Heathrow

As I type this we are on the train from Newcastle to London. Will post when I next have Internet acess. My last post was written on the flight from Singapore to London. After landing at Heathrow terminal 3 I continued through immigration at went to the bag collection. After several minutes of waiting the last bag came through but mine still hadn't arrived. I was starting to get worried as my flight boarded in an hour.

When it became apparent that it was no where near the conveyor belt I ran over to the service desk. The service desk operators must be the slowest workers I have ever seen. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity but must have been about 15-20 minutes I got to see someone only to find that contrary to what I'd been told in Brisbane, my bag had been checked through to Newcastle.

Felling relieved, I sprinted through the tunnels to catch the inter-terminal express train to terminal 5. About 30 seconds after I boarded the train the doors crashed together and we left the station. Terminal 5 is a cold, empty, ultra efficient and clean building. I'm glad they're so efficient because security took no time at all.

Feeling a little less stressed I made it to the boarding gates and tried to find my flight on the displays. It did not appear. I felt a bit stupid when I had to ask the British Airways service agent where my flight left from but lucky for me it was nearby.

We had to catch a bus across the tarmac from gate number 4. Flight BA 1324 consists predominantly of smartly dressed business men at that time in the morning. I felt very under dressed and scruffy standing next to them.

After a short delay we took off. This leg had the best food of my entire journey so far which was a bacon and sausage on a sub roll thing. This short flight landed in Newcastle where, thankfully, my bag showed up. Having my bag checked through meant that somehow, it skipped customs completely.

Patrick, my uncle picked me up from Newcastle airport with the temperature being a pleasant 4 degrees. To be continued...