Travel Bug Bites - The Recovery Adventure

Photos: Manchester

aussie_cat — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:56:00 GMT

Photos: Ambleside, lakes district

aussie_cat — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:51:00 GMT

Township and views glaore

Manchester

aussie_cat — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 19:08:00 GMT

Manchester was lovely. It was intended to be a few day stop over to get over jetlag and organise myself. Unfortunately whenever I found free WiFi around the city my phone was almost dead, and the WiFi system at the yha was down. So my time in Manchester was a little shorter than origionally intended.

I stayed at the YHA in Manchester in a quaint part of the city called Potato Wharf. It was gorgeous in a referbished industrial area sence. The YHA was by a canal, and almost surrounded by bridges of all kinds. Foot bridges over the canal, rail and metro bridges - it was a visual timeline of infrastructure.

My exit from Manchester could be called an embarissibg retreat. Having added food for the self catering kitchens (buying bulk is cheaper -of course), and not finding an outdoor shop to but a replacement clip for the hip strap on my pack which broke during the flights, I had used a mini carabina and a few knots to try and hold as much of the 20kg I was carrying, on my hips rather than my shoulders. Bending over to pick up my water bottle after buying my train ticket at Manchester Piccadilly ended up with me flat on my but and needing assistance to get up.

So my next task is to see what I can do about minimising weight.

making the most of cattle class

aussie_cat — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 07:36:00 GMT

Sleep deprivation by necessity and choice. I finally finished packing (and it all fit! Booyah!) at around 1am on Tuesday morning ready to fly out at 6. On two hours sleep I was tired but functioning to bid farewell with minimal tears and start my adventure. :-)

At takeoff we had a full row, and a few funny instances of trying to communicate between English and Iranian Arabic. After takeoff the Iranian couple moved (no sabotage on my part -I promise O:-) ), they had a faulty seat which didn't recline, so I ended up with a whole row and 3 pillows. I celebrated with 8 hours sleep, and could only smile at the slightly envious facial expressions of the hostess.

Fortunately I was refreshed when I got to Dubai as the plane stopped at the terminal 2 minutes after boarding started on the flight to Manchester. With high anxiety and lots of what if scenarios running through my head I patiently waited to disembark. Fortunately Emirates had someone waiting to lead a group of us with the same flight transfer to the next gate. (Next stop over in Dubai I should have time to explore - it looks interesting but I may need a map. Complex is an understatement! It's like a multi storey maze with glass walls.

During next flight, Dubai to Manchester, I learnt the true meaning of cattle class, in an older packed plane where you walk through business class on the way to ecconomy. 7 long hours of timing walks with the hostesses carts and crowds not overfilling the nook around the toilets. I was aiming to stay awake for the majority of this flight to set my body clock correctly - it worked I finally made it out of the airport (smaller and much more easily navigable this time). Arriving at the Manchester yha I promptly fell into bed.

That's the end of my 35 hour day 1.