Palmy to Chelmsford

 We made it! 38 hours door to door. We left home on Sunday at lunchtime, we had a 6 hour wait in Auckland before the grueling 17 hour flight to Dubai. 

It is such a long way and neither of us slept very well despite in my case self medicating with red wine. The service with Emirates was excellent but with not a lot to do it is easy to overeat. We watched enviously a lady across the isle from us prepare herself for sleep and she didn’t wake up for 10 hours!

Robyn spoke to her after we landed in Dubai and her secret is Phenergan, an antihistamine that does make you drowsy but doesn’t have the potential downsides that sleeping tablets can have. Other people have mentioned this product so we will stocking up for the return journey. 

The journey between NZ and Australia was probably the roughest and sustained turbulence I have experienced. It seemed to last ages and was probably about 40 minutes. They even paused the dinner rollout halfway through service. I’m glad I didn’t have my dinner as I expect guiding a fork into one’s mouth would have been an exercise in precision timing. 

We had a 3 hour stop in the melting pot of Dubai airport where we managed to find a shower and then sat in a coffee shop and people watched. It is always fascinating to me and possibly worth the $27NZD we paid for 2 coffees!

Then it was just a short 7 hour junket to London Stanstead airport. First time at Stanstead for us and a classic case of function coming before form. Very austere place but it functioned well even if we had the usual angst waiting for our bags to appear on the carousel. Eventually they did and my brother Chris and his son Matthew were waiting for us in the arrivals hall. 

A quick 30 minute car trip to their home in Chelmsford saw us being introduced to our transport for the next two months and it didn’t disappoint. 

It is so nice to be in warm weather and we sat in the garden with a beer and the dinner and an early night for us. 

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