The long haul home - First Leg - Manchester to Dubai

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NOTE: We are home, but still catching up on the blog.



This morning I was awake before the alarm so decided I might as well be up getting organised for our journey home as lying in bed wide awake. It wasn’t ridiculously early, only about half an hour before the alarm was set for. Fortunately, with our flight not until early this afternoon we didn’t have to rush to be at the airport too early. We were able to have a leisurely breakfast and clean our teeth before packing our toothbrushes and closing our suitcases for the last time on this holiday.

Bernie lugged our cases down to the car and we gathered together our last few carry-on items before saying our farewells to Kath and Albert. Once again they have been most hospitable hosts looking after their antipodean house guests. The SatNav was set for the Europcar depot at Manchester Airport and we were off on the first leg of the l-o-n-g trip home.

We made it to to the car hire depot with only the smallest of hiccups right at the end. You arrive at the depot and all you can see for Europcar is a No Entry sign straight in front of you. Hmmn, where’s the IN lane? The only arrow pointing in the right direction took as to National Car Hire but from there we could see the way into Europcar. It’s one more left turn around the corner before you are at their entrance. Could it be better signposted??

The car was checked back in. Although much dirtier than when it left Heathrow it was deemed ‘undamaged’ thank goodness and we were directed to the courtesy bus stop over in front of National Car Hire. Bernie tells me that our tickets said we needed to be at Terminal 3 and Google confirmed that we needed to be at Terminal 3, so we caught the courtesy bus to Terminal 3. Hmmn, there’s not a single long-haul flight listed on the Departures board let alone the Emirates flight number we are looking for.

After checking with a staff member, it was confirmed that our Emirates flight would, in fact, be departing from Terminal 1 which we were assured was only a five-minute walk away. Off to find a lift to get back to ground level, it was indeed just a short walk over to Terminal 1 and then into another elevator to go the Departures Area. No Departures information anywhere so we wandered about looking for the Emirates desks.

We found the red Emirates check-in desks but without signs displaying the EK/QF flight numbers. All the displays above the desks showed was Economy Check-in, On-line check-in and First/Business Class check-in. After entering the queue for Economy Check-in, we realised that we needed to cross over into the next queue because Bernie checked us in on-line yesterday afternoon.

Check-in at Manchester is painful. It’s one of very few places that actually weighs hand luggage. Oh dear, Bernie’s bag with all his camera gear in it weighed in at just over 10 kilos. Fortunately, mine was only five kilos. The ground crew member was telling us that we would just need to transfer a couple of kilos between our carry-on bags before security and we’d be fine.

Bernie mentioned that all his camera gear really increases the weight. Oh, if it’s camera gear you’ll be fine. I can give you a special bag for your camera gear and you can take both bags through. What? Bernie will still be carrying 10 kilos of hand luggage but in two bags rather than one. How is that more efficient? She went out the back and came back with a lovely little Emirates shopping bag for Bernie’s camera gear and sent us on our way with our boarding passes for both legs of our journey.

We then proceeded through a veritable rabbit warren of corridors to make our way to security screening. I asked Bernie if he wanted to transfer his camera gear into the shopping bag, but he decided to just wing it and see if he could get his 10 kilos carry-on bag through security. To join the queue, we had to scan the barcode on our boarding passes. Ha, ha, we both thought it was an e-passport gate and we were holding our passports on the reader before realising that it wanted our boarding pass!!

We joined on the end of the queue where we had plenty of time to read all the reminders about - No Liquids over 100mls, All Liquids and Gels under 100mls in a clear plastic bag, All Electrical Items and Large Cameras in their own tub. Despite this there were so many people arriving at the screening point with drink bottles over 100mls??? Then there were people transferring their small liquid and gel items into a plastic bag AT the screening point. What? You haven’t had time to organise that at any point before right now?

