Have Baby, Still Travel
First flight, Aberdeen. You would think it would be the flight that would be hard but getting from Streatham to Heathrow by public transport on my own with a 3-month-old was never going to be simple. The buggy toppling over as the bus took a roundabout summed up the fun really! She wasn’t in the buggy but as she was on my lap it was pretty hard to get it back upright.
Getting through security at Heathrow was a breeze but by then it was 2:1 adult baby ratio and at Heathrow they let you keep the baby in the sling all the way through. Never tried, but surely this is easier than having to go through with a buggy? Onboard Esme was attached to me using an infant seatbelt which BA provided. It is recommended to feed infants for take-off and landing to help their ears equalise and for such a short flight she fed the whole way both directions. On the way home, needless to say, we skipped the bus.
As Esme’s first year went on the journeys got longer. We decided to forfeit the main benefit of holidaying with family, extra grownup hands at the airport, in favour of extending the beginning of our villa holiday in Spain by a couple of days so that we could visit beautiful Ronda. It is a lovely little town to wander around and is definitely a destination where a sling is necessary. The cobbled streets would make using a buggy very hard work and a very bumpy ride for the baby. After enjoying a relaxed time and tapas in Ronda, we trained and bussed via Malaga to Benajarafe, feeling like the buggy was slowing us down and just acting as a piece of extra baggage to lug around. This isn’t the first long distance train we have taken in Spain and have found them wonderfully spacious and punctual. When we arrived in Benajarafe we had a short walk up hill to the villa and this road was so bad and bumpy that Esme was crying in her buggy by the time we got to the door. The buggy hasn’t been on holiday since - it hasn’t been missed either!
Our trip to Eastern Canada covered some beautiful places. Esme reached 6 months old in Montreal, we went whale watching from Tadoussac, visited the Saguenay Fjord, picnicked by Lac St Jean, mooched around very European feeling Quebec and spent a quaint morning in Trois Rivieres. We travelled around by car - we should have taken Esme’s own car seat with us as she may have been more comfortable in it but it’s likely it wouldn’t have helped us! Not having a car of our own at the time, we discovered that she had taken a disliking to cars the week before we flew out to Canada. We drove around to the soundtrack of 3 Little Ducks and Wheels on the Bus in an attempt to keep her entertained and happy. She finally fell asleep in the car on the 5th day of the 6 that we had it! It was such a relief when she did as it was the longest day of driving that we had. If I’d have known that the drives would be such hard work, I really don’t think this would have stopped me going as we saw some beautiful places and had great fun.
We started our South Africa trip in St Francis Bay which involved flying from Heathrow to Johannesburg, to Port Elizabeth and then driving from there. Door to door it was almost a 24-hour journey, but it went surprisingly well. The overnight 11-hour flight from Heathrow departed just after 7pm when Esme would normally be going to sleep so was perfectly timed for her to be very ready for sleep after meal service and she slept most of the way. The flight home from Cape Town was timed the same and went just as well. We did have basinet cots on board, but they were quite high, and the curious little thing was too interested looking around over everyone to have any chance of settling. There were infant seat belts so I just strapped her to me and as she was connected, I was comfortable dozing off knowing that I couldn’t drop her on the floor. We had allowed 4 hours connection in Johannesburg, so we didn’t have any panic about making it through immigration and had plenty of time to relax and get a big breakfast in all of us. The short hop of a flight to Port Elizabeth went smoothly too but it was asking too much that Esme would also manage a couple of hours drive despite the fact she was much more used to car travel now than she was in Canada. She did amazingly well on that 24-hour journey.
We allowed time to get over the journey by staying four nights in the cute St Francis Bay. We had a couple of nights at Kariega Game Reserve where rather than making use of the babysitting facilities we decided to take it in turns doing the game drives and childcare. Esme hadn’t been left with someone else before so we would have been worrying about her screaming the place down the whole time! We headed along the Garden Route, walked the suspension bridge over Storm’s River mouth, going wine tasting by horse and cart, visited an ostrich farm and the Cango Caves from Oudtshoorn amongst other things.
In South Africa we had hotel accommodation rather than self-catering which we’d had in Canada. Self-catering does allow you to eat much earlier and fit in the baby, especially if weaning but we coped with going to restaurants in South Africa even though we were surprised by the lack of highchairs in what you would think were child friendly restaurants.
We finished up the trip and Esme’s under 1 travel in Cape Town, took her to the sea life centre, which she loved and took the cable car up a cloudy Table Mountain, the clouds cleared perfectly whilst we were up there. We generally took it easy for the last few days of the holiday. The most important thing to remember when travelling with a baby is to allow plenty of time for everything, don’t try to squeeze too much in, keep a relaxed itinerary and you can still see plenty of amazing sights without rushing about.
Get in touch on 020 3292 0515 sarah.coombes@travelcounsellors.com