Monday, May 3, 2010

Leaving Australia

I'm writing this from Darwin airport - the first and hopefully the last airport I will see on my trip - so barring any minor miracles, it means that I'm going to fly over to Indonesia, breaking my flightless goal. One one hand, this doesn't bother me too much because that goal was always just something interesting and challenging to try to do. It's not as though I'm pathologically indisposed to flying or to sticking to my goals when it would be worse for me to do so, so given the circumstances it's not a big deal to have to give up.

On the other hand though, what bothers me is that it's so difficult to go from Australia to south-east asia by sea. It's only a small body of water to cross - bigger than the English channel but smaller than between NZ and Australia. In fact, from Cape York at the tip of Queensland over to Papua New Guinea looks about the same as the English channel. So why can't some boats make the trip and take people? The low cost of flying - Jetstar flights from Darwin to Indonesia/ Singapore are around $150 - must be part of the reason, but there are other trips around the world where there are ferry as well as airplane options. Ferries can take lots of people so could be profitable. As people become more environmentally aware and less willing to fly, consumer demand for a ferry will increase, so it wouldn't surprise me if sometime in the near future there does become available a flightless option.

This is the last I'll see of the western world for a while. I'm looking forward to exploring some exotic (to me) cultures.

2 comments:

  1. Not so convinced by the anti-flying mob anyway. CO2 is the modern obsession of the western world but the fact is if the whole of the UK went carbon neutral overnight the Chinese would make up for it in less than two years (in NZ's case about 10% of that time). Flying is much more efficient in every other respect - time, that is - so I doubt ferries will be back anytime soon.

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  2. I appreciate your views and it is true due to increasing costs of flying the ferries and cruises are the best option of a trip and journey and it is more enjoyable and relaxing as flying is the fastest mode of journey but it is now quite expensive to fly and ferries are much better option to have a memorable trip.

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