The Flight

The flight broke down as follows:

• London Gatwick to Dubai: 7 hours
• Dubai to Kuala Lumpur: 7 hours
• Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne: 7 hours

Stopovers were quick. I had used Emirates before a few times and generally they are very good, even the food I found to be better than other airlines. That is until they served up this horror:

What is it?

 I cut into this rubbery excuse for a meal and couldn't eat it. It actually looks better than it was. So I'll go hungry for a few more hours.

At Dubai, I rather stupidly left a bag on the plane containing a brand new electric razor I had just bought at Gatwick, and a few other things. I realised not long after getting off the plane, so I tried to make my way back.

Unfortunately they wouldn't let me back on, so I had to go to lost property, across this (rather massive) airport. After many phone calls I had to fill in a form and hope I could be reunited with the bag in Melbourne. (Frankly I didn't hold out much hope, and was never to see it again).

Because of going to lost property, I had to go through airport security again. Bizarrely they wanted to confiscate my Allen Keys, but allowed my heavy D-Lock (capable of killing anyone with a swing) through. That dashed my hopes of assembling the bike at the airport upon arriving at Melbourne.