9.7 → 10.7: 24 hours of travel

The initial flight was due to depart Adelaide at 21:50, so it was a fairly leisurely day checking I had everything and doing some last minute things. Mum and I drove to the airport meet Patsy and Philip for a drink before departing. This was the first time that I’ve seen the new additions to the Adelaide Airport and I think it looks great! It was very easy to find a car park and the courtyard area looks lovely. After saying our goodbyes, I was soon en route to Dubai. Being nighttime there wasn’t much to see with the highlights being the views over Adelaide and Perth at night. It was possible to see the football match taking place at Adelaide Oval. I was seated next to a mother and daughter from Manchester who were heading home after a holiday in Australia. They provided good company on this 12-hour leg of the flight. As we neared Dubai, the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon and one could see the flames of oil rigs dotting the landscape. The temperature in Dubai was already in the high 30’s despite it being early morning and it was very humid. We disembarked the plane directly onto the tarmac and caught a rather pungent bus to Terminal 3. 

The name Terminal 3 is a bit deceptive, as it is really three massive individual buildings, connected by train. Looking it up now, apparently this is the largest terminal in the world - I can attest to this. Nevertheless, it was easy enough to find my way to the next departure gate, taking perhaps 20-30 minutes in total. I had enough time to have an expensive cup of coffee and then it was onto the next leg of the flight to Copenhagen, again boarding the plane via a bus on the tarmac. 

Boarding plane to Copenhagen

This was another fairly uneventful flight. This time I was seated next to a mother and son heading home to Iceland from Bangkok, both pretty exhausted. The Copenhagen Airport is more like Adelaide, but with more wood and modern art strewn around the place. Quite calming compared to Dubai. Getting the boarding pass to Tallinn was perhaps a tad more complex than it needed to be. In order to be seen by someone at the transfer counter you had to extract a ticket from what seemed to me, in my now sleep deprived state, the worlds most complex ticket dispensing machine, covered with pictures of passports, various coloured buttons and a touch screen. It was here that I met an Estonian/American lady who was equally puzzled. There was no airport staff around to ask so we managed to persuade a fellow passenger to assist. Looking rather bemused at our inability to use this machine, she quickly pressed some buttons and out popped a numbered ticket. Easy. We soon had our boarding passes and made our way to the gate. Our Estonian Air plane looked rather small, yet dignified, in comparison to those planes of previous flights. 

A dignified plane

This leg was short and swift and we were soon disembarking at Tallinn at 17:30. I was very relieved to see my bag pop onto the carousel – particularly as the guy who checked it onto the flight in Adelaide didn’t know where Estonia was! Next up I had a bit of a border security moment upon exiting the terminal – there was a very cute little beagle sniffer dog and I couldn’t help but give it a smile. This must have made me look like the no. 1 drug fiend as I was promptly led to another room to have my bags scanned. Fortunately I had refused an earlier offer of a free boogie board and was soon on my way. I found out which busses I needed to catch, extracted some cash and purchased my Ühiskart metro card. It was then a fairly straightforward bus journey to the Balti jaam railway station, near my hotel.

After freshening up, it was time to hit the town and do some geocaching. By coincidence, a fellow geocacher from Adelaide, Ben of Leighside Legends, was in town as part of an Adelaide University funded trip to the Tallinn University of Technology to attend a cyber security summer school. We walked around greater Tallinn, seeing the sights. It would appear that they are putting some significant effort into doing up their seaside areas, with lots of construction and landscaping underway. It’s quite interesting wandering around the suburbs away from the city centre. It’s quite a mix of attractive old weatherboard houses, ugly soviet era apartment blocks and more modern constructions. One place we visited was the remains of the 1980 summer Olympics sailing venue. This is located in a prime location and it is possible to climb to the top of it and get excellent views along the coast and back towards the old city. It’s now looking quite dilapidated which is surprising given its prime location. 

Ben and I atop dilapidated sailing venue

We continued caching and, when I went to check the time, it was all of a sudden 22:00! As it is the summer here, the sun doesn’t set until 22:30 and then it remains light until around midnight. Thus, it’s very easy to loose track of the time. Needless to say I slept very well that night!

View of Tallinn coastline