Family history across the seas

My 2025 A to Z theme is Airports, Airstrips, Aircraft, and Airlines I’ve known and flown with. I’ll be using IATA codes where they’re available.

ACF[i]     Archerfield, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Archerfield is significant to me because it’s where had my first experience of flight in 1968. A friend who had been in the Air Force cadets took me up in a single engine Cessna, soon after he obtained his licence. I was delighted to finally be able to be in the air and flying.

From the airport’s history[ii]: “Since our establishment in the early 1930’s, Archerfield Airport has seen many pivotal moments in Australia’s aviation history. We were the base for Brisbane’s interstate and international air traffic up until 1949, a starting point for intrepid aviators such as Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, and a crucial base for RAAF, UASF, RNAF and RNFAA during World War II.”

ATH     Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, Athens, Greece

We landed in Athens as our port of dis-embarkation on our first trip to Europe in 1974. Our arrival was pre-dawn, around 3:30am, after a long and tedious flight from Papua New Guinea (PNG) via a stop-over in Manila. Our diary notes reveal nothing about the airport other than that the currency exchange was open, enabling us to get into the city. Arriving at the hotel, we were met with only the nightwatchman, so we took ourselves up to Syntagma Square for a look-around. It’s incredible to think now, that our hotel booking had been made via snail mail and they had held it even though our payment hadn’t yet arrived.

We must surely have been jet-lagged yet we included an orientation visit to the Acropolis on the same day. Throughout our stay we were bemused and disoriented by the centuries passed since this cradle of civilisation had come to be. It seemed ironic that we’d gone from the “Stone Age” of PNG’s Highlands and yet in another way I suppose we’d actually been living in an environment very reminiscent of those past centuries.

An enduring memory of Greece is that the people were among the very few who recognised Papua New Guinea because many Greek emigrants had visited Port Moresby on their journey to Australia.

It would be nearly 40 years before we’d again visit Athens airport, and our view of the nearby Acropolis had certainly improved!

AMS    Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

All that we remember of Schipol was that it was large and seemed very new in 1974. Our commitment to the travel diary had inevitably wavered long before, and I guess we were tired and hankering for home and our waiting children. It was the end of our first European adventure, which we thought might be a once-off.

ASP     Alice Springs Airport, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia

For many people Alice Springs Airport is their entry point to the Northern Territory as they head to see “The Rock” or Uluṟu (to use its correct name), as well “The Olgas” or Kata Tjuṯa National Park.[iii] For our first visit there, though, we’d travelled by car, as we did on other long drives from Darwin.

However, for me ASP was mostly a transit point between Darwin and Adelaide when travelling for work to Flinders University. What I always like the most about flying into Alice is the amazing scenery and the red soil and desert plants.

There was the time when a colleague and I had been doing interviews for a vacancy….despite the bookings, the check-in person (remember those?) sent my bag for an extra trip to Adelaide just to keep my colleague’s bag company. <grin>

It wasn’t until a few years ago that we flew into Alice and then joined our eldest daughter for another exploration of the Red Centre. The Territory was more open than most of Australia in those early post-covid days and it was fascinating to see so many aircraft from around the world being stored on site.

ADL     Adelaide Airport, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Increasingly. I find that the features of an airport just don’t stick in my mind, unless something happens while I’m there.

For five years I flew to Adelaide two or three times a year. The Northern Territory Clinical School where I worked was an “outpost of empire” for Flinders University – or, as I was known to say, “a jewel in their crown”. This meant that I would go to Adelaide for orientation initially, follow up meetings with colleagues and also a graduation of “our” medical students. I did enjoy having real-life connections with colleagues since most of the year involved phone calls across the 3000km distance.

Even though Mr Cassmob and I were at Adelaide airport only a few months ago to see the current Chihuly exhibition, the airport itself remains largely mainly a blank.

AKL     Auckland Airport, Auckland, New Zealand

We first took our older two daughters to Auckland in 1976 as a small compensation for not taking them to Europe in 1974. Again, I have no memory of the airport itself or indeed any dramas around arriving there.

On my second arrival there, with daughter #3, we had just travelled from Los Angeles after an annoying blunder by Air New Zealand. All I remember was how proactive the air crew were with their courtesy after the debacle, assuring me that my husband would be waiting for me in Brisbane.

---

[i] https://www.world-airport-codes.com/australia/brisbane-archerfield-85015.html

[ii] https://archerfieldairport.com.au/about-us/history/&nbsp; ALSO https://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/citation/archerfield-airport-administration-building-aerodrome-terminal-building-hangars-interwar-buildings_144.pdf

[iii] https://uluru.gov.au/