Shortly before Christmas 1971 my family flew on what I believe was the first BOAC 747 flight from Melbourne (MEL, Tullamarine by then) to Hong Kong via a refuelling stop in Darwin.
After several days in Hong Kong, we flew (not by BOAC 747) to Bangkok, at which point our plans fell apart when India closed their airspace during the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which lasted from December 3rd to December 16. If anyone knows what exact date Indian airspace was actually closed (surely December 3rd?), that would nail our flight down to no more than about a week earlier.
We subsequently flew to the UK via Tehran and Beirut and returned to Australia with a few days each in Barbados, Mexico City and New Zealand, and numerous refuelling stops and transfers, in time for the start of school at the end of January 1972.
I was eight years old. Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tehran and Beirut were pretty exotic places back then!