In the beginning my parents drove Valma and I to Melbourne Airport where our first flight left from, We arrived early, Melbourne airport is pretty much like any other airport, I enjoy going there because I love aeroplanes and maybe because I did my little bit to get the airport built - not much mind you, just pushing files and sometimes adding up columns of figures but it's a little bit of job satisfact-- ion. As we were going to discover later there is something else which made Melbourne airport a nice place to be, we knew where things were. Robin Johnson and other people who'd been overseas told us a lot about baggage welght so we were worried that maybe we'd be overweight, we had no idea how heavy our luggage might be so we'd packed lightly (relatively, for living out of a suit case for seven weeks means the case has to be pretty big) and hoped we'd come inside the limit. The man at the counter took our case without a murmer so we reckoned we'd passed the test. Then the four of us went down and got seat allocations and settled down waiting for the time to pass. My mother and I invented a game to play at Valma's expense. There were various airline officials walking around in their uniforms, some had impressive braid work on their sleeves so I'd say to my mother, "Look, he's only got one stripe, he can't be a very good pilot," and she'd reply that the one over there had three bands so he'd be a lot better. We tried to figure our which man was going to be the pilot and Valma's hopes rose and fell as we speculated and men with various numbers of stripes walked in our dfrection and then kept on going. Valma was about to beg us to stop playing the silly game when a familiar face appeared, Shayne MacCormack who had stopped after OZCON a little bit and was going back to Sydney. Shayne sympathised with Valma and so we weren't allowed to play the game any more. I couldn't understand why anybody would worry but maybe some people get more nervous than others about flying, and I reckon I hadn't been on a 'plane for years but Valma and Shayne had flown much more recently so I should have been the worried one. I reckon that there are some people who just don't have the right faith in technology. Our flight was called finally so we gathered up our hand luggage and said goodbye as we went through the door that led down the aerobridge into the aeroplane. The first thing I noticed was how cramped everything was, six seats across in a Boeing 727 might be alright for somebody under ten but for s big grown up fan the arrangement isn't horribly comfortable. Shayne had a seat a few rows back but for all the good it did us she may as well not have been there at all. The last time I'd flown was in 1968 in a HS 125 (a bizjet) up to Sydney and back. The HS 125 was very much smaller but then again it had only six passengers so it didn't seem so cramped. For a while I wished I was back on that small aeroplane as I struggled to fit myself into my seat with the minimum amount of discomfort but I really couldn't have afforded it, so I had to be happy with what I had, and I was. From the window seat I had a good view of the wing and watched the ailerons wobble as the pilot tested them. There was a slight jar as the tug attached itself to the plane and we slowly began to be backed out from the terminal. My parents had found the observation deck and were waving, we waved back though we doubted if they could see us or know who it was that was waving if they could see. The hosties gave their little safety talk, reassuring people that nothing could possibly go wrong but in the incredibly slight possibility that anything did this was what to do. They did their job so well it was a pity that their public address system wasn't working very well and we