We were very excited to be going business class to Manchester via Dubai. We don’t fly business often enough not to be excited 😆. Jen had arranged with Emirates for the driver to pick us up from home at 3.30 for a modest additional cost of $115 as we are just outside the normal distance range. That gave us lots of time to enjoy the lounge and airport as the flight departed at 8.30pm.
At midday I got a call from the driver to say that State Highway 1 was closed in both directions because of a truck crash and there was no certainty when it would open. He suggested arriving at 2pm to give more time to get around it on Great North Road through Drury. Ok so we speeded up our preparations but were reasonably organised anyway.
The driver with Mercedes people mover thing arrived just after 2. He was odd. Not just because he told Mike he’d arrived originally for Persia (we guessed that was a political statement) or that he was quite old (well he seemed older than us) he just was a bit odd. He didn’t tell us his name.
He was grumbling about the new roads and how he wasn’t sure how to get out of Hamilton so I guided him to the Expressway where he sped along determined to stay in the fast lane. Odd.
Just after Bombay we reached heavy traffic going north although there was light traffic coming south. At Ramarama he took the off ramp to get across to Great North Road. Well that meant negotiating a lot of cars all trying to do the same. Patience isn’t one of our guy’s virtues. He cut in, cut off, cursed others (even when they had the right of way at the roundabout) and used his horn lots. It was bizarre. An hour later we’d gone about 1 km and he announced he had an urgent personal need so we pulled over and off he went into some new roadside landscaping. We were in the middle of the new Drury South residential development not in the countryside but when needs must (and he wasn’t the only bloke that had to do the same).
Half an hour later we’d gone nearly 1.5 km (since leaving the motorway) and a traffic management lady told us to turn around as it would be a further 2 hours to Drury and they had opened one lane each way on the motorway. So back we went to the same interchange.
At this stage I was feeling very anxious and rather aggrieved as had been pointing out that I could see the motorway traffic moving slowly and the only reason our lane seemed to be moving was because everyone was turning around!
At one point a guy hopped out of a van still going towards Drury and stood in front of us so the van could turn around as they had to get to the airport (it was now 5.30). It turned out they were on our flight🤗. We had to tell our driver not to run him down, he was so incensed that they would turn around in front of us! (He cut in front of them at the on-ramp)
Eventually we got back onto the motorway (having cut in front of vehicles that were going straight ahead while we were turning, and while blaring his horn and cursing them) and we moved along reasonably consistently at about 15-20km/hr.
Things got even more strange after we passed the crash site (truck had taken out the median barrier and crashed into overbridge supports. The truck driver did not survive. Seems like a medical event or he fell asleep). Our driver seemed to be unable to negotiate traffic easily in the dark. We still had 20km to go and everything was passing us. Trucks, cars, the white van with fellow travellers. He would follow at huge distances and generally was nervous. We were just about more anxious by that part than anything previously however we eventually got to the airport at 6.15.
By that stage check in was nearly empty and we’d checked in anyway so offloaded the bags quickly and got through customs and security in less than 10 minutes.
We were in the Emirates lounge by 6.30.
Bevan rudely suggested that the photo looks like we are in a retirement home. It’s a bit dated but that’s the Emirates style. Their service both in the lounge and on board is excellent. Anyway we’d be right at home in a retirement home 🤪.