Day 01 - Way Too Long

Day 1

Preparation.

We were mostly packed a day or two before which meant we could spend a lazy few hours catching up with family before the final check - double-check routine. It felt odd to be leaving so late in the evening when all of our previous departures for USA have been early morning. Bevan kindly delivered us to the airport in good time. Check in was relatively simple. Getting through customs was our next challenge, declaring all of our tech toys and associated batteries. Turns out it wasn't an issue. Yay! Plenty of time for some duty free shopping and a lap or two of the departure lounge. Our plane had left Hong Kong half an hour late so that meant we were going to be late boarding. The crew did well keeping the overall delay at 30 minutes.

BNE to Hong Kong.

We found our seats, travelling premium economy for a bit of extra space. Clint’s experience was off to a flying start (haha) with a dodgy set of headphones that produced a very loud squawk. Our flight attendant replaced the headset and we settled in to watch a movie. Clint’s movie kept stopping or the screen going blank. Mine was ok. We ate our meal, finished the movies and tried to get some sleep. I think we managed an hour or two before waking. Did a bit of night sky gazing and tried for some more sleep. Again, maybe another hour or two if we're lucky. Sunrise was pretty with some interesting cloud formations.

Our plane for the first leg was a Airbus A350. I realised almost too late that the plane is fitted with two onboard cameras. One is mounted near the front and gives an uninterrupted view forward. The other is mounted on the tailplane which looks forward along the fuselage and wings. Great for  seeing out and particularly interesting as the plane is on approach to land.

We made good use of the cameras looking over the various islands as we approached Hong Kong.

The number of large ships in the harbour made us think of Gladstone and Newcastle and then triple it.

Our entry through Hong Kong customs was handled efficiently. We checked the flight information board to find that our next flight had not yet been assigned a gate number. We had a one in three chance of walking down the correct wing. After walking two of the wings, we finally found out departure gate number on the wing we hadn't yet walked.

Morning clouds over the Phillipines

Wasting time in Hong Kong airport

Top camera view - awaiting pushback from the terminal

Hong Kong to Paris

A little bit of a wait and we were again on a plane. We were expecting a Boeing 777-ER which would have been an interesting comparison. We were instead on another A350, this time for a twelve hour flight …

This time it was my turn to have headset issues. After trying two sets, wiggling the cord etc, we worked out how best to keep the pin and socket in place to minimise the risk of being blasted in the ears. All settled in, we watched movies and tv series, were fed snacks, lunch and dinner, and tried for some sleep. It was at about the half way mark that I recalled a discussion we had after our last flight from USA that we really should try to break up these long distance flights. Everything aches too much from being confined for so long. Give us twelve hours on a motorcycle any day.

Our flight path took us over the Gobi Desert, north of the Himalayas, north of Moscow, south of Norway. There was a lot of cloud, too bright to have the window shade up, too thick to make use of the cameras.

The sounds of the plane descending were welcome. Deplaned reasonably quickly and onto the queue for customs. The queue behind us was longer than in front, only trouble was there were very few officials manning the booths. Eventually we were through and on collect our luggage. Everything arrived intact, our travel tags still in place. Onto the next challenge … the car!

Flying over mainland China near Hong Kong - it is all city for miles.

Clint had booked a luxury class hire car reportedly a Mercedes E class, manual, petrol version, or equivalent. The attendant advised us the only car available was a Volvo S90 auto. Clint challenged him and was offered a Mercedes SUV but at a higher cost. Ah, no thanks. Then we're told that as we had provided an incorrect flight number, they couldn't pre-prepare the car and then would be about a ten minute wait. Well that didn't sit well with us. The Cathay Pacific provided booking confirmation showed as CXO279. The flight number used by Cathay Pacific was CX279. No one at the car rental made the connection that it could be one and the same. Being rather tired and generally sore this was an uncomfortable wait as the ten minutes stretched in to 40. Eventually the car turned up and it's diesel! Oh no! How disappointing. We begrudgingly loaded our luggage into the car, sat there for a few minutes trying to sort out all the controls, change the GPS from French and start the darn thing.

OK so it's a Volvo.  But an S90 and very nice to drive.

Turns out it is a very nice car and is loaded with tech - so that's a plus.
We found our way out of the airport and on our way to our destination for the night. Clint had fun working out the car. It has driver assist and close object avoidance systems. Our freeway driving was educational. Seems like there is a general disdain for the posted speed limits unless driving a truck. Noticeably there seems to be a strict adherence to slow cars keeping right, no passing on the right. Toll roads use the system of issuing a card at the start and then pay on exit.

We arrived at our accommodation for the night Kyriad Compiègne. We had pre-ordered a portable Wi-Fi and arranged to have it delivered to the hotel. It was there waiting for us. We took our bags to the room, showered and started to sort ourselves out. By 9:30pm we couldn't do any more. Sleep’s siren song was too strong. We had travelled for about 32 hours all on 17 Aug.