Stage one complete.

Well after getting to Perth Airport, the first glitch became evident. Although we were travelling "Exploding Airways" or QANTAS as some others know them, our flight out of Singapore was on a codeshare with British Airways.

As luck has it I am a QANTAS Club member and have a perk of being allowed slightly more baggage than the non member. (In this case it means Mrs gusonthego can carry those extra 25 pairs of shoes she may need to use, just the once, in case we do go somewhere unscheduled, and that third bottle of moisturiser, just in case). Anyway, I digress. BA have a strict 20kg per person allowance and the check in girl is unsure of whether she should charge us the extra amount an refers to a supervisor. Luckily the supervisor points out that we had actually booked all the way on QANTAS and they will have to argue the point with BA, not me. This was a bonus, because for the first time in years I was not ready for a fight with a "Jobsworth" although, I am sure that would have changed if I was told the amount!

The flight to Singapore was uneventful, when we got there however, we were told that we were sitting in the very rear of the aircraft, last 2 seats. I was well and truly unimpressed. Although there were only 2 seats, there was a restricted movement in the seats. When we got on the plane at sat down the temperature was unbearable, I nearly passed out. After spending 3 months in the Solomons with 34 degrees and 85+% humidity I thought I was acclimatised. Wrong as a wrong thing can be!

When we finally took off and were about to settle down for the night other passengers decided to use the toilets, now this I understand, accept and it was not a bother. The thing was though, that several other passengers decided that standing behind our seats and screaming their life story to a person they had only just met was unbearable, even listening to a movie/tv show or music could not drown out these people.

Finally after 21 hours we landed in London.