily, we'd done our day trip into the Flinders Ranges on Thursday, because the storm which brought the snow was coming in just as we drove south! We might have been lucky once or twice ... in retrospect, if the heavy weather had arrived even 12 hours earlier, we could have been caught out in the wilderness when the "floodways" started to run, unable to get back to civilization! I guess Dave's guardian angel was looking out for us, because we didn't get caught, and we did have a fantastic time...

Salvation Jane -- "Patterson's Curse" -- in full bloom

This isn't the wilderness, but you can see it from here!

I wouldn't have believed you could do this in a day ... Flinders Ranges, out and back, between 6:00am and 9:30pm, including a storm?! It had to be a joke. But no -- it turned out to be perfectly doable; and this was Thursday in "vacation week." (Previously, we'd stayed in our own neck of the woods, getting as far afield as the Laratinga Wetlands on the other side of Mount Barker, and Mannum (it rained), via Mount Pleasant (so cold, I had to drink hot chocolate to get back to life); and on Saturday we headed south and stumbled over the Ferries McDonald Conservation Park, where the wildflowers and orchids are in full bloom.) 

But Thursday was the day to hit the road early. The sun was barely up when we left, and the magic works because the Northern Expressway whisks you through the city and out so fast. Before you know it, you're north of Port Wakefield, and looking forward to breakfast with a view of the pink lake at Lochiel, on the euphoniously named Lake Bumbunga. No, that's not a typo. From then on, you put your foot down and tramp it. In convoy with an enormous number of trucks going both ways, you're headed for Port Broughton, Port Pirie, Port Augusta -- but you're not stopping. Blast straight through, and bear right just as you see Port Augusta in the distance ... you're on your way to Quorn, known as the Gateway to the Flinders Ranges. And yes, you can do it, from home, by about 11:00am! 

Emus in the wild -- bigger and redder than you see them down south in the Adelaide Hills

Flinders Ranges pastoral country ... cattle country, in fact.

You're soon off the beaten path. The roads are in good condition, and a car can handle them ... until or unless it starts to rain, and the "flooodways" fill up fast. In retrospect, I think we were lucky!

So ... Flinders Ranges in a day! Out before dawn, a sausage roll for breakfast at Locheal, with its pink lake, north of Port Wakefield, then lunch in Quorn, followed by three hours of tarryhooting on wilderness roads where the views are beyond amazing, before we turned for home at 4:00, with a four-and-a-half-hour drive ahead of us. We returned by a different rout ... Willmington, Gladstone, Laura, Clare, Gawler, at which point you connect with the Northern Expressway and you'll be home in less than an hour. 

The trip had one last amazement in store for us:

As I mentioned before, the weather was due to change, big time, though we hadn't realized quite how violently it would change. In fact, in about twelve hours this storm front would be dumping snow on the Flinders Ranges! We drove right into it, at a time when it was all about torrential rain. The kind of rain where your wipers can barely keep pace. Spectacular -- also a wake-up call, to be a little more careful and plan a bit more assiduously next time! Because we'll definitely be going back; the only questions are when and how!