Leaving UK never easy

Our experience of leaving the UK was one which got a large number of our fellow passengers supremely irate, but with Em and I being laid back as usual, we just let it slide by without letting it worry us.

We left Bournemouth in a blacked out people carrier making us get a feel for the celebrity lifestyle as kids in cars passed by us trying to peer through our windows to see who was in the back. Our driver was a really talkative chap retelling many stories of the people he's taken to and from the airport, from the high flying businessmen to the well paid doctors and the children of rich parents on their way to and from luxury holidays in the alps. The journey lasted about 2 hours and we even managed to stay awake for the whole trip - quite impressive considering we'd spent the previous night sleeping on a blanket on a wooden floor for a few hours before conceeding that it was so uncomfortable that we had to swap for a room with a carpeted floor which wasn't a great deal better and quite a bit cooler.

At Heathrow, we unloaded the car and he drove off and then we had to figure out exactly what was the best way of getting 6 bags from one side of the road to the other and into the terminal without leaving any alone for security to run off with and practice their controlled explosions on - especially as there wasn't a trolley in sight! I decided to take my cases in to the terminal on the hunt for a couple of trolleys and after a bit of a walk down past security I found 5 trolleys abandoned by the wall. I grabbed one, threw my bags on it, and went out to find Em. We piled all the large bags onto the trolley and then I dragged the hand baggage behind me whilst Em pushed the trolley back into the terminal building. I will point out that I wasn't being cruel, but Em couldn't drive two sets of hand luggage and found the trolley easier to control. After getting our boarding passes we queued up for baggage drop off and looking at the hand luggage checking rack I began to get worried. About three weeks earlier we had rung up BA to say that my bag was larger in one dimension by one centimetre than the specified dimensions, but that it was smaller in the other two to which the lady on the helpline said that it is fine and that they aren't that strict. I had my doubts, but we'd decided to stick with what we'd got as it was going to be extremely useful having those extra few inches of space in comparison with Em's smaller hand luggage. We checked in the big bags and went round to the security check and sure enough I was pulled to one side and was asked to put it into the checking frame. I knew it wouldn't fit but tried anyway and sure enough the wheel got stuck - about one centimetre too large. I then had to check it into the hold which was going to cost another £75. I opened up the bag as I knew there were a few things in there that I didn't want to go into the hold such as my contact lenses, my camera, some magazines Sascha had bought us and my paperwork which I may need on the other side. Thankfully I also remembered my passport was in there before I took it back over to baggage check-in.

I got chatting to the lady at the desk and told her our story, knowing full well that she probably got fifity sob stories every day from people trying to buck the system and get something for nothing. I wasn't expecting anything and got out my cash and asked her how much it would be ... she said nothing. I was surprised and asked if she was sure, and apparently the paper work is so lengthy that she couldn't be bothered with the hassle so just put it through for me for free. "Bonus" I thought!

We went back through security and this time passed through without problem, other than the normal flush of embarrasement on the other side of the scanners as I hold everyone up whilst trying to refill my pockets with all my loose change and proceding to drop it on the floor and then scrabble around to try and gather it all up again! One day I'll go out and buy a wallet with a coin pocket to prevent this happening ... but I doubt I'll remember before the next time I see the scanner.

We now had about 2 and a half hours to kill before our flight, so we went for a stroll around the airport shops before spotting a JD Wetherspoons at one end and decided to go and get ourselves some food as we'd not had much to eat all day. I decided on Chilli and Em had the veggie Chilli. We spent half of our time in Wetherspoons calling parents and I missed a call from Ash on his way back from Scotland, so managed to get in touch with him about an hour later. Many goodbyes were said and we then headed off to our gate as boarding time was approaching.

Ten minutes after boarding was meant to begin, an announcement came over that we were going to change planes and that the gate was changing, so a mass rush began to be the first to the gate. We realised there was no point in rushing as we were going to be on the plane for the next day, and because of this, what was the point in getting irritated by it all? We strolled over to the gate and took a seat while a couple of hundred people queued up. After another half an hour we were told tha the flight would be delayed until quarter past ten; it was now half nine. Everyone sat down and mumblings began from lots of quarters of people saying to one another "I told you we should have flown Singapore Airlines", "I knew British Airways service would be crap" etc, etc.

Time passed slowly by and at around ten past eleven we finally made our way through the gate - only to find they'd moved us behind a door, down some stairs and into another holding area! We were only here five minutes and then we weaved our way down a series of ramps until we ended up outside and faced with an awaiting bus. 6 buses later, everyone was standing outside getting rather cold (bear in mind that most people were anticipating a warm sunny day in Australia on arrival and were dressed accordingly) and beginning to board the aircraft up the stairs and into the plane.

We'd booked the rearmost two seats of the plane which when we got to them we were really happy about. being the back two seats, they'd taken up any discrepancy in seat spacing in this seat, so even sitting correctly in my seat I had a good 3-4 inches clear to the seat in front. Combine this with a large amount of space between the seat in front and the internal wall of the aircraft and I ended up having loads of space. Em was obviously fine in her seat and had the added bonus of being on the aisle so she could get up and wander around whenever she needed to.

The flight went without any real problem - apart from around 80% of the seats not having any entertainment on the way to Bangkok (not us thankfully) and around 95% of seats not having anything on the way to Sydney (again not us) after they tried to fix the problem but just blacked out more seats than before. We managed to watch Ratatouille and Stardust (I recommend this for Dad - his kind of film) and Em watched one other but I was attempting to sleep! Amazingly Emma got a decent amount of sleep due in the most part to the travel sickness tablets she was taking every 8 hours and the side affect of this was that they sent her to sleep. We can also report that the turbulence at the rear of the aircraft wasn't as bad as Tim suggested it might be. Obviously we don't know what weather conditions were like at night, but we did hit a bit of the rough stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary.

We landed in Sydney around an hour and a half later than scheduled so we knew that our day was already not going to go exactly to plan (we'd hoped to meet Izzy around 9am). We then proceded to get delayed by a further hour and a half as the bus driver was waiting for another gentleman who was due to be on the flight following ours. A few phone calls later and a long time sitting outside McDonalds in Sydney Airport, the driver gave up waiting and said he'd take us rather than continue to wait. We got to Gosford around 11.45 and met Vicky at the main reception. She told Em what the plan was for the next couple of days, and then we booked a taxi (an estate which we only just managed to fit all our bags into) and then headed off for Terrigal which we arrived at at 12.30 to be met by Izzy who had just returned from Wyong with her new car. Unloaded and then went out for lunch.

Spent the day wandering around Terrigal - small but very nicely laid out; plenty of restaurants and shops and really good beach and from the look of it, decent surf conditions. Met Rhys in the evening and then proceded to attempt to stay awake in the evening. Apologies to Izzy for the rather poor conversation that evening as both I and then Emma fell into that half sleep where you are convinced that you're awake but everyone knows you aren't!!