{"id":3827,"date":"2022-11-02T04:19:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T04:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=3827"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:27:47","slug":"1-first-we-have-to-get-to-oz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=3827","title":{"rendered":"1. FIRST, WE HAVE TO GET TO OZ!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first flight for decades – or so it seems.<\/p>\n

Having returned from Norway (by boat) with Covid, we left the exclusive 1% club.\u00a0 That small band of viral escapees!\u00a0 It gave us problems with pre-planned dental appointments and Covid booster and ‘flu jabs.\u00a0 All of which had to be rescheduled before leaving for Oz.\u00a0 It also left us a little under the weather…<\/p>\n

However…<\/p>\n

We had booked our trip ages ago when there was a lot of uncertainty about long haul flights.\u00a0 Not to mention potential rail travel chaos courtesy of the blessed RMT!\u00a0 So we left ourselves plenty of time to get to Heathrow.\u00a0 For our convenience,\u00a0 we were travelling at the start of half term holidays.\u00a0 How we missed that small detail, I have been asked by Glenda on many occasions.\u00a0 In the event, our fears of cancelled trains and planes were over-exaggerated.<\/p>\n

The taxi to the station arrived on time – unlike on previous occasions.\u00a0 The train had our correct reservations unlike other times and, boringly, left on time.\u00a0 However, the standard of first class travel (booked cheaply months ago) has declined.\u00a0 Their promise of free on-board refreshments was fulfilled by a small trolley with just eight (really!) sandwiches to “refresh” all the occupants of two carriages.\u00a0 Luckily, we boarded where the train started it’s journey, so we secured a quarter of the available total plus a raspberry croissant!\u00a0 However, the chicken sandwiches were far from refreshing and the croissant was more or less inedible.\u00a0 As a further “improvement” in service, the trolly man informed us, Great Western Railways had binned all their buffet cars apart from on one train to London each day … and we weren’t on that train!<\/p>\n

Still it got us to Paddington and then on the Heathrow express to the airport.\u00a0 Here we discovered further reductions in service.\u00a0 The hotel Hoppa buses had been reduced in number of routes and frequency of departures.\u00a0 Reducing the available routes has resulted in more hotel stops per bus.\u00a0 It now takes a week and a half to get to the hotel of choice and, presumably, another week to get back to the airport.\u00a0 This explains the reduced frequency of one departure per hour!.\u00a0 All the buses are out navigating the Bath Road and other back streets around Hounslow and Greater London.<\/p>\n

Our hotel on this occasion was the Staybridge Suites.\u00a0 Intimately connected to the Holiday Inn.\u00a0 Both part of IHG.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our room came equipped with a full kitchen and super-large shower.\u00a0 An excellent choice.\u00a0 We’ll book for the return.\u00a0 The latest checkout available got us on the 3 pm bus for the airport.\u00a0 Arriving at Heathrow – even via the mulberry bushes – we were still best part of six hours early for our flightl\u00a0 … and an hour before we could lose our luggage.\u00a0 \u00a0Still, the Prosecco in the lounge was good and cool!\u00a0 But only after getting past security – which, to be fair, was fairly speedy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The airport illuminations at night!<\/p>\n

The seats, food and service on board Singapore Airlines.were all very good.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We’ve never before had the privilege of ordering food in advance!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But it was still basically two night flights with the window blinds shut all the way!\u00a0 We had a three hour break in Singapore – just long enough for a cup of tea, a bowl of cornflakes and a shower in the SIA\u00a0 lounge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eventually we arrived at Brisbane airport.<\/p>\n

Negotiating the route to immigration was easy (Are you a terrorist?\u00a0 Are you carrying more than $500,000? etc.).\u00a0 Immigration via the e-passport line was mixed.\u00a0 I was allowed in, but Glenda was dragged aside (yet again) to present herself to an actual human being to explain herself!\u00a0 Glenda and electronic systems (of any sort) just don’t seem to be compatible!<\/p>\n

The biosecurity team weren’t very interested in the two slices of fruitcake that we declared.\u00a0 Apparently that doesn’t count as fruit.\u00a0 The biscuits and chocolates are also permitted.\u00a0 Not so sure about nuts though.\u00a0 However, there were folk around who were being hauled off to jail for smuggling meat into the country.\u00a0 \u00a0Great piles of sausages were being removed from their suitcases in front of us.\u00a0 Surely they could have bought meat for the BBQ in Coles or Woolworths?<\/p>\n

Happily, once released from the baggage hall, we found Robin waiting for us.\u00a0 The hour trip up the Bruce highway was a bit of a blur, but we were “here”!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To be continued!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first flight for decades – or so it seems. Having returned from Norway (by boat) with Covid, we left the exclusive 1% club.\u00a0 That small band of viral escapees!\u00a0 It gave us problems with pre-planned dental appointments and Covid… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3827"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3864,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827\/revisions\/3864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}