Travel Bulolo PNG to Johannesburg, South Africa IUFRO Division 5 Forest Products meeting 24 September to 12 October 1973, Cape Town

Monday 24 to Saturday 29 September, CAPE TOWN, IUFRO Division 5 Meetings, visits to University of Stellenbosch and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Stellenbosch. Sunday 30 September, Post Conference Tour, by road, Garden Route, CAPE TOWN - PORT ELIZABETH, via Outshoorn (left), tour expected to end on Saturday 6 October. Sunday 7 October, PORT ELIZABETH – JOHANNESBURG, South African Airways Flight SA404. Monday 8 October, Post Conference Tour by road JOHANNESBURG to Kruger National Park via Nelspruit and return to JOHANNESBURG on Sunday 14 October. Monday 15 October, JOHANNESBURG – BLANTYRE (Malawi), dep 11.00 AM, South African Airways Flight SA172. From Blantyre, travel by road to inspect forest nurseries and plantations and return to Blantyre. Tuesday 16 October, BLANTYRE – LUSAKA (Zambia), dep 10.30 AM, Air Malawi Flight QM022. Wednesday 17 October, in Lusaka and environs, EAAFRO activities. Thursday 18 October, LUSAKA – NAIROBI (Kenya), dep 7.30 AM, Zambia Airways Flight QZ514; NAIROBI –ENTEBBE (Uganda), dep 7.00 PM, East African Airways Flight EC919. Friday 19 and Saturday 20 October, in Entebbe and environs, EAAFRO activities. Saturday 20 October, ENTEBBE – NAIROBI, dep 8.40 PM, East African Airways Flight EC918. Monday 22 to Friday 26 October, Nairobi, attend joint meeting on tropical provenance and progeny research and international cooperation by IUFRO Working Parties S2.02.8 Tropical Species Provenances and S2.03.1 Breeding Tropical and Subtropical Species. Saturday 27 October to Thursday 1 November, by road to and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, EAAFRO activities. Friday 2 November, DAR ES SALAAM – TANANARIVE (Madagascar), dep 11.35 AM, Air Madagascar Flight MD737. Saturday 3 to Sunday 4 November, tours in Tananarive and environs, Madagascar. Monday 5 November, TANANARIVE – MAURITIUS, dep 10.40 AM, Air France Flight AF477. Wednesday 7 November, MAURITIUS – SYDNEY, via Perth and Melbourne, South African Airways Flight SA242 operated by Qantas Boeing 707. Thursday 8 November, SYDNEY – AUCKLAND (New Zealand), dep 8.00 AM, Qantas Flight 250; AUCKLAND –ROTORUA, Mount Cook Airlines. Monday 12 November to Friday 16 November in Rotorua. Meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5 Reproductive Processes. Saturday 17 November, ROTORUA – AUCKLAND, Mount Cook Airlines, duty travel ends, recreation leave begins. Sunday 18 November, AUCKLAND – BRISBANE, dep 8.00 AM, Air New Zealand Flight TE80.

Travel Bulolo PNG to Johannesburg, South Africa

We travelled by road from Bulolo to Lae on Thursday 20 September and stayed overnight at our usual location, the Huon Gulf Motel. We flew out on schedule from Lae to Port Moresby on the Friday. The Lae airport was still located in the city in those days. We changed aircraft and boarded a TAA 727 in Port Moresby, again flying out on schedule via Brisbane for Sydney. Overnight was spent in a motel at Randwick before returning to Mascot for our first ever long-haul international flight.

We proceeded through immigration departures and left Sydney at 10.15 on Saturday 22 September in a Qantas 707 V-jet (photograph). The flight had a South African flight number but was operated by Qantas. We had seats together in front of a bulkhead with our son Ivon accommodated in a bassinet attached to the bulkhead.

The first leg was to Perth with a stop to take on maximum fuel for the long hop westwards across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. In Perth we could disembark and walk to the terminal and wait there until walking back out to the aircraft, there were no air bridges and no security checks in those days! The long leg over the Indian Ocean following the sun to the west, the refuelling stop in Mauritius, and setting off again west-south-west for Johannesburg and arriving just after sunset made for a longer than usual day and brought on an acute attack of jetlag in the hotel that night. However, our son decided he could continue to operate on Australian time, which meant he woke us up several times during the night!

On Sunday 23 September we flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town. To our surprise the flight was operated by a South African Airways Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet (photograph), set up with high density seating to operate on what was at the time one of the busiest domestic air routes in the world. This was a new experience for us of an aircraft that had been recently introduced to international airline services around the world.3

South African Airlines Boeing 747-200B “Jumbo Jet” ZS-SAN operated the high-density Johannesburg – Cape Town route in 1973. The Afrikaans name of the airline “Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens” was on the other side of the aircraft.

3 Qantas had introduced the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet to its fleet only two years earlier in late 1971 and was using it on services to USA and Europe, but had not used it on the Sydney – Johannesburg route by 1973, possibly because of too low passenger numbers.