We’ve had the changeover from Daylight Saving to regular time (apart from lucky readers in Western Australia who don’t have to go through that twice-yearly overhaul of the body clock) and now the days are getting shorter as winter approaches. It’s that time of year when people start looking at maps and globes, and wonder if there’s a chance that they can get away to somewhere sunnier and escape the cold.

 
This means that people are looking to the tropics for a winter holiday. In Australia, we’re lucky to be only a short flight away from a number of Pacific Island nations that enjoy a balmy climate year-round. In fact, some of those destinations are found within our own shores – all those northern holiday spots such as Darwin, Cairns and Broome. And you even get some folk from the other side of the Tasman hopping over from New Zealand to Australian cities to get away from their winter, which can be even worse than hours. For Australians, the domestic holiday spots are often a good choice for a winter getaway, as you don’t have hassles with visas and passports or with the language and culture.

 
But what if you do want to go to somewhere a bit further afield and to experience a different culture while you soak up a few rays of sun (hey, you have to get plenty of Vitamin D!)? What are some options that won’t see you travelling for hours and hours on a plane (i.e. destinations within the South Pacific) that you can choose from for your winter getaway?

 
Fiji: Capital city: Suva; main languages: English, Fijian and Fijian Hindi. A very popular tourist destination with all the things that a good Pacific getaway offers, such as sunshine, warm water and palm trees. Has had a few problems on the political front over the past 20 years or so but this has settled down. There’s a strong Hindi (Indian) population, which makes the culture of Fiji quite distinct from other Pacific Island nations.

 
Samoa: Capital city: Apia; main languages: English and Samoan. If you go to Samoa, be prepared for the very conservative religious culture – everyone goes to church on Sundays and skimpy dress can be frowned on, even when worn by tourists. The people are friendly and play great rugby, so sport-loving Aussies can expect to fit in.

 
Vanuatu: Capital city: Port Vila; main languages: Bislama, English and French. An archipelago that’s closer to Australia than New Zealand is. This country’s also a tax haven, so a business trip here could be worth considering!

 
Solomon Islands: Capital city: Honiara; main language: English. Quite similar in culture to Papua New Guinea, which the Solomons gained independence from in 1975. Was also the site of the Battle of Guadalcanal, which makes this island group historically significant.

 
Tonga: Capital city: Nuku’alofa ; main languages: English and Tongan. Tonga didn’t half put up a good fight in the latest Rugby World Cup, so this is another Pacific Island nation for sports fans to visit and have fun in. Also a good place to visit if you are self-conscious about your weight when it comes to sunning yourself on the beach: in this country, a generous figure is considered a sign of beauty!

We were really excited to hear about the launch of Air Australia into the market and all the exciting new possibilities it was going to provide to travellers into, out of and within Australia. And it was a bit disappointing to find out that Air Australia managed to sully the name of our good country by managing to get itself in financial poop, to the extent that they even stranded travellers in airports when they (the company, not the travellers) went down the gurgler. There are some standards, so we won’t write the words that best express what these travellers were probably thinking.

 
It was probably a case of “mess with the best, die like the rest”. Australia already has one national carrier in the form of Qantas, which has been flying since 1920. That’s going back to the days when everything had propellers, and the big jet-powered air liners of today were just a fantasy. Qantas’s first commercial passenger flight happened before World War II broke out, flying from Darwin to Singapore. And it still flies the same route, even though the little Avro 504K has long since been replaced by jet aircraft. The well-known kangaroo in the logo certainly kicks some serious butt in the world of Australian air travel, and the kangaroo is prepared to fight anyone who tries to knuckle in on its territory. Some people might try citing JetStar as a potential rival to the Flying Kangaroo. Guess again – JetStar is the low-cost subsidiary of Qantas.

 
Why has Qantas managed to survive while other companies have gone bung? It’s not just a case of starting early in the picture, although this certainly would have helped. Ansett was another Australian airline that got started in the pre-WWII period but it managed to get into the financial poop when it started looking offshore and get into the international scene. Ansett also got involved with another national carrier – Air New Zealand – sparking a bit of trans-Tasman rivalry and creating a few problems regarding monopolies (if Air New Zealand had owned Ansett, there would have just been one main company flying domestic routes in New Zealand, which is Not Allowed), not to mention a few other problems, including the terrorism September 11 2001 and all the impact it had on the global aviation industry. And Ansett ended up dying dramatically and messily, though the process took longer than the flash-in-the-pan life and death of Air Australia. Air New Zealand managed to survive and is doing reasonably well – they’re an option for flying to Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland – but they did get a bail-out or two from the New Zealand government, or else we’d have seen Qantas doing domestic routes on both sides of the Tasman.

 
The brand “Air Australia” still exists – it’s the name of a flying school operating out of Perth, and if you’re interested in learning to fly, either for fun or to get a start on an aviation career (and you live in Western Australia), it’s probably not a bad place to start the process.