To not want to fly to Australia?

[Reluctantflyer]

Our DC is working in Australia for a couple of years, and DH is understandably very keen to visit.
I'd absolutely love to spend time with our wonderful DC and miss them like crazy, but am feeling quite stressed by the prospect of:

A long long flight when I really don't like flying (had bad experience with plane being struck by lightning a few years ago). I've never flown for longer than 5 hours.

Being cramped on an airplane - I can't sleep at the best of times and can get quite anxious in crowded places. A bed would be amazing but business class is £5000+ per seat!

Snakes, jellyfish, crocodiles and dengue fever etc.
Heat and sun- I can't go out in the sun due to previous skin cancer.

The cost- DH thinks there is no point going for less than 3 weeks. We usually go on holiday for a week in Europe so this would be eye-watering by comparison.

Can anyone talk me down from not really wanting to go?
I'm assuming that flying is the only way to go - we can both take 3 weeks off work if needed.

I know I sound like a right curmudgeon, but it was never on my list of places I would otherwise go or spend our limited savings on. I like Scandinavia....

Any tips for making the journey and the trip less awful?

OP is going to tropical north Queensland. That is indeed where crocodiles live in rivers and estuaries, and there are jellyfish in the sea, bird eating spiders, cane toads, bull ants and all manner of other critters which are somehow larger and more unpleasant than they ought to be. Mosquito-borne diseases are rare but not unheard of.

I'm an Aussie, I love that part of the world and the existence of these critters doesn't bother me at all so I'm not trying to be sensationalist - they do exist though.

And don't get me started on the politics and racial tensions up there. I'll take the critters over a lot of the people any day.

Take a really good travel pillow with you, the expensive sort that really supports your neck

Take a look at prices flying out of another European hub. I sometimes check paris or berlin. Its easy enough to just hop on a £25 easyjet flight / eurostar to those places.

Sorry, I hadn’t read tropical north, last post I saw referred to small town in Qld. Qld is big, not all tropical. No location was mentioned intotially.
Yes, they exist. It’s a stunning part of the world , we love it, as is the tropical NT, I’ve relatives there.
I wasn’t saying the critters don’t exist, or minimising the danger, or suggesting not to be respectful of them, quite the opposite. Enjoy the beauty, and make sensible choices.
i just don’t get why these threads are repeated so often, not just this one. New here. Came for a book discussion originally. Will stick with that 🙂
All the best for everyone’s travel adventures , wherever !

I'm not at all scared of flying and love flights in small planes, but a long-haul commercial flight is my idea of hell. I just find them uncomfortable, claustrophobic and I hate being in close proximity to so many people.

I was lucky enough to get an upgrade to business class when I came back from New York years ago, and someone gave me a strong sleeping pill. I slept almost all the way, and I'm very glad I did.

I'd need anaesthesia to get me on a flight to Oz.

YANBU, OP, not in the slightest.

Currently on week 7 of 11 weeks hols in Aus. DO NOT consider the non-stop 17 hour flight if your Son is in WA. It was bloody awful - as pp have suggested, stop off and have a break. So far I have seen no evidence of crocs, snakes or any tropical diseases - just a small spider and a few mossie bites.
Go see your Son and have a great time.

OP is going to tropical north Queensland.

Er, no, OP says that her daughter is south of Cairns. So not quite sub-tropical.

One of the favourite jokes Australians like to play on English tourists or migrants is the old “everything’s going to kill you” trope. I got it in the playground from the age of 8. It’s bollocks. It’s an attempt to keep alive the myth that all Australians are rugged bushies. They’re not.

Common sense and a bit of bush know-how is what you need. And I know I was brought up with more of that bush knowledge than most born-Australians. It really is a suburban population and culture.

I am in tropical north Qld. You’ll be good. I used to break the flights up because I thought it’d be better for the children etc, but in reality, it prolonged the journey and you have to keep going through security and the boarding process. It’s so much easier getting it all done in one or two goes.

I wouldn't go. I think it's down to you and your 'need' to physically see your dc.
In similar circumstances I didn't go. But from childhood I've been raised with close family living abroad / other end of the country and keeping in touch via other means. Two years doesn't phase me.

I genuinely think most people from the UK believe that when they arrive in Australia, the get off the plane, walk down the aero bridge and are greeted by herds of poisonous snakes, jellyfish, sharks, spiders the size of car tyres, koalas with machine guns and beer-swilling, deodorant-avoidant morons in leather hats that wink and spit and say “Gudday Cobber” as a greeting.
Australia is an extremely urban society. 99% of Australians live in or around one of our states’ capital cities. They are there because that’s where the drinking water is, pretty much. It’s not swelteringly hot here everywhere, all the damn time. Pick your times and places right and you’ll find we get some decent snow. (Yep, kangaroos and gumtrees in the snow. It’s a real thing.) Everywhere is airconditioned. We have giant, airconditioned shopping malls everybloodywhere. Movie theatres, etc. Same. You won’t die. Sun is avoidable. I do it all the time. I wear spf, hats, etc if I’m out, but very rarely am in the middle of the day. We are taught not to.
Dengue fever is borne by tiger mosquitos. They are only in very Far North Queensland, Central Australia and the Torres Strait. Even then they are very rare. We do have mosquitoes. We also have repellant. It’s great.
I travelled 2x a year with two year old twins and a four year old and as they grew for twelve years by myself from the Netherlands to Brisbane. It’s tiring but doable. I recommend Singapore over Dubai as the stopover is shorter and the airport is nicer.

