Wednesday, 28-Feb-2007: Up at 5.00 am, check out of the Cape Grace, picked up by the young lady from CC Africa at 5.45 am, an easy journey to the airport. There's extensive building work going on so she has to drop me some way from the terminal and I have to go on foot with my luggage across a virtual building site to reach the terminal building. Good job I'm travelling (reasonably) light! Check in, through passport control and security and find the British Airways Terraces lounge. I'm amazed to find no internet access. There's a business section all wired up for computers, but no equipment. We are in a 'Wi-Fi' hot spot, but it's a chargeable one (as are most of them, except for some enlightened hotels) and it's too difficult to contemplate signing up for one session. Instead, I have a very light breakfast and try to relax before the fairly long flight (about 11.5 hours).
We board on time. The aircraft is a 747-400 and I'm on the upper deck. This is probably still my favourite aircraft, although this particular example is a bit long in the tooth and not all the features work properly, like some of the video channels. But the important bits seem OK and once the four massive turbofans are spooled up, they keep going without incident until we touch down at Heathrow Terminal 4. I get decent views of Cape Town as we take off, although I'm in an aisle seat, but I don't see much of the ground as we make our way North over the African continent. Our initial cruise is at 34,000 feet but, once we have burnt off some of our fuel load, we climb to 39,000 feet for the remainder of our journey. They serve a decent lunch soon after take-off then there's a long interval with snacks and drinks available on demand before they serve a decent dinner shortly before landing. Heavy winds around London mean we have to stooge around for about 15 minutes waiting to land, then we disembark and clear passport control quickly. Heathrow distinguishes itself by taking over 45 minutes to start disgorging the luggage (I've not had to wait for more than 10 - 15 minutes at any other airport on this trip), but at least my bag is one of the early ones. I meet up with Alan in the Arrivals Hall and he drives me home. I'm home at 10.15 pm to a wonderful welcome from my dog Tai, who has also been on holiday, staying with my friend Marion and her dogs Jack and Harry.
Thursday, 1-Mar-2007: It's wonderful to be home, with so many experiences to review and think about. As time permits, I'll probably ramble on further about some of the things I've seen. I've posted photographs in various Collections on my Flickr Site.
I know it's not the type of trip that would appeal to everyone (why stay such a short time everywhere? why so many trains?) but it works for me and I feel very fortunate that I'm able to undertake such a journey.
