So here it is, day one! The adventure has begun. This is the day that I fly to Australia. I can’t quite believe that it’s here as this trip was conceived in my mind about 18 months ago and has taken a lot of planning. I’m a mixture of excitement and happiness and sadness (at leaving my loved ones behind) and a few nerves. But nervousness can always be confused with excitement and the new me doesn’t do nervousness so it must all be excitement!
Got up at about 4.45, far too early for me now. I can’t believe that I used to get up at this time everyday to go to work. Everyting was packed and ready to go from the night before so after a teary and emotional farewell to my most wonderful mum and dad (who have been absolutely fantastic to have me back home for the last nine months),Jay gave me a ride to the airport. After a very very teary and emotional farewell to Jay I took myself to the check in desks at Terminal 2. It was so hard to drag my self away from Jay but we will be reunited in Adelaide in January!
No major queues at check in and backpack wasn’t overweight, phew! Must have been very close though. Backpack was checked right through to Perth so was a bit worried I might not see it again. I did get through the security checks without incident. It always worries me going through this as I can’t help feeling guilty even though I’m not. Didn’t get frisked this time, but did have to take my shoes off. Through to the departure lounge I had an hour or so to kill so was very pleased to see a Café Nero and had my last Nero Americano and one of their great porridges for the last time for over a year, delicious!

Flying with Singapore Airlines who I’ve never flown with before and they’re supposed to be the best airline to fly with, so let’s see. Boarded on time and flight SQ327 left on time at 09.10 bound for Singapore, via a short stop in Munich. Geeky fact: plane was a Boeing 777-300. Seats were very spacious and comfortable and the food was excellent. I was sat in 34C on the aisle as requested and was sat next to a lovely Irish couple from Wigan called Mary and Ray ( I hope I’ve got this right as I’m terrible at remembering names).They were on their first ever long haul flight and also going to Perth, but with a stop over in Singapore to break the journey. They were visiting friends who live in Perth and I talked to them about just how good my favourite city in the world is. The flight from Manchester to Singapore was 15 hours including the stop in Munich. I drifted in and out of sleep a bit ,watched a bit of tele, listened to some music and chatted to Mary and Ray and the time went relatively quickly. Arrived at Singapore airport on time and had about two and a half hours here before my connecting flight to Perth. Just wandered around for a bit and looked in the electrical gadget shops and sat down and people watched to kill the time.