Other Side of the World
S32°47.31′ E155°16.41′
0822 ZULU
Three hundred miles from Sydney, the daylight finally pulls away from us and drops over the western curve of the Earth. For the past thirty minutes, shimmering pools of light have danced across the scattered cloud tops far below us. Driven by ocean currents, these clouds formed sweeping bands and swirling vortexes that have stretched out into the fuzzy distance. Now, with the world darkening overhead and the clouds and water losing definition below, the horizon desaturates from a bright palette of orange, red, and gold, to a band of gray and white, with the faintest strands of pink and yellow stretched thinly across the sky’s bulk.
We’ve been paralleling Australia’s eastern coastline for the past hour. Despite approaching 10 hours in the air, our south-southwestern track has only crossed three time zones, although the equator and international dateline crossing has moved us from today to tomorrow, and from Fall to Spring. None of those changes are apparent though in the confines of the cockpit. The vents continue to blow chilled air. The virtual hands of the clock—set in standard zulu time—continue their endless rotation. The only noticeable difference is that the latitude readout number is now increasing despite our nose being pointed south.
This is the first trip I’ve flown to Australia, despite having traveled around Oceania a bit in the past. I have done a healthy amount of Asia and South Pacific flying over the past few years, but this flight seems momentous to me. As the light fades away until nothing more than a hot white line remains at the horizon, I dim out the cockpit lighting and contemplate why.
Growing up on the east coast of the United States, Australia was literally on the other side of the world. It seemed that it was about as far as you could go before starting your return journey. For as long as I can remember, I kept two postcards pinned to a bookshelf that was in my room. One was a shot of the cockpit of a 747-100—the endless gauges and dials and switches filling the frame. The other was of the Sydney Opera House’s sweeping roof under a barrage of fireworks—the faint outlines of the Sydney Harbor Bridge faintly visible through the darkness and smoke.
The first time I came here I was 17 and traveling by myself for the first time. In the final hours of the long overnight flight from Los Angeles I remember shifting uncomfortably in my seat, anxious, nervous, and excited all at the same time, while I watched the light of day begin to spill over the eastern horizon, behind the wings of our 747, finally catching up to us after 14 hours. Despite a shorter flight time today, and many years of traveling experience, I’m feeling a bit of the same now. It’s not even my leg, as the Captain will be landing the plane today, but, as we dip into a layer of clouds on our descent, I start to feel the twinges of nervousness and excitement once again.
We emerge from the bottom of the clouds into a world of grayish light. Below us, a second layer of clouds stretches into the distance, merging with the upper layer at a far-off vanishing point. Lines of dying daylight pulse through the narrow gaps between the layers like white hot veins of quartz through stone. Across the cockpit, the Captain slips his sunglasses back down over his eyes from where they have been resting on his forehead. I rarely wear sunglasses in the plane as the polarized lenses interact with the polarization in the cockpit windows, casting rainbow shadows across my vision, so instead I squint against the glare.
Minutes later we descend into the lower layer, and the streaks of light fade into nothingness. The clouds are thin however, and we quickly drop out of the bottom into the Australian night. Directly ahead of us the coastline lights burn brightly, stretching into the far off north and south. Inland, the lights fade away quickly in the moist air, the distant flashes of lightning illuminating the heavy clouds on the horizon. The airport sits just south of the city and from our angle of approach we will have to fly directly over the top of the field and then turn to the north to head outbound before turning back to the south to land. We go feet dry over the darkened sand of Coogee Beach and then turn north, the lights of the Opera House and harbor bridge burning brightly beyond our dipping wingtip.
We track outbound, the airport slipping away behind us. Between lulls in the radio chatter, I press my face to the side window and watch the city and the harbor sliding by, my eyes moving from the brightly lit span of the bridge to the white sails of the Opera House roof. I smile in the dark cockpit while blinking rapidly. There is moisture in the corners of my eyes. I blame it on the ten hours of dry cabin air, but somewhere, deep inside, I know that after more than 10,000 hours and 18 years of flying, I’ve finally arrived.