Mind you the screening procedure at Manchester seems pretty archaic. At Melbourne everything can stay in your bag and the X-ray machinery is clever enough to identify it all. I needed three tubs for goodness sake. One for my jumper, belt and small handbag, one for my iPhone, iPad, Kindle and camera and yet another one for my small backpack that now had next to nothing in it!!

I jumped into the body scanner and was given the all-clear, then I had to collect three tubs from the other side of the X-ray machine and take them to the re-packing counters!! Since I had to wait for tubs two and three to come through, I managed to get my jumper and handbag back on my body (and my belt in my pocket) then put my virtually empty backpack on top of my electrical items and camera to be able to take just one tub over to the re-packing counter. What utter chaos with everyone unpacking and just about undressing in order to be able to clear security.

Thank goodness, we both did everything correctly and we both cleared security without being taken aside for additional scrutiny. The mass of people at the other end who were being kept aside while their carry-on items were subjected to further checking was huge. There had been a warning sign going in that if you didn’t sort your shit out properly you would be looking at a delay of at least 30 minutes to complete security screening. It certainly looked like a lot of people were getting it wrong this morning!!

With security completed we headed towards our gate. We thought about buying something to eat but it wasn’t long since breakfast and we knew we would probably be fed soon after take-off, so we decided to wait. It’s not much of choice really, eat bad food or fast food at inflated prices in the airport or eat average, re-heated food that you have already paid for on the plane?? We reached our gate only to find that we had arrived ahead of the airline staff so we found a seat along the corridor to keep an eye out for when our gate opened. While we were sitting there a family came along with a squealing child. OMG, what an assault to the ears that was. Fortunately that family group boarded an easyJet flight. Fantastic, the squealing child won’t be on our flight.

Only a few minutes before the notified time for boarding to commence, the Emirates staff arrived to open the gate. There were no Toilet signs beyond the point we were seated at so we both made a quick trip to the loo before proceeding to the gate lounge. Hmmn, may have left it a bit late as the queue grew really quickly once the gate was open and we had to join the end of the queue waiting to be processed into the gate lounge.

We were sitting in the section of the gate lounge reserved for Zones E and F. Fortunately we were amongst the first through the gate to be directed to the E/F Lounge, so we were actually seated while we were waiting for boarding to be called. While we were waiting there were two little girls running about playing. Not sisters, but two little girls about the same age. One with Arabic parents the other with Anglo parents and they didn’t care. They were just two little girls running around an airport lounge burning up some energy before a long flight. Why can’t we all get along like that?

They actually seemed to be making passengers board by zone with repeated reminders that you should only proceed to the desk if your ticket showed the zone that had been called. When our zone was called there were people waiting at the outside of the desk because it appeared they had been denied access due to their zone not having been called yet. We don’t know why people can’t follow basic instructions?? Or have this self-entitled mentality that instruction only apply to other people?

Anyhow, they FINALLY had all the passengers onboard and we pushed back from the gate nearly half an hour late. When the captain came onto the PA, he was confident that we would make up the time in the air and would arrive in Dubai very close to the scheduled time. Let’s hope so as we only have a two-hour window between our flights.

As anticipated, we were fed soon after take-off. Beef or chicken, we both chose the beef. It was a casserole sort of thing with mashed potato and broccoli. It was OK.

On this leg I watched the documentary John Farnham: Finding the Voice. I really enjoyed the story. Parts of it I was aware of, but I don’t think I realised just how tough things were for John before he released his Whispering Jack album. A bit of a who’s who of Australian music it was interesting to hear from a variety of artists whose music careers had intersected with John’s.

Aside from when I had me earbuds in listening to this doco, the soundtrack was one of babies crying. A lot of babies crying! Our seats were only three rows behind the bulkhead where they put the bassinets for parents travelling with children. I don’t know if the air pressure was particularly bad on this flight and affecting their ears, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many babies crying so loudly for so long. I don’t know how parents do it. It must be stressful enough to have a distressed child but then to feel the judgement/disapproval from all the surrounding passengers must be horrendous.



Steps: 5,262 (3.57 kms)







Steps: 5,262 (3.57 kms)

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