Flying home

After a fun breakfast barbecue organised by Sue Ann and Trevor, we headed to Melbourne airport.

I had perhaps been a little ambitious in my packing, and the various souvenirs, and all the fan fund auction stuff put both my main bag and my carry on luggage over their limits. Oops. I slip away to remove a lot of books. I establish that I am allowed a laptop bag, so I get away with a couple of extra kilos that way.

I manage to get checked in on the second attempt, and head for a coffee with Sue'n'Trev. Soon it's time to say goodbye and go to find my plane.

After the security check I make my way to the gate. There she stands, the A380, huge and supreme in the afternoon sun.

It's quite an experience, even in economy class. There are a few neat features like a usb port for charging phones and things, and a network port that suggested internet might be available one day, through I couldn't find anything saying it could be used or what it would cost.

I've seen footage of the a380 taking off, and it always looks far too slow and sedate to fly. Well it's exactly the same from on board the plane - it serenely jaunts down the runway, and with no apparent effort lifts into the sky. It really doesn't look like it should be flying.

The in flight entertainment system is excellent, with a huge selection of movies, TV shows, and even games using a controller hidden in the armrest of the seat. You can also see the flight progress, or a view outside the plane courtesy of a camera mounted on the tail.

The turnaround in Singapore was pretty quick, so few there wasn't really time to explore much of the airport.

I managed to catch a few hours sleep on the second leg, so now I hope I can make it through to a fairly normal bedtime tonight, and get back to my normal timezone fairly quickly.

Just waiting to board my flight to Dublin now.