As many of you know, Kemm and I are off again!!

We left Brisbane lunchtime Saturday bound for our ‘Egypt trip’.
First stop in the Qantas lounge at the International airport – it was chocka block!! Qantas certainly has some work to do to bring it’s standards up because there certainly were none in the lounge! A bunch of kids off holidaying with families, yobbos with the sloppiest jeans etc and very hard to get a seat. Then we had to queue to get any food – shock horror – ho hum such is life!

But in all honestly, yes, Qantas people need to visit the Emirates lounges to see how to do it! Now that was special.

We left Brisbane bang on time at 12.35pm bound for our first stop in Singapore. An uneventful flight with Etihad – the United Arab Emirates national airline although I believe lots of people think that Emirates has that title – wrong!!!
8 hours later and ready to arrive in Singapore, I was rummaging around in my handbag (yes I can do that too Marg!), and guess what I came across – one of my big screwdrivers from home that I had put in my bag ready to remove some numberplates 2 days before!!! Can you believe I actually got through the security scans at Brisbane airport with a screwdriver in my handbag???? So much for the plastic knives they insist on everyone using once past the secure sections of an airport – I had a screwdriver!!!!!
Got off the plane in Singapore and found the first rubbish bin I could to dispose of it – and to think I believe we’ve had that screwdriver at home for about 15 years!!!! Such a waste! ?

Back on board an hour and 20 later for the next leg from Singapore to Abu Dhabi, by the time we were up in the air all I wanted was to go to sleep so promptly ‘down bed’ throw on the seat belt over the blanket and tried to sleep for a good part of the next 8 hours. The first 3 hours out of Singapore was just bump, bump, bump for ages so not exactly sleeping conditions but I think after that I probably got 3 or 4 hours sleep somewhere in there. Makes for a long haul but being able to lie flat and attempt some sort of sleep certainly helped.

We were met in Abu Dhabi and driven the 170 odd kms to Dubai, but wait for it – along the 4 lane 160km/hr road!!! Whoa! 4 lanes in either direction between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and were we motoring! I asked our driver if there were many high speed crashes on these highways – no, very few, it’s the slow drivers who cause the accidents!!!! (I guess those doing 100 km/hr).
Maybe we could up our speed limit between Brisbane and the Coast to 160km an hr and see if the accident numbers reduce!! Mmmm…..

Into Dubai at 1am local time and the place was packed!!!!! It was a traffic car park trying to get the last couple of kms to the hotel and people everywhere!!! But 1am here meant we were now into 8am home time with not a lot of sleep so as I write it’s now 6am here and 1pm at home and we’ve just crawled out of bed.

So today it’ll probably be a little Dubai reconnaissance and maybe the ‘city tour’ half day sightseeing. Plan on a desert safari and camel ride sometime in the next couple of days but will keep you updated.

First point of contact was to say we’ve arrived safe and sound even travelling with a screwdriver!