Singapore - Botanic Gardens & National Orchid Garden

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Note: We are home as of Thursday, 3 November, but still catching up on posting the last few days of this holiday!



Today is the last day of our holiday and we have almost a full day with our Qantas flight not leaving until 7.40pm this evening. When we checked in we managed to negotiate to have our rooms for an extra hour, checking out at 1.00pm rather than noon. But that doesn’t mean we are sitting around in our room until lunchtime. Oh no, we’re off to the Singapore Botanic Gardens planning to concentrate specifically on the National Orchid Garden.

We rode the MRT again which delivered us to the gardens by around 9.00am. After entering we checked the map to get our bearings and work out the most direct route to the orchids. The best route took us by the lake. There were notices up on the paths saying to watch out for a family of otters that might be about. Oh, that would be cute if we saw the otters out for a morning walk!

We were taking some photographs of the lake when we saw, not the otters (unfortunately!) but a very BIG lizard (iguana? monitor lizard?) walking across the path because it fancied a swim in the lake. I managed a photo of some of the lizard and some stranger’s left foot! Such a shame that there were other visitors between us and the lizard. Bernie might be able to take the foot out in LightRoom? He won’t be able to put the lizard’s head back on though. There are limits to what you can achieve in LightRoom, ha, ha.

After a long, hot hike through the gardens we finally reached the National Orchid Garden. It’s probably not the best time of year for the orchids, but there were still plenty to see. They really are the most beautiful flowers and so, so many varieties! With no time to explore the rest of the gardens we started our trek back to the MRT at around 10.30am keen to be back in our rooms by about noon so that we could use that extra hour we negotiated freshening up.

With a good run on the ever efficient MRT we were back at the hotel just after 11.30am leaving plenty of time to shower and change and clean our teeth. Showered and dressed in fresh clothes we were back downstairs in the lobby to check out at 1.00pm. We ate lunch in the ‘Tuxedo Café’ inside the Carlton Hotel. After showering we didn’t want to venture out to get all hot and sweaty again before heading to the airport!!

After eating we were able to find lounge chairs in the lobby where we could stay seated in air conditioned comfort until our maxi taxi arrived at 4.00pm. Ooh, very flash with lounge style seats arranged facing each other in the back. All we needed was a small table and drinks and it would have been like a party bus.

We had already checked in online, but we still needed to use one of the customer service terminals to print luggage tags for our suitcases and then on to the bag drop to farewell our bags and hope that they would be loaded on the same plane as us to be reunited with us in Melbourne. We almost processed ourselves without any staff intervention BUT we asked a young gentleman very nicely if he could put our luggage tags on because there is a definite technique needed to do that. When we have attempted it in the past our tags have ended up very wrinkled!

We proceeded to the immigration e-gates which processed Cathy, Steve and me without any trouble. It didn’t like Bernie though and refused to recognize that his face matched his passport photo. After standing trapped between the gates for a minute or so a staff member directed him to the staffed immigration counters. The person who processed him apologized and said it happens sometimes that the gate just won’t process someone. Bernie asked if it was due to the lights flaring off his bald head and she just laughed!

All through to the departures area we (slightly guiltily) watched Cathy and Steve head off to the gate lounge while we headed off to Qantas Club to take advantage of Bernie’s membership which he still retains. I let mine go ages ago, but Bernie keeps his going. We didn’t get much value out of it during the last two years though!! We spent a relaxing couple of hours in Qantas Club and then it was time to head to the gate for the last leg of this holiday.

It was all going beautifully, we were screened at the gate without any dramas, we boarded on time, and we pushed back from the aero bridge at 7.48pm. Only eight minutes late which I am prepared to count as an on time departure! We taxied out towards the runway. And we taxied and we taxied and Bernie cracked a joke about ‘are we driving back to Melbourne’ and THEN … the captain made an announcement over the PA system to say that ‘due to a technical fault we’ll be heading back to the terminal to have that checked out’.

Now, I am more than happy to have a technical fault checked out while the plane is still on the ground BUT it is starting to feel like Singapore is our own personal Bermuda Triangle! In 2014 we were on an Etihad flight from Doha to Melbourne which was diverted to Singapore due to a problem with a gauge on the flight console. On that occasion we were bussed to a city hotel where we spent a couple of hours and ate some dinner before our journey continued via Adelaide to Melbourne. In 2018 we were supposed to fly from Dubai to Melbourne direct but, in almost the same airspace as in 2014, we were again diverted to Singapore, but this time due to a medical emergency. We have actually BEEN in Singapore this time and now … we can’t leave due to a technical problem with the aircraft!!!

No announcements were made about unloading us. Time passed. Thank goodness my Kindle was fully charged. More time passed and then we were told that the plane was being refuelled. What? How much fuel can possibly be used up taxiing out to the runway and then taxiing back to the terminal?? I guess, though, that is always best to have a full tank in case of being diverted unexpectedly or having to go into a holding pattern at your destination due to too many aircraft waiting to land … or fog … or some other reason that keeps the aircraft in the air longer than planned?

After a couple of hours we were told that we were good to go. The technical problem was sorted, the plane was fully fueled AND … an unruly passenger had been unloaded. Huh? We were in row 28 and we hadn’t witnessed any unruly behaviour. Cathy and Steve were further back in the plane and they didn’t see anyone playing up either. Does that mean they had to remove a passenger from the pointy end of the plane?? Oh well, we’ll never know.

We finally took off about two hours late, with the captain promising to make up some time in the air and that the air crew would get in touch with ground crew in Melbourne to re-book flights for passengers who were going to miss their connections. At least that wasn’t going to be a problem for us seeing as we were on our way HOME.

Now all we had to worry about was being cooped up for the next seven hours in a plane full of fractious children.



Steps for the day: 15,647 (9.90km)

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