Return of the Native 2.1 - Part 1 - Sydney to Singapore

     

 Peter & Glenn at the SilverKris Lounge - Sydney Airport

This was originally planned and booked back in September 2019.  It was to be styled ‘Return of the Native 3’ but much like shit, viruses happen so settle back and enjoy the next five weeks of virtual travel blogs as we take you along on our fascinating journey - well more a fantastic journey, really! 

There will be both tiny and regular trains, a boat across the Irish Sea, some very smart flight legs and one ordinary one plus car rental upgrades (or so we hope).  You’ll see snowcapped mountains and pretty Welsh valleys with coal and slate miners as well as their beloved pit ponies all singing merrily in both horse and Welsh as they go.  There will be fields of green and spectacular coastlines around the Ring of Kerry, catch-ups with old friends and new in Mother England and culinary experiences galore.  Taste with us Welsh rarebit, the unavoidable crumbed scampi with mushy peas and chips, lashings of Guinness, the odd Pimm’s or two, some fabulous vegetarian food in Durham and lots of yummy mamak in Singapore.  So why are we waiting, let’s get started

Up up and away

Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge at Sydney Airport is excellent.  We did stick our noses into Air New Zealand’s larger Koru Lounge just for a look but it was much busier and I’m a sucker for Asian tucker so we stayed put.  I settled on the nasi lamak, passing as always on the ikan bilis since the very thought of eating dried baby fish repulses me almost as much as the taste and smell.  Peter went the dumplings which was a rather excellent choice.

I thought it best we stay away from hard liquor so we sat on a couple of glasses of champagne and a bottle of water.  We will tear ourselves away shortly and make our way down to the Promised Land of Singapore Airlines A380 Business Class.

I’ve done business class before, from Auckland to Sydney on Qantas; Wellington to Sydney on Air New Zealand; and Edmonton to Ottawa on Air Canada but all three were many, many years ago.  We’ll sit up till Singapore but after a three hour layover there I’ll be snoring in a flat bed most of the way to London but not until the Lobster Thermidor I ordered via Singapore Airlines Book the Chef option has itself been put to bed.