Notdeadyetadventures

20/08/2022

The one thing I (John) was worried about with Dubai was the 50 degree heat - I run hot, especially when exerting myself, and have never quite experienced 40 degrees. Well the Guy Upstairs had me covered - there had been a sand storm before we arrived and the temperature was only 39 degrees, just like the U.K. when we left! On the down side the view of the architecture was distinctly hazy… On the upside our room had a very good coffee machine ☕️👍

20/08/2022

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that is certainly true when you’re adventuring and have access to a decent hotel buffet. “Breakfast like a king” means at least 2 courses - the fruit and yoghurt course and the full English fry-up course (the naughty pastry 3rd course is sometimes saved for later…). Allow lots of time to eat slowly to maximise the calories consumed, and get plenty of protein (big eggs!) and fibrous veg (think baked beans and mushrooms after the pineapple, etc.) for a slow burn that will keep you going til evening if necessary, or at least a very late lunch snack so that rumbling tummies don’t interfere with serious sightseeing. This was the marvellous spread that Radisson Blu provide, including chef-made salmon omelette, and honey dripped straight from a massive comb.

13/08/2022

Our taxi got us to Heathrow T3 3½ hours before the flight, but after the pre-queue; the queue and half an hour at the desk failing to get my big boy an extra leg room or aisle seat (he’s taken Sarah Hurrell’s aisle seat instead!) we just had time to grab a meal deal and some converter plugs (Australian plugs are seriously weird) before heading to the gate. Very happy and blessed to be on time despite the Danté’s 7th layer of hell experience that airports have become recently. This is just how big the wing on an Airbus A380 is. Very, very big. Which is good as the flight is full to capacity 🥴. The adventure begins…

09/08/2022

GEEK WARNING - “John playing with shiny things” post! If you’re waiting for travel photos just pass on by, they’ll be along soon enough…

MOBILE DATA ROAMING
OK, life is stupidly manic as it’s 4 days until our big Australian adventure but let’s get this channel going and we’ll introduce ourselves as we journey round the world together. I have a photo editing backlog (I’m a pro photographer in case you don’t know me already) but there are must-do jobs that have to happen before we hop on an airplane, and one of them is porting our BT mobile phone sims to EE. It’s the same company - they’re all going to be EE one day apparently,so what could possibly go wrong? They even gave me free next day delivery to make sure everything happens this side of the airport - nice touch!) This will give us roaming data for £10 per month when we need it (turn on-and-offable in the MyEE app). With 50GB doubling as a BT broadband customer to 100GB for £12 per month, I reckon 100GB of global data (pretty much EU, Mexico & 5 eyes countries I think - we won’t be able to use it in Dubai or Singapore, but we’re not there long and we’ll probably be inside with wifi hiding from the heat much of the time anyway!) for £22 is pretty outstanding and will keep us connected on our big trips over the next few years.

This is a photo of us “on top of the world” at 1800m in Madeira, at the Optical Observatory in Pico do Areeiro, which is part of the European programme that monitors space junk. Now you know! There are some great walks into that landscape that we’ll try next time we go back.

11/07/2022