Wednesday, April 30th and Thursday, May 1st, 2014
These two days were always going to be tough, totaling 40 hours of flights and transits, starting in Canberra and ending in Port (Portugal). There were four flights totaling 24 hours, and three transits adding to 16 hours.
The weather in Canberra was a sunny Autumn say, as Team Tony gathered for the first time at the airport.
Both Rob and Tony W succumbed to the $100 surcharge for an extra piece of luggage (their bikes), but Tony D was not deterred, and encouraged by Qantas staff managed to rearrange his luggage so that the bulk of his clothing for the next three months fitted into two (rather heavy) pieces of hand luggage. Just how many Kathmandu shirts can one fit into ones hand luggage anyway?
The flights to Sydney and then to Singapore were uneventful, and everyone sat separately in their randomly allocated or pre-reserved seats. However, in Singapore the Team split onto two flights due to quirks of the BA booking system - Tony D stayed on BA16, and Rob and Tony W moved to BA12, which somewhat confusingly departed Singapore and arrived in London earlier than the original BA16.
Rob thought he'd booked an exit row, but it turned out the BA web site had hidden this row and he ended up on row back, and stuck on the window. To make matters worse, Tony W quite by chance turned up in the same row. Ahhhh, they thought, at least nobody will come between them! Unfortunately, more for her than for them, a pretty, young, and slim(!) Singapore girl turned up to spoil their comradery (no, she's not crying, just putting eye drops in):
For one optimistic moment, a solution appeared in the form of a free row on the other side of the cabin. Tony W raced for it and made himself comfortable while Rob did his best with sharing three seats with Miss Singapore. It wasn't to last - a group from a late connecting flights boarded and took up every remaining seat on the flight. We were stuck for 13 hours on a totally full and aging 747...
In London at 5:00am on a drizzly day, Tony W and Rob made themselves comfortable in the BA lounge with a view to their recently arrived flight. They could only hope the weather in Portugal would be better than this.
They got stuck into the free food and drinks (too early for a G&T even for Rob), had showers, and used their various technology to locate the soon to arrive Tony D (who, atypically for him, had to acquire enough technology before he could be located).
The rest of the wait consisted of Rob remaining ensconced in the BA lounge, Tony D resigned to spending the day with the less fortunate in the public bar, and Tony W enjoying his (single) guest status with Rob in the lounge, and occasional mate status with Tony D in the public bar. Talk about teamwork!
Sadly, it was all too good to last! On arrival in Porto there was one important thing missing - Rob's bike. After lots of investigation it apparently got left behind in Singapore, ETA in Port Sunday - the day after the ride begins.
This news didn't deter us from taking the metro into Porto for dinner, but it did delay the departure until well after 9:00am. There were some tired travelers, and some not very hungry ones as well. But, as Rob said, the trip was worth it, and a bottle of red and some Portuguese sardines soon woke everyone up. The local river front is fantastic:
And the main railways station has a nice tiled entrance:
But down by the river some weary travelers were a little cold and need the comfort of the restaurant supplied blankets (it was not Canberra in winter, that's for sure).
Another 30 minute metro trip and were back in our rooms by 12:30am. That makes almost 48 hours on the "road" and almost no sleep for some of us. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully it will bring good news...
No comments:
Post a Comment