Are We There Yet

Today’s the day!

After all the waiting I’m finally heading back to Oz. Packing’s all done apart from toiletries and pills, so if it isn’t in the case now I’ll see it again in 5 weeks.

I regularly get up at daft o’clock when going to work, but it’s definitely easier when there’s something to look forward to other than 8 hours as a wage slave. I can also have a sleep on the plane, something that tends to be frowned upon at work!

I managed to drop my car off in the yard at work with no problems, handed my key in and got the bus over to Terminal 2. More by accident than design I was first in the queue for the bag drop and was through security in no time, pausing only to say hello to my mate and neighbour Kevin who was probably as relieved as me that I didn’t need frisking! He cleared my walking stick and I made my way slowly to the Executive Lounge where I tucked into a full English, coffee and a malt whisky. Breakfast of champions – every day should start like this! In fact it was that good I had another one. Whisky that is, not breakfast. I didn’t want to be greedy.

The plane set off on time and was predicted to arrive in Singapore about half an hour earlier than scheduled. So only 13 hours in the air then. Doesn’t sound much when you say it quickly, but when you’ve had something to eat, a coffee, watched a film and there’s still 10 hours to go it suddenly feels like a long way. Oh well, at least the flight from Singapore to Cairns is only 6 and a half hours!

It could be worse. The seats could be like those on short-haul carriers, where your knees are up round your ears, after about an hour it feels like you’re sitting on a plank, and you have to breathe in and out in turn with your neighbour. Instead the seats still have some padding left in them and there’s room to move your knees without destroying the kidneys of the passenger in front.

There’s still room for improvement though. If you’re old enough to remember the original Star Trek series you’ll also remember how awed we were by the portable communicators the crew used. That’s old hat now with smart watches and glasses that let your phone stay out of sight and undisturbed in your pocket. Now we’re ready for the next step, the bit that comes immediately after “Beam me up Scotty”. We’re ready for teleportation, and the instant travel it could deliver. Something for the next generation of AI to work on, if it can ever be trusted enough to play nicely rather than be grounded for breaking into other people’s secure web sites.

In the meantime, back to reality. We landed in Singapore on time, and it was easy to navigate to where I needed to be for the next leg. With only 90 minutes between flights there was no time to explore the airport in any detail, but on the return flight I should have time to look in the watch shops and see what the butterfly garden is all about. First impressions are it’s an impressive – and possibly expensive – place to spend some time. It's big, with electric shuttle trains running between and through the terminals. It seems to be fully carpeted, with the electric buggies politely announcing that  they’re approaching as you can’t hear them. Driverless electric wheelchairs were also avoiding passengers as they made their way to where they were needed.

That’ll have to wait though. The next flight boarded and took off on time, and I messaged Kerry and Conor to let them know I was on schedule.

As it was, we landed a few minutes early at Cairns and were soon off the aircraft. Unfortunately, there were only four automatic passport terminals and one of them started playing up, so there was a bit of a delay, although on the plus side my luggage was on the carousel when I got there, which is probably the first time that’s ever happened.

Once out of the airport it was a run along familiar roads in Kerry’s new (to me) car, a quick look at my bike, drop the bags off and walk Murphy down to the Barrier Reef Tavern so Kerry and Conor could get a bit of tea.

Back home for a drop of whisky and off to bed.

And to answer the question in the title – Yes, I’m there!

Not many photos from a day and night spent on aircraft, but a couple of the in-flight information screens and one of the three if us the Tavern.