Day (00) 25 December 2020: Christmas Day

For the 56 passengers and crew on Emirates flight EK414 from Dubai to Sydney Christmas Day is only 17 hours. 

Flying first class, despite the pampering, is a lonely experience. Fellow travelers in their mandatory face masks seal themselves in their mini-cabins. The only people you see are the cabin staff dressed head to toe in PPE who quickly and politely retreat to the crew area. This sounds terribly selfish given that we were able afford the best seats available whilst people sat further back may well have been bumped from one flight to another until the Australia government decided there was a quarantine hotel available. Nonetheless whinging is an Australia custom and expected of anyone of English descent, so I will continue. 

Learning from over-indulgence between Amsterdam and Dubai I declined a second dinner and more wine in favour of a chamomile tea followed by a few hours sleep. My pre-travel evaluation of time zones suggested that straight out of Dubai would be the best time to nap for a few hours.

I awoke for what is always the hardest part of the journey - the three or four hours it takes to travel from the Australian coast to Sydney. The pilot announces, ‘Ladies and gentlemen we are just passing over the Australian coast’. Thoughts turn to getting ready for landing only to be disappointed when the in-flight display shows we over Perth with several hours still to go. Despite having done this journey many times I am still fooled into believing reaching Australia is almost home.

So it was back to eating and watching a movie. A nice piece of salmon for Christmas Dinner, another tasteless super-cold wine and an undemanding movie. The entertainment system offers an overwhelming choice of .... well mainly stuff I have never heard of and have little interest in. Why are there so many superhero films each with his or her own dark side? I settle on ‘Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans’, light smutty comedy, ideal for a tired mind.

Christmas Day draws to a close as we reach Sydney, sadly there was no sighting of Santa and his six white boomers to report. Exchanges with the welcoming committee at Sydney Airport are formal, the military members obviously use to giving and receiving orders that are to be obeyed. It is all very efficient and I imagine tough for those obliged to greet us desperate returning citizens, nonetheless they are very good at their job and it feels well-planned and comfortable. The processing time is no worse than a ‘normal’ busy day at the airport. Within a couple of hours we board a coach and are escorted by police outriders to our hotel for 14 days of quarantine.

Arriving in NSW from Europe the biggest surprise is Premier Gladys Berejiklian dithering over lockdown restrictions following the northern beaches Covid-19 outbreak. The long list of contaminated places, bus and train timetables that require people to isolate and get tested seems convoluted and doomed to failure. Surely the lesson of Europe (and Melbourne) is to act decisively. Why NYE celebrations are still under discussion is beyond me.