When we flew out of Brisbane on a China Southern Airbus A350 back in March, there were so many things that lined up. And the line continues with new discoveries.

We had been wanting to visit Europe for some time, but after the Covid Pandemic, air fares were expensive. We were having trouble trying to schedule a European summer with a Barrier Reef winter. It just wasn’t going to happen. But then, suddenly there were these cheap flights at a time that we could squeeze in. It meant a rush to prepare and leave, but it was possible. It felt right, as we boarded the plane, that morning half a year ago. We liked the route, taking us to London with just one stop at Guanzhou, and was 2 hours less flight time than the traditional kangaroo route through Singapore. Less flight time means less carbon burned!

Once on board, we found the route also had two aspects that were significant to us. The first sector would take us over the Wessel Islands, allowing us to see the “Hole in the Wall” that we had visited only a few years ago as part of the famous “Wessel Vessels” cruise. Additionally, the second sector on to Europe was to take us way north, arriving over Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, allowing Birgit to grab a once only overview of her country of birth.

Yesterday we found another co-incident, as the route is directly overhead of Tual and the Kai Islands. We can remember looking down from the flight and admiring the coral reef clad islands of Indonesia, but it was not until months later, after the travel bug had taken a big bite, that we started to consider bring SeeBeeZee to these waters.