Again, we’re just amazed at the Qantas service. This is a short flight – 435 miles, about an hour and a half. They came by with “morning tea” – a piece of fruitcake (yup, that’s what it was!) and coffee or tea. There were complimentary headsets and TV screens; mostly it was the morning news, but still – it was way more than you get from US Airways any more. Arrived at Sydney’s airport, the car was waiting and off we went to our hotel.
The flight over had an amazing sight – the huge bush fires that have resulted in 170+ deaths as of tonight – you could see the smoke and the orange tinge that was undoubtedly from the flames. It went a full 20 minutes into the flight.
The news coverage here is pretty remarkable; it’s hard to imagine that type of devastation on that scale. Whole families, who had been told to shelter in their houses as there was no reason to leave, have burned to death. The count is now expected to top 300 people died.
Alternatively, many of those that have tried to run have been overtaken by the fires and burned in their cars. The ones who have survived as the fire overtakes them seem to be the ones that bonded together in public buildings like city halls or fire stations and such. Even then, they’ve sometimes not made it and many had no protection whatsoever as their fire services (many volunteers – remember this is a fairly rural area) had already been sent other places to fight the fires.
