2.30am the alarm goes off, then the 2nd and 3rd alarm and then the hotel wakeup call. This is after I woke with a sudden feeling I had missed the alarms, my watch showed 3.15, at least I thought it did, I jumped out of bed and raced around to check the digital clock without glasses on, couldn’t see what it said, raced to the bathroom and turned the light on and my watch shows 12.15am. Meanwhile The Navigator sleeps on blissfully unaware of my panic, panic is normally The Navigators job. Not to say I don’t panic, it’s just that I try to hide it, but she picks it up in my eyes and then asks questions that provoke uncalled for smart arse comments from me. There you go, I feel I’m being a little conciliatory by saying this, sort of like going to a Smart Arse Annonomous meeting, I’veactually admitted that I’m addicted to making sarcastic uncalled for comments to people close to me. Not sure how many steps there are in this SAA thing? Il Maestro and Il Banditore, pay attention, you might like to join me at a meeting.

So, it’s 3am, f… it’s early, downstairs, checkout, $30 cab ( he didn’t turn the meter on!!!, I didn’t notice), but fair enough at that time of the day. Qatar CheckIn is good, we’re dealing with humans, and nice and helpful ones at that, then on to wait at the “gate of no return” for 1/2 an hour until it opens at 4am. The line up is long, but we’re at the front, sort of. Security check and again the Gopro and its bits and pieces throw them, I’m going to have to change tactics and put it in my check in bag.

We’re scheduled to leave at 7am. That’s good news. Fingers crossed we get given a hotel room in Doha, they said that there would be somebody meeting us in Doha to sort that stuff out.

Ciao from Sydney, next post from Doha – Pauolo.