Outrunning the typhoon...

This trip is a very different one for me. I am usually a solo traveller, and I love the freedom of that. But on this trip to Europe I am travelling with my sister-in-law, & my niece (1-year-old) and nephew (10-years-old). It will be at an entirely different pace and will include activities quite different to what I would normally do. I'll be challenged, but it'll be good for me!

We were scheduled to leave Cairns (headed for Copenhagen) on Sunday afternoon... and then Typhoon Mangkhut happened! Cathay Pacific were recommending that anyone leaving on or after Sunday either cancel or reschedule, but then told us that if we chose to reschedule they couldn't get us on another flight for a week! So we hung on to our tickets and waited... Then on Friday afternoon they informed us that if we were able to leave a day early they could get us as far as Milan, but Not all the way to Copenhagen.

It meant we had 24 hours to get ready instead of 48 and we would have to find our own way from Milan to Copenhagen, but we had to do it or not leave for another week! PANIC STATIONS!

We got packed on time and headed to the airport early expecting queues and chaos due to the typhoon but there was no chaos, no pandemonium, very few people in fact... And then we were in the air...

Long haul flights with an infant were destined to be difficult, But Miss L actually did very well with only a few grizzles. My S-i-L had intentionally not weaned her completely off the breast in order to help Miss L cope with these flights, & it worked. She slept for a few hours, but as we got closer to Hong Kong (and the typhoon) things got bumpy and the seatbelt light came on a few times which meant getting her out of the basinet and onto the lap.

After 7 hours in the air we made it to Hong Kong (a little bleary-eyed) and enjoyed the hospitality of the Amex Centurion Lounge, but both kids were getting a bit frazzled so it was a good thing to get moving towards the gate. Our flight was the second-to-last to leave Hong Kong before it shut down because of Typhoon Mangkhut.

The second flight was eleven hours long (and felt like 24!). With a little help from a dose of Phenergan the kids slept well for a while. But S-i-L and I only had a couple of hours of patchy sleep between meals and kids and toilet stops and turbulence/seatbelt warnings etc. The last two hours were HARD with Miss L awake and swinging between happy, restless, hungry, grumpy... all those things that toddlers do so well. Three dirty nappies later we touched down in Milan on Sunday morning!