Sydney to Kew Gardens

Departed Sydney on QF1, on 5th December for London via Singapore. We’ve packed all our warm clothing for winter in Europe (we hope). Our baggage was 16kg for me and 17kg for Mike…so pretty light for the start of our trip. Maxine Q. kindly drove us to the airport after saying goodbye to Neale and Annie at our place. They have kindly come from Hobert for a holiday and to have Christmas with her family until January, and they are Beau sitting too while we are all away! We will miss the little guy but he is well loved and cared for by this Uncle and Aunt - haha!

Arrived at Sydney airport and met a lovely Qantas lady at checkin who was wearing the 35 year pin. She and Mike chatted - maybe a bit too long as there was a queue building, but they had shared Qantas memories of days in the early 1990’s. With a skip in our step we went passed the Sydney sign and into that large customs/immigration hall. Silly me to think it would be a mere moment of checking us through!

Okay, so they are really strict at immigration today, the place was full of officers checking passengers and carryon baggage. They are probably on top of their job every day, however I forgot about my home made jar of lemon butter, all wrapped in Christmassy paper for Michaela!!! So my bag went into the ‘did you pack this bag Madam quest’. Out came the little present that I had forgotten. Lemon butter - a gel…over 100ml. …barely… it was a little jar, lovingly made from home grown lemons. I even unwrapped it and tasted it for them!!! No luck…good bye delicious lemon butter... sob!! But the fancy new garlic crusher after vigorous inspection, got through even though, on reflection, it could be mistaken for a knuckle duster, Sean will get his present haha!

Off to the business class lounge, with champagne in hand…so all is good!

Great trip to Singapore, nice food, some sleep and to our surprise a visit before we left Sydney from the Captain Conroy who came down just to invite us up to the flight deck on our arrival in Singapore. Tony Shannon had asked him to check in on us…that was so nice of Tony. Then the CSM came and asked us to also visit the flight deck and gave us particular directions on how to visit that hallowed space once we had landed in Sydney.

Excellent flight and photos taken in the pilot seats in the cockpit on arrival in Singapore. Mike loved it and boy the view is good up there. So many instruments and we were made to feel very welcome. We had a longish stopover walking around and around Changi airport to get some exercise. We certainly didn’t need any food and the place was so busy. Back on board for London but a medical emergency delayed our departure for over an hour as a family had to deplane and bags had to be found. Once we left I decided to get some sleep as it was about 2am Sydney time. Lovely crew member made up my bed and even though another dinner was served I had a better place to be!

Hours later I sat in the lounge area and enjoyed a cup of tea and chatted to another Aussie who reminded me of Sean. We talked travel, books etc. and it passed some of the time pleasantly.

A very quick exit out of Heathrow Airport, into a taxi and on our way to our flat in Richmond, which is very close to Kew Gardens and the Kew Gardens tube station. We both felt fine (business class is so wonderful), so after dropping our bags we headed up to the station and went one stop to Richmond to indulge in a bit of Ted Lasso place sight seeing! We have loved watching the 3 seasons of 'Ted Lasso' which was filmed around Richmond, which is a much bigger place than Kew. We found the pub, Richmond Green, alleys and took fun photos of us there. There were a couple of other obsessed Ted Lasso fans so we didn’t feel too crazy! Got a coffee, some food supplies for the next few days and back to our flat, which is nice but cold so the owner was contacted about the heating, the flat is in a very cute area.
So happy to be in London. Photos of us leaving Sydney, in the cockpit of QF1 and our flat in Kew.