Sunday - London to SIngapore, via Paris

It was a 6.15 am flight from Heathrow airport to Paris, and from the dreaded T5 terminal.

That meant a ridiculously early departure to cater for :-
        Returning the rental car
        Catching the shuttle bus to T5
        Printing our boarding pass
        Checking in luggage
        Getting through security

Once John had calculated a departure time of 3.30am, he mentioned it to Narelle and she wouldn’t speak to John for quite some time after that. Mornings are not really Narelle’s thing. To make the morning even better, John woke early and decided to wake Narelle at 3. You’d think John would know better by now.

The drive to T5 was straightfoward. Dropped off the hire car just before 4.30.
The shuttle would be there at 4.30. So we even had time to watch Stephanie Rice’s medal ceremony.
This was special for Narelle as Stephanie had been a Clayfield College student. Recently Narelle swam in a relay team with Stephanie at a swimming competition.* Needless to say that their team won, mainly because of Narelle’s efforts.

* This is a true statement. Facts that lessen the drama of the story have been left out.

The original plan was to be at the airport by 5, to allow time to put in the baggage, and get through immigration and security.
We had printed our boarding pass and were at baggage drop at 4.45, and all was looking good. Until we saw the T5 terminal signs that said baggage check in would not open til 5.15.To say we were a bit miffed is an understatement. Narelle could have had an extra 40 minutes sleep!

But we checked in the baggage. We must give good credit to British Airways. Our bikes went for free! i.e. They weren’t included in our weight allowance.
Speaking of weight allowance, we had collected more stuff in our travels, and our bags were getting full. So full in fact that we were now wearing our bike helmets on to the plane as it saved space in our bags. Not really a good look, but very effective from a functional perspective.
So we took our bikes to the ‘oversize’ baggage area.
The operator asked if we knew anything about computers because he couldn’t log on. The pear shape was developing quickly.
John dived behind the counter, and based on some scraps of paper, tried a number of account name and passwords until he was logged in. The operator was very thankful. John was amazed that he had logged on so easily. John was not sure security would be too impressed with a tourist jagging a successful login.
Narelle wished she had a camera at this moment. The sight of John behind the airline check in counter, hacking away , whilst in a rugby jersey and wearing a bike helmet was an interesting sight.

Then it was time to cover the substantial number of kms to our boarding gate. Escalators, lifts and trains were all used.
The flight to Paris was uneventful. Getting through Charles De Gaulle was pretty much straight forward as well. The airport was operating much better than when we first arrived there at the beginning of July.

One of the duty free shops had a nice display of cheeses. This was to be our last chance to see and smell these wonderful cheeses whilst in France. We savoured every moment.


So then it was case of getting through the 13 hours to Singapore.