Singapore. Halfway home. Flew in early morning, about 0530. Now for a 19hr layover before we fly to Cairns. We've opted to book a hotel room for the day so we can rest up a bit. 19 hours not really long enough to do any sightseeing (we leave at 1am). so a leisurely day at the hotel and then the final push home (including a 1hr stopover in Darwin - no idea why). So ends another European odyssey. Took a few detours here and there (Spain in particular). visited a fe...

A bit of a hiccup leaving Cairns. The plane had a bird strike and we had to wait for an engineer to sign off on it before we could leave. 2 hours it took. Luckily we have a 7 hour layover in Singapore, so any delays at the Cairns end means a shorter wait in Singapore. The flight was rather arduous, made worse because of the lack of any onboard entertainment system. You could access the onboard wifi network to access their entertainment packages - if you had a w...

Leaving Abu Dhabi today bound for Istanbul. Well, almost anyway. Got to the airport in plenty of time to check in, have some breakfast, and browse the duty free shops, only to be told that our flight had been delayed by 4 hours. First, and hopefully the last glitch of the trip. At least we won't be in a rush.

25/11/2012 - Arrived in Abu Dhabi around midnight last night. Good news, no lost luggage this time. Both bags arrived safely. It's 1am by the time we arrived at the hotel, 2am by the time we finally got to bed. Totally exhausted. Started our first day in a leisurely fashion. Late rise, late breakfast. After a quick look at the tourist map, we decided to take a walk up to the Abu Dhabi Mall - supposed to be quite something. Not. Just another shopping mall. ...

14 hours later and here we are in Abu Dhabi. Already been flying for 20hours and we're still only half way there. Now I know how people living on cattle stations feel! Anyway, Abu Dhabi. What a melting pot. Seems like every nationality feeds thru here on the way to somewhere else. The airport doesn't seem as flash as its big brother in Dubai. You can tell where all the flash cash has gone to - Dubai is all glitter and shiny and new. Abu Dhabi seems more "used",...