Getting to the æroport was fairly uneventful, and the Airbus (bus going to airport, not plane at airport) was pulling up as I got to the stop, which was very convenient.
As a result, I got to the airport VASTLY early, so I’m killing time, as it were. The people of Emirates were nice enough to open their check-in counters for all the days flights, so I am, at least, not lugging all of my luggage around.

I next see my luggage in London (I hope), a good number of hours from now.
Somewhere north of 30 hours, in fact.

— time passes —

This is a very nice aircraft; The walnut trim around the windows & on the wee handle for the blind is particularly classy.

In-flight entertainment includes cameras in the nose & up on the tail, to show where we’re going, a camera looking down, to see where we are (while waiting for push-away, I was having trouble working out what the hatch shown on-screen was. I think it was the roof of the plane moving vehicle, based on how it moved around, and a bunch of movies, including Snowpiercer, which I’ve been wanting to see.

Currently flying over cloud & ocean.

— tick tock tick tock —

OK, I’ve watched all but the last 20 minutes of Snowpiercer, which was … violent. Also good, and very odd.
I’ll watch the rest on the next leg, as we’ve been transferred off the plane at Sydney for a crew change, and presumably to get more passengers.
I’m not complaining if we don’t get more passengers; I had a three-seat row to myself for the Auckland to Sydney bit, so I’m hoping that’ll continue for Sydney-Dubai.

— tic tic tic tic —

Yeah, not so much on the row-to-myself front.
Also, Sydney to Dubai is a long-ass flight. I knew it’d be a bunch of hours, but hadn’t realised just what that’d be like as the second flight of a journey.
I did finish watching Snowpiercer, and watched Frozen, and a chunk of Captain America 2, and probably slept for a while.

Dubai Airport is very big.
Bloody enormous, in fact.
Not enough seating near the gates though.
Getting between the different concourses was pretty simple, and there’s a little train, though I can see it being a nightmare if you had a tight timeframe between flights.

— more time passes —

As I’d hoped, the daytime flight gave me the chance to Ooh & Ahh over interesting scenery, as seen from very high up. Figuring out where the hell the plane was took some doing at times, and demonstrates that I probably should have looked up where the borders are, or put a map on my phone or something.

The Emirates planes are very nice, and cabin crew seemed to spend the entire time handing people things. Hot towels. Meals. Bringing around a tray of drinks in the middle of a 14-hour flight. That sort of thing.
It might just be me being too fat, but the bathrooms seem really small, even for an aircraft toilet.
On the other hand, they do sell duty-free items on the plane. Not run into that before.
Also, quite a range of TV & Movies. They even had episodes of “Taxi” on the Auckland to Dubai bit.

I think, were I to do this flight route again, I’d break my trip in Dubai.
A 19:45 trip, broken with a stop in Australia, is long, but it’s OK.
Add on another 7:30 trip immediately after that, and it’s a hideous length of time to spend on a plane. I get a four-hour Dubai stop on the way back, so I’ll have to take better advantage of the delights of DBX. Buy Starbucks, perhaps?

— ding ding —

Arrival in London was delayed by about a half-hour, all of which was spent in well-lit cloud, so the cameras showed nothing. Nice views of houses & the like on final approach to the runway.