Melbourne to Dubai

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After just 39 days at home, we are off again! This time we are leaving on a jet plane for Ireland which we will explore in detail for a month before heading on to Spain for about three weeks. On the evening flight to Dubai, today has been a long day. With most of our packing finalized yesterday we have felt like we have been killing time waiting, waiting, waiting for it to be time to head to the airport!



We walked this morning to get some steps recorded before our long-haul flight later on. After our walk Bernie headed over to the shopping center for a massage to iron out all of his bike rider’s kinks for our holiday. Having indulged in my massage last Wednesday I cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, so they’ll be tidy for our return … even if overlaid with several weeks of dust, ha, ha. Bernie returned home to complete his share of the cleaning and then we really were cooling our heels waiting for 5.00pm to roll around.



Kerry arrived about 4.40pm so we hauled our bags to her car and headed off to the airport. We knew we would be far too early but, as always, we would rather be at the airport early than stuck in traffic trying to get there. Kerry deposited us in the drop zone at 5.20pm and after a big hug we made our way inside the terminal. We might have been extremely early, but check-in had opened and there were already other passengers queuing ahead of us!



We entered the ‘already checked in online queue’ and we had our suitcases dropped off in no time. From there to security screening which was quick and easy now that you don’t have to remove laptops from your carry-on bag to go through the scanners at Tullamarine. But, of course, we still had to remove our belts before we could proceed through the full body scanner. It doesn’t matter that we now have belts will plastic buckles, we still had to take them off. Ugh! Maybe I’ll just have to resort to flying in tracky dacks to avoid the hassle of taking a belt off and putting it back on again??



On the plus side both of our bags made it through the scanner without being shunted to the side for extra attention. That has got to be a first?! Bernie’s bag with all of his camera gear in it ALWAYS gets shunted to the side but … not today. Yay.



There was no queue at the immigration e-gates either, so we scanned ourselves out of the country and made it to the Qantas Club Lounge in record time. It was not yet 6.00pm when we were admitted to the lounge to settle in for the more than two hour wait until boarding is called. We anticipated waiting until 6.00pm for check-in to open so we were very pleased to have all that already done at this point!



Knowing that we would be fed ‘dinner’ after our departure at 9.15pm the trick was to only eat lightly in Qantas Club … just to tide us over until our in-flight meal. The potato and leek soup fit the bill nicely but, of course, we didn’t stop at soup!! We both tried some cold cuts, cheese and salad and Bernie sampled some chilli con carne. The carrot cake was delicious and complimented a barista made coffee. Thank goodness for the barista in QC, the automated coffee machines terrify me! And … Bernie couldn’t resist eating a few jellybeans and licorice allsorts! So much for a small snack.



It’s a real lark going through to boarding from Qantas Club. We wandered through to a holding area adjacent to Qantas Club at the 8.15pm boarding time that we had been advised at check-in. It was just us and a handful of other people who appeared to be those who qualified for priority boarding i.e. those requiring assistance and families. Initially we were told we would need to wait for a moment, but then the ground staff person in charge told us to go ahead.



The person actually scanning our boarding passes thought we were jumping the gun but when we pointed out the person who had directed us to the gate she just shrugged and said ‘well, he’s in charge’, off you go. Apart from a few pesky people still getting themselves settled in business class we had a clear run to Row 75 in the A380-800 AND there were no other bags in the overhead luggage bin. The only downside was having to wait out the entire hour of boarding already cooped up in our seats.



While waiting in Qantas Club Bernie had discovered that the 9.15pm service to Dubai has been arriving in Dubai ahead of time for the past week. With only a couple of hours between landing in Dubai and departing for Dublin we hoped this run would continue so that we wouldn’t have to rush to our on-bound flight. We were certainly on track when we pushed back from the gate right on time this evening.





Steps: 11,939 (8.23kms)

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