Day 26 - Tour day 15 – Sunday 28 July 2019 - From Moscow to Canberra

Sunrise:         4:26am

(I added the actual flight times after I wrote my notes.)

I don’t know what time I woke up this morning the first time but it was 6:30 when I finally surfaced for the day.

Had a shower & washed my hair, then ran the bath and had a relaxing soak for half an hour or so.

I went down to breakfast just before 8 and this time I found where the red caviar was hiding and put a largish dollop on my plate. That and salmon was all I needed this morning, plus OJ & coffee.
Before I returned to my room, I went for a wander around the Conference area of the hotel,

which is on the same floor as the breakfast rooms. When I came to the womens toilet I went inside, as I had heard that it was rather opulent.

I didn't go into a cubicle. 
I then returned to my room and finalised the packing and after reading for a while, decided to check out around 11am, so I could read and people watch down in the foyer. 

This is the lift area on the floor my room was on.  You needed a room key to get through the glass doors to the rooms, from the lifts. The sign was so people knew which floors certain lifts went to.

BA 0232        Depart          DME    4:05pm          Arrive             LHR    6:00pm

There were 4 of us on the midday transfer to Domodedovo Airport (DME), which happens to be the furtherest out of Moscow of their 3 airports.  https://rusmania.com/moscows-airports  tells you all about the airports and how to get to them

Olga, who was arranging the transfers, arrived around 10 to midday and we only had to wait a short while for the van to arrive.

The drive out to the airport took an hour and the driver had no English and was very non communitive. We got dropped off in a car park and made our own way over to the terminal.

My flight was open for check-in, as was Mia’s, who is flying home to Hong Kong.  You check in on the ground floor but then go upstairs to the next level for all international departures. 

Some pics from the 2nd level.
Mia was flying with a different airline. Can’t remember which one. The other couple from Singapore are flying with Emirates and their flight isn’t until 6pm.

We all came together again at the security check point, and then Mia and I again at customs. After that, I didn’t see any of them again. I was very relieved to finally be airside, as the woman at customs was very ’unfriendly’ in her attitude. 




The BA Lounge wasn’t especially easy to find. I went into the Austrian Airlines lounge to ask them where it was, as did the 2 ladies who entered before me.  

For those of you who might be using the BA lounge from DME some time.  It was hiding around a corner to the left, near the first of the duty free shops started. If I had thought of it, I would have taken photos of the outside area.

By now it was around 1:45pm, so I had a light lunch of fresh salmon, pickled gherkins, olives and a glass of Chardonnay.

2:15 and I decided that I had better find a currency exchange place and get rid of my remaining zloty and rubles. Oh, the zipper on my handbag broke earlier this morning, so thought I might go bag shopping too. Oops. No currency exchange after passport control and only booze, cosmetics and sunglasses in duty free and not many shops. Certainly nothing like Melbourne or Sydney or London have.

Back to the lounge to read my book.

The flight was eventually called and I joined the group 2 queue and when I got to the boarding gate, they said that I had  been upgraded to first class. Seat 4K. Woohoo....

So unexpected and so nice to turn left on entry to the plane.

Push back was at 4:20, started taxing at 4:25pm and airborne at 4:35pm, so only 30 minutes late from schedule.

I had a glass of champagne

and for dinner the Canape

and then a Caesar Salad

which was actually a small lobster with some crunchy lettuce (can’t remember the type) no main or dessert and a glass of water and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

My eyes are so sore, it’s not funny. Can’t remember if I mentioned yesterday that I woke up with a sore throat and am definitely at the start of a head cold. Had one of these back in March, so it will be a week before it’s over but crappy in the mean time.  I’m planning on sleep for the London to Singapore leg.

Touched down in London at 5 minutes to 6pm, so we made up the late departure time out of DME.               

BA0015         Depart           LHR    9:35pm          Arrive             SIN      5:45pm Monday 29 July

The plane for Sydney via Singapore departed from gate C64, so we had to take the train over to that gate. Then we waited and waited and waited. Finally we boarded and had lift off at 9:50pm.

I felt so lousy and must have looked it, as one of the hostesses asked if I was okay. Anyway, as soon as we were airborne and before they came around to take the dinner requests, I laid the seat flat and went to sleep for the night.

I surfaced properly at 7:30am London time. So had pretty much 9 hours sleep. Not solid sleep but I don’t remember being awake for any great length of time. I certainly felt a whole lot better than I did last night and enjoyed my breakfast. 

As I write this it will be another 3 hours before we land in Singapore.

BA0015         Depart           SIN      7:25pm          Arrive             SYD    5:10am

We have now departed and I’m pretty sure that the actual departure was on time. Push back at 7:25pm and we were airborne at 7:44pm, so we weren’t late at all. I’m not sure why the announcements were apologising for being late and making us wait.

I ate dinner this leg, then tried to sleep. A very broken sleep, as I coughed a lot last night. I was woken by the hostess with my breakfast around 4am. We are due to touch down in Sydney at 5:10am.  

We touched down at 5:02 and it’s either raining or has been raining in Sydney. I haven’t seen any rain for quite a while.

I haven’t flown through Sydney International for a few years now. Living in Canberra,  I prefer Melbourne. Mainly for the convenience of getting from the domestic terminal to the international and vice versa and the luggage from flights usually starts appearing within a reasonable time after the flight has landed, and after it took almost 45 minutes for the luggage to start coming through to the carousel for our flight, and we were the first plane to land for the day, I can’t say that I’m especially impressed with the baggage handling for our flight.  2 planes that landed after ours, had their baggage on the carousel ages before our flight’s luggage started coming through.  It will be back to Melbourne again for me next time. Mind you, Qatar fly direct from Canberra and Singapore do, or at least they did. Not sure if they still fly out of Canberra.

Sitting in the Qantas Club, waiting for the final flight home.

QF1513          Depart           SYD    8:10am          Arrive             CBR    9:05am

Bill was there to meet me. We walked down to the arrivals hall and the luggage started arriving on the carousel shortly after we got there.  My suitcase was 3^rdon the carousel, so we were out of there very soon after.

It’s great to be back home, but so very nice to have the memories from the tour(s) that I have recently experienced.

Canberra Sunset   5:19 pm

Steps Walked from the 28^th till getting home. 17,933