Hi All,

Just a quick note as I am borrowing Lesley’s  dial up connection.  I hope to sort out a broadband link today as there are a few routers open close by that advertise a phone number where you can connect for ………….MONEY!!!

Well,  what a trip:   dinner in Brisbane,  breakfast in Singapore, lunch in Dubai,  tea in ATHENS!!!   Luggage in Benbecula!!

On our way from Jim and Jax’ place in Hervey Bay down to Brisbane we received a phone call from the Emirates Office in Brisbane, telling us that the first flight was delayed. It appeared that a Bangladeshi aircraft lost its nose wheel on take off out of Dubai and crash-landed back on.  Fortunately no-one was seriously hurt – a few curries spilled and a few turbans mussed up but otherwise nothing serious.   This blocked the runway for 8 hours with all the subsequent em******ances downstream.  Our flight was 2 hours late taking off so Emirates,  bless them,  rebooked our follow on flights, re-routing us through Athens and then back to Larnaca.  The upshot was that our 1025 arrival turned into a 1525 arrival.  What they didn’t  factor in was enough time to get from one flight to another.  The industry standard (I am told) for bookings is 2 hours between flights.  Ours were of the order of 15 -20 minutes.

Anyone who has staged through Dubai can tell you that the terminal is enormous.  Mem sahib and I managed to sprint from one end to the other in a time that would put us in the frame for the next Olympics (if running with bags and stuff around your neck is considered a sport).  We made the connection to Athens and then went through exactly the same rigmarole to catch the Athens to Larnaca flight (some 600 miles of breathing in the exhaust of the aircraft we had just got off)  retracing our steps to Larnaca.

Any road up, we arrived safely.. The luggage couldn’t run as fast as we could, so it arrived the following day and was delivered to us by taxi.

It is really lovely being here again with Lesley and Paul. It feels really weird wearing long trousers and socks (not done either since Oct 06) but worth it, since a Cyprus spring is far colder than a Queensland late summer. Getting over the jetlag is not as bad as we feared as, of course, we have been travelling west pretty much all the time.  Seasoned travellers out there will agree that west is best when it comes to reduced jetlag.   Still wide awake at stupid o'clock in the morning but it will wear off.

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to:

Jim and Jaqui Milne for looking after us so well in their lovely home at River Heads, 

Mike and Viv for hosting us at very short notice in Queanbeyan until we all had to lift and shift as the house rental came a bit quicker than expected,

Mo and Gray for putting up with us during the North Island part of our epic month’s  dash around New Zealand.

We are now in Cyprus for 3 weeks prior to flying back to London to stay with Mum and Dad in Harrow for Easter.   Our daughters, Hannah and Sarah, may well be in town that weekend, so we hope to catch up with them as well.

More to come as soon as I can sort out a broadband link.