Europe

We took off from London last night and were both pretty quickly asleep.

The flight down to Dubai was very quick (under six hours) so that offset our late departure. We managed to indulge in an excellent dinner after waking up (even though we were approaching breakfast time in Dubai).

We had to wait a little for a gate when the plane landed in Dubai so our connection time, already short, was reduced a little further. We had just enough time to get to the lounge for a quick shower and then head for the gate. It turned out that the gate was quite some distance away so we accepted a ride on one of the internal airport vehicles and made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare.

We settled into our seats for the fourteen-hour flight down to Melbourne. After a pre-takeoff Dom Pérignon and a wonderful meal we settled in for a good sleep. We awoke a couple of hours out of Melbourne and freshened up with a lovely hot shower before landing.

We landed in Melbourne at about 6:30am after a wonderful 25 days away.

We cleared immigration and customs pretty quickly and were met by our waiting driver for the trip home.

Already this trip seems like a blur, and we’ve only been back in Australia for a few hours. So, what were the highlights?

The Porsche Ice Experience was absolutely fantastic. We loved the beautiful landscape and the fun group of people but, most of all, the incredible thrill of drifting a Porsche 911 around unforgiving snow-walled ice tracks! Brilliant!

We also loved seeing Russia for the first time. We were glad we made the trip to Moscow but the beauty and grandeur of Saint Petersburg was stunning. We also loved the ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, incredibly beautiful.

And, even though it was all too brief on both occasions on this trip, we loved catching up with our new English friends, Simon and Mags, and meeting their lovely daughters. We are very much looking forward to catching up with them again soon.