You can only bring 10kg Nat – our trip leader said. You really only need your togs (the Australian nickname for swimsuit), a pair of dry clothes, beach walking shoes and sunscreen, she continued. With this in mind we prepared for our journey to Lady Elliot Island. The island is so small that it takes approximately five minutes to walk across it, about twenty minutes to walk around it and in order to get to the island we took a tiny, thirteen seater plane. To say the least, I was excited.
The next day we made our way to Harvey Bay Airport, with our 10kg checked bag where we checked in and waited for our flight. The airport had decent WIFI, a rare occurrence, so naturally everyone was utilizing it. Then we saw our planes, they were definitely small. Nat stood up, read out a list of names and said “everyone whose name I just read is on the plane to the left, everyone else is on the plane to the right”.
We stood up and walked to our planes where our pilot was waiting to give us our safety briefing. He showed us how to open the door in case of an emergency, where the life jackets were, etc. Then he said “who wants to sit up front with me?” Is this I joke? It isn’t April Fools so I think he’s being serious. Joke or not, I wanted to sit in the co-pilots seat so I immediately put my hand up. I wasn’t the only one that raised their hand but luckily I was chosen to ride as co-pilot.
I got on the plane and I walked – in a hunched over fashion because the plane is too small the stand – to my seat. There were buttons everywhere, including the eject button and there was even a steering wheel in front of my seat. After everyone was seated, the pilot closed all the doors and got in the pilot seat. He put on his headphones, pushed some buttons, waited for his signal and then took-off.
I was so excited. I was taking pictures left and right. I didn’t know if I could talk to the pilot or not so I just sat their quietly observing with a huge smile on my face. Eventually we reach our cruising altitude and the plane switched to auto-pilot. I was terrified of doing something wrong, so I tried to move as little as possible, but I was still extremely curious as to what pilots actually do when they are flying. I sneaked a look at the pilot and I noticed he was on his phone. I was shocked – that couldn’t be right. I look again and sure enough he was on Instagram. That’s reassuring. I decided to ignore it and continued to enough the view. My curiosity got the best of me and I looked over again, this time he was texting. How does he even have signal? I had no idea what to do or how to react, I knew the pilot was more than capable of flying the plane and it was on auto-pilot, but sometimes ignorance is bliss. Every few minutes or so he would look up from his phone, push a button and then go back to his phone. I decided to ignore it and continued to enjoy the flight.
After about thirty minutes, I could see the island approaching and a short runway – this should be fun. Then all of a sudden the plane made a sharp turn and we were tilted as the pilot tried to get the right angle for us to land on the runway. A couple of turns later and we were ready for landing. The plane went down towards the runway and we made a speedy and extremely bumpy landing. We continued to speed towards the other end of the runway as the pilot tried to slow down the plane. Just in time we slowed down and the pilot parked the plane. It was definitely a landing I’ll never forget. Then we got off the plane and were welcomed to Lady Elliot. We were greeted with a buffet lunch and then went to our rooms to find our 10kg bags were already there. It was a fantastic start to a fantastic week.