Thursday, 10th November 2022

---

The longest day ever….
It’s been over 50 hours since we last slept in a proper bed, and it feels it!

As is usual with me, I was picked at random (or maybe I just have a guilty looking face) and subjected to a very thorough search at Heathrow security - scans, pat down, wands, shoe swabs – the works! Roy just sailed through. Other than that, it was a pretty smooth airport experience.

We were quite impressed with the Qantas Business Lounge but overheard another regular traveller complaining it had gone downhill since pre-Covid, so perhaps we’re just easily pleased! We had a few hours to relax in here and it flew by.

Got to the gate just as they were calling us to board, so walked straight through and onto the plane. Given this is a trip of a lifetime, we did spend quite a bit of cash on these flights to be able to fly in the comfort of business class and it was worth every penny.

The flight went by quite quickly, after 4 hours I changed into my Qantas PJ’s, then with the luxury of a lay flat seat/bed, cushioned mattress, pillow and blanket, we managed to get a few good hours of sleep. Probably not as much as we needed though as even with all that comfort, it was still hard to settle.

Before we knew it, we were landing in Singapore for our very short stop.

We decided to have a wander to the Business class lounge in Singapore, mainly to stretch our legs. Not sure what we were expecting, but we were surprised at how lovely this airport is – and it’s huge! We eventually found the lounge, but only had 20mins to enjoy the facilities before heading back to our gate. The only slight negative with our experience here was the humid heat in the airport, it was quite a shock to the system having left the UK in the cold and rain.

Back in our seats, we settled back in for the remaining 7 hours to Sydney.

We knew we needed to sleep as much as we could on this one as we were arriving early morning in Australia, but it seemed the harder we tried, the less able we were to sleep! I think we managed another couple of hours – which really wasn’t enough.

Again, the flight time went really quickly, and finally we’d arrived. Getting out of Sydney airport was a breeze with all the automated e-passport machines. Our cases came out pretty quickly and after the final security check, we were out and searching for our pre-booked transfer driver……. who was nowhere to be seen!

After a quick phone call to the company, our driver found us and we set off to the car. Thank goodness I insisted we get a luggage trolley instead of wheeling our cases, this guy walked like he was in a race – having sat around for so long it was a struggle to keep up. We walked out to the taxi transfer parking, saw some shiny new SUV’s parked up alongside some plush looking Mercedes Viano’s (wow, we’re going to get there in style!)…… but he carried on going and turned into another car park then walked towards a 20 year old, bashed up, Toyota people carrier that was well past its peak (oh well, perhaps not then!)

The driver was a very nice Ukrainian man, but he drove like a Nascar race driver constantly jumping lanes and racing up to the back of the car in front during what was the morning rush hour here. But he got us to the hotel safely – and probably in record time too.

The hotel is very nice, they happily took our bags to store safely, but we weren’t able to get our room until 2pm – we did expect this, but it left us with 6 hours to kill.

It was quite warm out, bit overcast (which was welcome given our sun cream was in the cases now stored somewhere in the hotel) and there was even a short rain shower. We had a lovely walk round Darling Harbour, it was very quiet given the early hour of the day, but the Chinese Garden of Friendship was open so we decided to go and have a look.
It was nice, we got really excited when we spotted a huge lizard hanging out on a rock, snapped a few pictures of it, then ventured on. We got excited again when we saw another (more pictures), then another (yet more pictures), but by the fourth they had become a common sight. Towards the end we were walking down steps/paths and having to move them out of the way. They were everywhere!

By the time we were done there, the sun had come out and I could already feel my face and arms were not happy about that fact! We continued to explore the harbour, then walked back round towards the hotel stopping on the way to have a burger and a beer (first holiday beers always taste so good!).
Although the food was lovely, it also brought on the food sleeps, so we headed back to the hotel, to wait the last hour before our room was ready.

Our room is lovely, this was also a treat to ourselves on this trip, so we have a double aspect corner room on the 12th floor with lovely views of the city. In fact if you squash your face against the window at the right angle you can even see the water in the harbour!

This brings us up to now, we’ve had a much needed rest and a shower (and yes, my forehead is already glowing a little after our walk in the sun!).

It’s 9pm here, we’re trying to last as long as we can, but the thought of some sleep in a big comfy bed is hard to resist.

Looking forward to spending our next couple of days here when we’re more awake to explore the other areas of the city (this time with sun tan lotion on!)

---