Heathrow to Copenhagen

Day 37
Distance- 0km (1697)
Weather- sunny and air conditioned
Highlights- getting tickets and arriving at Copenhagen at 9pm
Lowlights- cueing, cancelations
Accommodation- Sylvia's house

Slept on and off, between the crying babies, rustling space blankets and nattering Indian ladies next door. Woke to hear a mass of people heading down the corridor to the lifts, 'terminal 4, is open'. I looked at my watch its 3.30am, surely not yet. People kept coming, and our line began to shorten. Should we go, now 16 hrs waiting in this line, and the ticket counter in sight. We decided to stay only to be woken again at 5.30 by airport staff who told us to move on. They said there will be no more checks in where we were and we had to go to terminal 4. Heart sank. We pick up our stuff and head off, Dave decides to stay and try his luck at terminal 1 counter.
Terminal 4 is a long way from terminal 1, it takes about 70 minutes to transfer and involves either a bus or train. Now there were a few thousands of tired, hungry people trying to get there, more chaos. We get on the train which gives a strange sense of relief, we are going somewhere, even it is only for 10 minutes. Everyone piles out at the station, it seems deserted, spirits are high, maybe they having been checking in since early and the line is short. These hopes are dashed as we surface in the terminal to be informed they are evacuating the terminal again because there are too many people. We are redirect to the car park to wait to have or flight called. What flight? We don't even have a flight!

Outside, marquees have been set up, police patrol the entrance to the airport and there are lots of bleary eyed tourists wrapped in blankets. London is putting on some fine English summer weather, chilly but not raining (yet). Gradually things begin to organise and a re-ticketing cue forms we join it. They have set up 4 large marquees in along line for the crowds to cue in. Peter goes to the front to check this is the right cue to find out we are now at the back again with three more marquees to go. The line moves at less than a meter a minute, at this rate we will be here tonight. We commiserate with people around us, all have stories of woe. Met fellow Aussies in the cue all smiling at how ridiculous this was and how helpless we were. Time passes, we advance half the tent in two hours. Peter and I revisit some other ways of getting to Roskilde, rent a car, a boat, a train or maybe just walk. Anything had to better than this. But with a tight budget and luggage somewhere deep in the bowls of BA luggage handling we decided to stay.

A small party is had as we reach the end of the tent, 4 hrs. There is coffee and sandwiches yipeee. Someone compares the situation to a western humanitarian crisis, ironically this is probably as close as it gets. We come up behind an elderly couple, lady in a wheel chair and her husband pushing. They look exhausted and we are wondering what they doing here in this mess. We try to get them through by asking people to more, no good. Dave leaves to get an official and finally with a few big guys in BA uniforms and a lot of yelling we manage to part the sea of people and get them out.

Dave bumps into a BA lady while out organise the rescue of the elderly couple who is quietly organising flights. She has a small ID badge, a clip board and a mobile. He manages to get a flight and comes back to tell us. I wait while Peter goes to bargain our way out of this mess. Any plane to northern Europe near Copenhagen will do until Saturday otherwise we call quits for Roskilde. He comes back smiling with victory. We quietly leave the cue, still apprehensive as to weather the booking has actually happened. We try to get our boarding pass but are headed away to come back when we are called. Off to have a muffin and coffee.

We are called, this is it, we almost run to the check in machine. Peter enters is card, then it says we are too late to check in. Darn, the cue for check in is huge, I join while Peter tries to talk to BA personnel, not good, he talks to the manager who says there nothing he can do. We are too late, then he adds, actually that flight is cancelled anyway. We are back to square one, no flight and no position in the cue. We drag our feet out the door already to cue again and Peter spots the lady doing we talked to earlier. She gets back on the phone and makes another booking. She says she thinks this flight is going but it may be cancelled but she suggests we line up to try and get a boarding pass anyway. I rejoin the line while Peter tries to again to get us fast tracked through the que. He does well and we are then the proud holders of boarding passes to a flight that might leave. We skip through security entering ‘terminal 4’.

We make our way to the gate and lay down and wait. Strangely no BA staff arrive to check people in. Half an hour before the flight quite a few people have accumulated but still no check in. mmmmm I am not hopeful. Then there’s a change in gates 15 minutes before boarding we all head down to other end of the terminal. There is a check in desk, BA staff..... there is hope yet, then we board, I almost leap in the air. We are on the plane smiling and exhausted. But unable to contact our friend in Denmark we still had no where to stay, and the possibilty of our luggage actually being at the other end of our flight is not very good.

We arrive in Denmark at 9pm, 40 hrs after we started. Sylvia is able to pick us up and we an stay. No luggage, the guy behind the luggage counter smiles, we might be waiting a while. All we can think of is bed.