Arrival in Australia

The flight from Gatwick had very few people on board,so was very relaxed, excellent attention from the cabin attendants, arrived at Doha and because we had a five hour wait for our ongoing flight we were given meal vouchers, Mary had chips and samosas i had a curry and rice then we sat it out at this massive airport, the flight was delayed for 40 minutes waiting for the Manchester flight to come in for connecting flights then we set off on this ultra modern Boeing 777-200 with every seat taken, and arrived in Melbourne well on time, It took 30 minutes from landing to be get our luggage and clear customs, so arrived at Emmas around midnight. As we walked up the path to the house there was the possum that lives in our daughters garden sitting watching us no more than 8 foot away. The grandchildren woke up and we had an hour with them before bed.
Slept well,In the cabin that Emma and Warwick have furnished for us to use, Awkke to riotous dawn chorus the bird life is incredible here, after breakfast, a walk to “the Bakery” in Warrendyte for Coffee and muffins , We have had heavy rain showers on and off for most of the day and through last night and its still raining, but it is very warm, almost tropical,in the middle of the night some thing quite large jumped out of the trees onto the cabin roof and walked along it sounded like an elephant to me, but Mary reckons it was a possum!

Alicante, El Altet tops

Despite the financial crisis Alicante,El Altet airport has had the best year of all the Spanish airports, turning a profit of 43.5 million Euros in 2009,only two other airports made a profit, Palma and Girona with Madrid and Barcelona making losses. Meanwhile Alicante airport extension is coming on well and will increase the number of passengers to 20 million a year.

Easyjet pull out

Sadly Easyjet are stopping flights to and from East Midlands airport from 6th January 2010, this will affect us because it is mainly this airport we use when we fly to the UK, and we have always found Easyjet to be the best with prices and customer service. we actually had a flight booked but in an efficent manner they have already transferred our booking to a flight with BMI Baby which we are quite happy with.
It appears that several of the budget airlines are pulling out of various UK airports and consolidating some of there other bases, I have a feeling .that prices will start to rise as there will be less competition at each individual airport and there will be fewer operators working from each one, Maybe the budget airline operators have come to an agreement with each other to make this possible. BMI baby are certainly cooperating with Easyjet over the East Midlands pull out. Time will tell!

San Javier parking Charges

Here we are back in the U.K for a few days, first day could not believe the weather it was hot,hot hot, 28 C , but yesterday these wet drops started falling out the sky and the sky was grey, but its nice to see every one, and catch up with all the gossip.

We flew out of Murcia- San Javier airport so i checked on the parking charges, to put the record straight, because when i phoned them they said it was 8 euros a day, NOT. the charges are 40 cents half an hour, 80cents 1 hour, 7.50 a day for 4 days, and after the 4th day 6.00 euros, complicated and pricey! The Airport security from Spain was not very strict they did not even check our passports, between the checkin desk and the boarding gate, but we heard they were even making you take your shoes off at East Midlands Airport, we will find out on the way back.

Murcia, San Javier Airport - Parking?

Murcia-San Javier airport is located on the north shore of the Mar Menor. It used to have free parking with 900 spaces, but in the last couple of months, the barriers have been put into action with a parking charge of 8 Euros a day.

If you are going back to the U.K. for 10 days it becomes quite costly.After research, there does not appear to be any other medium or long term parking facilities in the area.

A taxi from Torrevieja is around 25 euros each way, and 30 euros from Cartagena.

Bus fare to the airport from Murcia is 7 Euros.

The airport has a good selection of budget airlines to and from a variety of U.K. airports, so now it is quite possible you could be paying more for your parking than your airfare.