Twenty thousand feet above Lord Howe Island the air is lumpy and uneven.
Outside it is 41 degrees below zero, and as black as the slow black, sloe black, crow black, bible black sky above Dylan Thomas’s milkwood. Linda and I are aboard Qantas Flight QF107, bound for Los Angeles, on the second leg of our three-stop flight to New York. By some bizarre twist, the whole plane is watching the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch on the in-flight TV system.
When we checked our luggage in at Christchurch Airport, we were given immigration cards to fill in for US Customs. Among the questions we had to answer was the following gem: “Have you ever been, or are you involved in, espionage, sabotage, or terrorist activities, or genocide?” The question begs, who would answer yes?
The night flight to Los Angeles seemed to take forever, and dawn only found us over Hawaii, with six hours’ flying time still to come. Eventually, though, the island of Santa Catalina, the island of romance, hove into view, a rugged patch of brown amid an ocean of blue, and about half an hour later, we crossed the broken coastline of California. Below us stretched L.A. A brown haze covered the city, almost concealing the Hollywood Hills far off in the distance. The city seemed flat and endless, with huge highways running in at all angles.
We touched down at LAX and made quick progress through customs and immigration. At the Northwest Terminal, we checked our packs, then settled down to wait in the huge terminal. We both sneaked a stand-up wash in the handicapped toilets, which made us feel new again and dined extravagantly on Pizza Hut pizzas. The Northwest Airlines flight took off on time, and as we lifted off, the mosaic of L.A. was set out below us
Leaving behind the bright orange glow of L.A., we crossed the Rockies, their snow-capped peaks just visible in the darkness, and flew east over the United States. The flight was long and tiring, and I suffered terribly from asthma, brought on, I think, by a bagel with cream cheese that was served up as a form of snack. We barely noticed Detroit Airport as we shuffled from one arrival gate to our next departure gate. With two and a half hours to kill, we had a cup of tea at Burger King, then fell asleep, stretched out along rows of chairs.
Fifty minutes out from Detroit, we began our descent into New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The city below seemed to go on forever, stretching into the hazy distance in every direction. The huge brown Hudson River split the city in two, its lower reaches forested and dotted with huge mansions. Shipyards and factories lined its banks closer to the city. The skyline of Manhattan was off on the opposite side of the aircraft and was invisible.
Forty minutes later, we were in a yellow cab with Dan¹, speeding along the cracked and broken streets of New York. It was a beautiful hot day, and the trip to Dan’s place in Brooklyn took about half an hour. After showers, we caught an A train over to Manhattan and spent an hour or two wandering around Times Square. It was busy, with people and cars everywhere, and all the shops were open.
We met a friend of Dan’s, whose name is Kathy, in a small park surrounded by buildings, and we all set off to walk to Central Park. We walked up Fifth Avenue, where some of New York’s most exclusive shops are to be found, marvelling at the sheer magnitude of some of the buildings. The Rockefeller Centre was particularly impressive, with its severe sandstone lines and bas-reliefs of ordinary people, building better lives for the good of God, and America.
Within the jumbled rows of buildings, Central Park is an oasis of tranquillity, albeit a crowded one on a Saturday afternoon. We walked up to Sheep Field, where probably fifty thousand people were relaxing in small groups or playing games. We watched them for an hour or so, then continued on through the park. Eventually, we ended up back out amongst the city, somewhere in Midtown, and we walked over to Greenwich Village for a curry before making our way back to Dan’s apartment for the night.
¹Readers may remember Dan from our Komodo Island adventures back in 1992.
CurseOfTheTraveller 