The journey to the worlds begins. We left early for Heathrow to avoid the rush hour and met a little traffic on the M3. My bag and boat box checked in Ok and the box was accepted without question after scanning. I had a smooth trip through security. Laptops and phone in bags but liquids out. Following that I headed to the Emirates lounge for a coffee. (Yes I paid for club as the thought of a 24 hour flight time sitting upright in a chair was not conducive to health) I had forgotten what international travel was like with the variety of people you see.
Dinner on the full A380 flight was Scallops for starters but they were served cold however the French 2009 les tourelles de longueville red wine more than made up for it although wine does not do well at altitude. The seat was comfortable. There were two bottles of water, the usual tv with lots of rubbish films although I did spot Oppenheimer. The plane cameras were good. You could look outside of Theo lane at the front, back and down. Other than that you had slippers, a mattress for the seat when flat, a stocked wash bag, noise cancelling headphones (they had to be returned) and an eye mask. What more could you want.
Thursday 10 Oct
Slept for only two hours on an uneventful Dubai flight in an effort to transition time zones quicker and had a breakfast of fruit yogurt, a few veg and coffee. Maintained the water intake overnight. The clock moved forward 3 hours. It is now 6.12 Dubai time. And 13.12 in Sydney. So the next lunch in 6 hours on the next flight would be dinner time inAus and then I plan to sleep for 7 hours.
I found the bar on the Dubai flight eventually when I went to the loo att the back of the upper deck. Feel sorry for the staff as their food prep station is beyond the loos however they were very clean.
Dubai airport is massive. The terminals are long and thin with a asea of A380’s outside and there is a fair amount of walking. I arrived in terminal C to depart from terminal A with a very smooth train ride and lots of walking to get there. The Emirates business lounge occupies the entire upper deck of the terminal and you can board the plane direct from the lounge. Had a much needed shower after the walking and then a coffee, orange juice and water. It’s now half past 4 in Gladstone.
Boarded at 10.10am local time on another A380. The Lady 8 feet to my left was coughing. Fingers crossed not covid. Mask going on.
Lunch on the plane is at dinner time Gladstone time. Watched Oppenheimer and then slept. The film was more about politics than bombs Breakfast will be at 5am Gladstone time.
After a few hours trying to sleep I headed to the bar at the back mainly to stand up. After a while the lady sitting to my right came back and we struck up a conversation. Her name was Cindy and she was visiting her daughter at university in Brisbane. She ran her own company importing shades and awnings from S Africa. It started when her husband was racing bikes in Dubai and he always sheltered under a S African made Shades. Lots of other riders asked where the shades came from and she fell into an export business.
Half way through our conversation, the seatbelt sign came on and all the attendants sat and belted up. That was a warning sign. We had 20 minutes of pretty rough turbulence though fortunately nothing was broken. They told us on one flight, they hit such bad turbulence during food service. Glass, plates food and people went everywhere and I was glad that was not us. After 3 whiskies I returned to sleep for the rest of the flight
Friday. 11 Oct
After a long sometimes bumpy flight, I arrived at Brisbane after a nice omelette breakfast. First challenge was I had to collect the bags (the travel agent lied saying they would go all the way to Gladstone), go through customs which did not take long thankfully and then take the oversized box to the domestic terminal. The suitcase went through transfers ok but they recommended I took the oversize on the bus. When I got to the domestic terminal I took the box to oversize collection point only to be told I had to take it to the other end of the terminal to have it scanned and then carry it back.
The lesson here as I found out is to take all your bags to the domestic terminal. Less chance of things going astray.
Once that was done we had the saga of the screwdriver. I put a very short one in my hand baggage in case any one wanted the boat box opened. That was not allowed through as hand baggage (no tools of any sort) so I had to check the back pack in. It went down the chute and then the guy asked me if there were batteries which there were so the bag had to be recalled to baggage services. Thankfully the tracker picked up the bag when it arrived at baggage services so I could tell them it was with them, take out the batteries and the guys could return the bag to the plane. All this happened in the space of about 20 mins so the baggage system does work in that case. The apple tags were earning their money.
The final bit of the saga was when I got to the gate the system would not allow me to board as the system was saying there were batteries in one of my bags but they let me through when I told them what happened and that I had the batteries. Phew.
The flight was pleasant with great scenary and the flight attendant was brilliant with a great attitude. Second Breakfast was another omelette. Arrival in Gladstone was to a forecasted rain shower which never materialised. The airport is quite sleepy and the bags took a while to appear which is just as well because I was in no rush. Well the boat box appeared but the red bag and back pack didn’t. Annoyingly I can see them at Brisbane airport on the tracker. A lady called Emma filled a report for me and phoned through to Brisbane to get the bags on the next flight. I was able to track them on the Find My friends app and therefore had confidence to know which plane they were on.
Got a very expensive taxi to get to my digs and am hoping bags will turn up tonight.
Sat and chilled after an arduous morning. Needed to conserve the phone battery and my energy as feeling very tired. I have charger but no cable (for the phone that is). Had to turn the phone on every half hour to check the location of the bags. My feet are sore as the new shoes are bitting my heals and not broken in properly. I was hoping the sandals would turn up when I arrived in Gladstone. Won’t be doing much walking today. In fact I dosed all afternoon and watched a bit of motor racing on telly. The bags finally turned up at 6ish and were delivered to the door. After a cold beer, which Margie, my host, provided, I opened the boat box and was delighted to see that there was no damage to anything despite a small hole having been punched in the side of the box. When I took it apart, I found that two of the metal corner pieces had stuck together when I screwed them onto the box which accounts for why they are in only seven corners pieces rather than eight when I assembled the box. In the evening, I went for a quick walk down to the yacht club which was packed and very noisy. I’ve then went on a hunt for shops that was unsuccessful as I didn’t go far enough down the road. After that, it was back to the room and bed for 7 hours much need sleep. I am hoping my sleep pattern is aligned with the new time zone.
More later.
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