I have only travelled from Australia doing the stop over. It was so much easier to breakup the trip and have a night’s sleep in a hotel bed than travel all the way.

Assuming the time your DC is in Australia is only going to be two years, the reasons you give especially health ones are enough not to go.

If you do, where you stop over and if you can have a night's sleep in between flights may help I suggest.

I wouldn’t willingly go. It’s the spiders. I just wouldn’t relax. My cousin and his family live there but I’ll never visit.

I’d visit my child though I think.

@GrumpyPanda

Sorry, v delayed response to something that may or may not still be relevant to the OP:

You can often find lowish business class fares by flying out of a different city to the airline's hub. So for BA, fly out of AMS, MUC, whatever.

True, but if the OP is thinking of doing that I'd advise looking very carefully at the flight details, especially the itinerary.

If they don't they might end up with a surprise visit to Heathrow or a code share on somebody other than BA (which may or may not be a good thing).

As your child is in a small town in Queensland, I’d avoid the summer if possible. Queensland gets desperately hot especially if you’re not used to it. Autumn or spring would be better.

Yep, Australia is a very urbanised country.

Have you read all the posts by people who actually live in Australia?!

The number of people who die from spider bites each year is incredibly low - the last time I was there, I went to an exhibition at the Museum of Australia about spiders, and their stats for the previous year showed zero deaths from spider bites.

Completely empathise. Both my siblings moved to Aus last year. My father said to me 'you do realise you'll have to fly out there don't you'. I have a 5 year old!! Not a great deal of money, I said they made the choice to move that far away if they want to see us they can come here! I can't fathom the flight with my DD & there is nowhere she can stay if I had to go alone. Don't go if you don't want to. I'm not.

Well I think it sounds great and how lovely to visit DC out there. What if DC stays out there permanently. Are there underlying feelings about this making you reluctant eg wishing he/she wasn't there

I'd definitely go but suggest breaking the flight up. O think that would be more economic that the bed! How about Bali or Kuala Lumpar for a few nights.

You've had loads of good advice already, just wanted to chip in that I have similar issues to you re. flying (ok I've never been in a plane struck by lightning, but I am quite a nervous flyer and a bad sleeper in general). I recently flew long haul for the first time ever and it was so much less bad than I was expecting. If you're on a plane for 12+ hours you will sleep, even in the cheap economy seats - maybe not well, but you wouldn't be able to stay awake the whole time even if you tried.

If possible I'd recommend booking a flight that arrives in the evening and spending your first night in a hotel near the airport (unless your DC lives nearby). You'll be exhausted from the travelling and probably ready to crash out regardless of what time it is in the UK, so that way you can start falling asleep at the right time straight away.

Snakes, jellyfish, crocodiles and dengue fever etc.

🤣 Does your child live inside a zoo, or in the outback with Crocodile Dundee as their neighbour? If not, you are pretty safe.

You forgot drop bears though. Deadly fuckers.

Depends how desperate you are to see your child. If you can wait a year or two then absolutely fine. Why not tell your partner to go ahead without you? If you do go then buy seats with extra leg room, that's a good compromise. Try to go in their winter time. Take all sensible precautions. Do a stop over. I think your fears around the animals are irrational if he or she lives in a big city.

I've done long haul once, I didn't enjoy it and have no plans to do it again whilst my kids are little so I understand that aspect.

Split your flights and fly via Singapore or Dubai and do a couple of nights before your next flight. Take a comfy change of clothes, a good hydrating moisturiser, a good neck pillow and eye mask. I have done the long haul flights. Personally I struggle with 4-6 hour flights because I get restless but somehow once you get past that 6 hours I feel like the time just all blends into one.

Take promethazine or a sleeping table to help you sleep or even ask your gp for some Valium to calm you down for the flight.

Get some decent waterproof factor 50, a good wide brimmed sun hat and a long sleep rashy vest and short. Head to Kmart when you get here and grab a $10 pop up sun tent for protection. You could even walk around with an umbrella, plenty of visitors from China/Japan/Korea do this to protect themselves from the UV.

I live in aus and I can tel you now, crocs and snakes aren't just strolling down the street with you. I don't know anyone that has had dengue fever either. Just be sensible don't go and hang out at swamps and river at sundown. Wear bug spray if out in the bush or etc.

You only live once and you will make memories that last a lifetime. Most people on their death beds look back and regret the things they didnt get to do, so give yourself a good talking to and book the trip. Once here you will have an amazing time !

I've never been in a plane struck by lightning,

Since that has come up a couple of times now in this thread if it's helps maybe I should mention that whilst it's sometimes (but not always) a noticeable event 😳onboard that from an technical and aviating POV a lightning strike in itself, especially on a large aircraft, rarely causes any problems.

After landing the engineers sometimes find witness marks on the hull where the strike has entered and exited the aircraft skin (the electrical charge itself runs around the outside of the hull between the two points) but other that there's generally not much to write home about.