Funchal; Wednesday, 13 April, 2016

With breakfast completed I only had time to head back to my room to pack before checking out of the hotel and walking into town to catch the aerobus back to the airport.

The aerobus in itself is a great sightseeing tour with it winding its way up into the hills on the edge of the city to reach the main trunk road, and on each switchback offering stunning views over the old town and harbour.

I reached the airport with plenty of time to spare, checked in and headed through security into what is basically a building site. They are clearly in the process of updating the airport, but at the time of visiting it meant there were virtually no facilities and an awful lot of drilling going on.

The plane was very busy, but unlike on arrival where we couldn’t be trusted to walk to the plane and had to be bussed boarding was a quick walk across the tarmac and then onto the steps. I’d held back to be one of the last to board as there didn’t appear to be much point in being in a scrum, and as I had a bulkhead seat my bags would have to go into an overhead locker so I didn’t have to worry about finding space, space would be found!

I was very glad I held back as just as I approached the gate yet another of Madeira’s spectacular showers passed over, soaking people who were standing on the steps trying to board. They decided to call over a bus for the 20 or so of us still in the terminal and rather than walking through the shower and waiting on the steps we were bussed to the bottom of the steps and then allowed up one at a time so that we didn’t have to wait in the rain.

Boarding completed we set off down the runway in a heavily loaded and fully fuelled jet down a runway built on hundreds on concrete pillars over the sea, I’ve never been quite so glad to feel the moment of rotation and us leaving one of the world’s scariest runways intact.