Air time

19 hours spent hurtling through the air in a metal capsule allows plenty of time for reviewing and evaluating the experiences just had. 

There were many unique and memorable adventures had in Italy, not the least of which was travelling by water taxi to the airport terminal in Venice. A two-minute walk from our hotel, with not one bridge to cross, the taxi pick-up point was a narrow jetty where many activities seemed to take place, in terms of collection and delivery of goods by a variety of vessels. 

When our polished timber taxis arrived, suitcases were hefted into the front and passengers handed down into the low-roofed seating area for a final tour through the narrow canals and then out onto the open water highway. The journey began at a gentle pace, but once some invisible boundary was reached we took off, bouncing over the wash left by the many other boats on the water. 

Arriving at the airport after half an hour, suitcases were unceremoniously hoisted up onto the arrival jetty, followed by the passengers, in much the same manner - one leg stretching for the solid timber landing platform while the other bobbed up and down with the boat. Neither passengers nor luggage ended up in the water by some small miracle, and we arrived on the concourse alive and dry, if a little windblown. 

Walking to the terminal we looked around for our fellow travellers, as we had been split into two taxis, four passengers in each, and the second taxi had overtaken ours in a great flurry as soon as the speed restriction zone ended, so we knew they were already there somewhere. 

Navigating the bag-drop, and security check system was a little confusing and required taking the lift down a level to check our luggage in, before going back up to the level we had arrived on, for security screening. We found the other four just ahead of us in the bag-drop queue. With only an hour to fill before boarding we all found something to eat and drink, enjoying a last chat about our experiences. 

The first leg ended at Doha where the Queensland contingent would have a 22-hour layover and  for the southerners, a 4-hour break. We had hoped to have time for farewells when we arrived at Doha, but our two groups were separated on the transfer buses and we were obviously delivered to different sections of the arrivals hall. Although they waited at their drop-off point, thinking we would arrive in the same spot, we never saw our Queensland friends again, as we were hustled straight through another security check and into the airport. The Doha airport is so huge with so many entry and exit points it took us a while to orient ourselves and find any familiar landmarks from our transit four weeks ago, so reconnecting when we had no idea where we had each been dropped was an impossibility  

Messages were sent when we realised we had missed each other and promises to meet again were made. We had begun as a diverse group of old friends, sisters, mothers, daughters and strangers, but had ended the month a cohesive team, bonded by the joys and pitfalls (although there weren’t many of those!) of travel and the experience of a new culture.