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. My inner travel agent emerges at this point as I’m the FTO (family travel organiser) and now, the online travel agent.

GUR    Gurney Airstrip/Airport, Milne Bay District, Papua New Guinea

Gurney has great military significance for Australia in World War II. The airstrip was the base of military operations in the Battle of Milne Bay – the first time the Japanese were defeated on land. According to Wikipedia, it was only reopened for commercial use in 1966 which would prepare for the relocation of District Headquarters from Samarai to the new township of Alotau. Milne Bay was home to my husband for over 10 years and this is where I arrived as a new bride. It couldn’t be said that Gurney was an airport at that time, when we arrived in a Patair Piaggio.

While we lived in Alotau, we flew in/out of Gurney a number of times with varying levels of “excitement”. Gurney was always unpredictable when the rains came and socked the bay in entirely. Returning from Brisbane with our first child, the pilot had to fly so low that it felt like we were skimming the treetops, and the birds certainly didn’t appreciate it. My husband said he saw country that day that he’d never seen previously. There was our first Christmas while we waited to see if the plane would get under the weather in time to bring our Christmas meat delivery – just in time for dinner. Government charter flights sometimes offered an excursion if there were spare seats, but one went disastrously wrong when the plane crashed not long after take-off. My husband was the last person to see the pilot and passengers on board, some of whom we knew.  For days the skies echoed with the sounds of planes and helicopters searching for the crash site. Flying in PNG was never for the nervous.

We were so excited when we got to return to Gurney and Alotau in 2012! You can’t imagine our astonishment when we saw that Gurney had a proper, fancy airport. We had a great time revisiting the town and the houses we’d lived in as well as taking a banana boat across to Samarai.

GAZ     Guasopa airstrip, Woodlark Island, Milne Bay District, PNG

I mentioned above about the government charters to outlying areas. When my husband had to visit the school at Guasopa I was able to hitch a lift and was blown away by the beauty of the place. The ocean was so blue and the sand so white, I just had to run down to put my feet in the water – I think I really felt homesick just then. And yes, we visited the school and he delivered the goods he had brought but it’s the beauty of the place that’s stuck in my mind for over 50 years. Being poor newly-weds, we didn’t own a camera so if you’re on Instagram you can have a look at its beauty here.

GKA     Goroka Airport, Goroka, Eastern Highlands District, PNG

When you live in Papua New Guinea, the nearest airport becomes your hub and for four years, that was Goroka for our family. We had many family visits while we lived there: my parents, his aunt and sister and parents as well as his father on work business.

We also saw Queen Elizabeth arrive there in 1973; the RAAF Hercules bringing in food for drops during a famine; and a wide variety of aircraft. Mr Cassmob remembers our belongings and car being loaded into a Bristol Freighter for our relocation to Port Moresby. Some years later, on another charter flight, I was offered membership of the Mile High Club – which I was very definite about refusing.

GCN    Grand Canyon National Park Airport, Arizona, USA

Less than a week before Christmas 1992 we took a short trip to the Grand Canyon.  It was amazing both en route and once there. The mountains and cliffs looked like they were coated with white fondant icing. This was a phenomenal experience!

GOV    Gove Nhulunbuy Airport, Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory

Not my favourite flight en route Darwin to Cairns, mainly because it felt even more sardine-like than most flights. I think I/we only did it once or twice and then made sure to avoid that route. No photos taken.

GGW   Glasgow International Airport, Glasgow, Scotland

Glasgow has mixed memories for us as one of our departures was an urgent one to return home. Emirates Airlines were excellent, reserving seats for us until we got there from Oban, ensuring we had a spare seat between us, and then offering us a night at an airport hotel in Dubai.

More recently, l left Glasgow when returning to London Heathrow for the RootsTech London conference in 2019. Scottish airports are so much easier to deal with than mega-airports like London, another of the reasons we like Emirates as we can jump from Dubai to less manic airports closer to our travel interest.

Do you have an airport near home from which you’ve often travelled? Have you been to any of these airports? What was your experience or special memories? Do you have a favourite “G” airport?