ALL PROFITS DONATED
DARWIN, 6.45AM, Saturday 15 April 2023. We’re standing with our baggage and sky-watching equipment outside one of Darwin’s imposing waterfront hotels, ready and waiting for our Big Adventure. All we need is the transport we booked the previous evening. What could possibly go wrong?
At 6.50am, we check with the hotel receptionist. “Oh yes, it was definitely booked. I’ll call them.”
Now it’s 6.55am. Check again. “They say they’re on the way.”
At 7am, when we’re supposed to be at the other end of the city’s lengthy Esplanade, joining the team we’ll be working with on a rare solar eclipse in five days: “I’ll call them again.”
It’s 7.05am – now with a hint of exasperation: “They still haven’t turned up…”
“No,” says the receptionist. “They hardly ever do. I don’t know why.” Consternation and looming hysteria. But then, at 7.10am, a rideshare car drops off an incoming passenger and we grab the vehicle before it departs. There is a benign Providence after all.
When you’re embarking on what you fondly expect will be the trip of a lifetime, a smooth start is highly desirable. But if a shaky one turns out to be the worst that goes wrong – well, you have much to be thankful for. And by the way, only one of us is subject to bouts of hysteria when travel arrangements go awry. The other is completely unflappable, with more than two decades of professional travel experience, from airline cabin crew to tourism management.
The solar eclipse of 20 April 2023 was to be a particularly unusual one. Like all total eclipses, the awe-inspiring.
