Doha.Qatar. A hospital visit. A missed flight. And no passports…

The last 48 hours has been a cross between The Terminal (Tom Hanks) and The Midnight Express (Turkish Prison).

We loaded the car with bikes and went to train station.
A train ride from Wollongong to Sydney airport.

It was about 4 hours into the flight when Michael’s nose started to bleed. (He’d had rhinoplasty nearly 6 weeks ago and the surgeon didn’t think it would be a problem to fly. Boy, was he wrong). It was pretty heavy for a while, but did stop for most of the 15 hour trip. The flight however, was very turbulent. Babies were crying and vomiting all around us (which made us want to cry and vomit too) the plane looked like a bomb had gone off in it when we finally disembarked.

As we were making our way to the transit lounge – the snozzer started to bleed again. This time it was A LOT and we couldn’t stop it. We ended up having a paramedic take us to the clinic in the airport. The bleeding continued in there – to the point where the Dr made the call to send him to Doha hospital.

In the airport clinic.

The Qatar Medical Team took possession of our passports and we had to go through a security checkpoint (that felt a lot like like we were leaving a prison)

20 minutes by ambulance to Doha hospital.

Doha hospital was the complete opposite of the airport. It was like a Soviet block prison/hospital from the 1940’s.

To cut a very long story short, we were there for 5 hours. We had been given medication to stop the bleeding and then taken back to the airport (after a lot of pleading by us)

Only, when we got back to the airport we were shown to a bus that took us BACK into the city to a hotel where we were to stay (still without our passports) til we were taken back for our later flight. (We had missed our original connecting flights)

After a couple of hours of trying to find the Medical team at the airport to re claim our passports (and by now Susie was stressing to the point of feeling faint – it was like a bad dream that you can’t wake up from) we finally made it to the plane which took a 30 minute train and bus trip to the other side of the airport.

We were so glad to be leaving at that point – we were just wondering if our bikes were on that same flight with us.

We landed in Zurich and to our surprise (and delight) we saw our bike boxes!🎉

I put our bikes together under Michael’s instruction as he was in no state. (funnily enough – this was the exact place we put them together 2 years ago for our Rhine river trip)
After getting to the train station, I organised tickets to Donaueschingen (that’s another story – my eSIM wasn’t working yet) thank goodness for kind strangers to help us out:)
Singen. Last leg of the train trip.
Finally after 4 trains and a few hours we arrived in the very pretty town of Donaueschingen in the Black Forest. Crashed at 4pm and slept through til 6am the following morning. 😴😴

It’s a ‘rest and recovery’ day today.

City hall and Musicians fountain.
“Does yur doog bite??”
This is the official source of The Danube river. The Donauequelle.
The Danube Temple, where the rivulet joins the Brigash river.
He must be feeling better.👍🏻
And checking his bike to make sure I put it together properly;)

We cannot tell you how happy we are to be here and can’t wait to start riding tomorrow.

4 responses

  1. steveda7c18e9b6 Avatar
    steveda7c18e9b6

    HOLY MOLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    You poor things …. This is so insane … I can’t imagine how scary , frightening, frustrating and EXHAUSTING this whole experience was .

    You guys are such a good team though , you got through it … but surely that’s gonna take a few days to recover from . Go easy on yourselves 😊

    So much to literally unpack from this blog…. I cant stop thinking about you guys xxxxx

    All our love xxx

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    Melasande Carey
    Steves Joinery
    T (02) 4271 4552+61242714552 | E melasande@stevesjoinery.com.aumelasande@stevesjoinery.com.au
    W http://www.stevesjoinery.com.auhttps://www.stevesjoinery.com.au/ | A 3 Waverley Dr Unanderra

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    1. michaelsusannagle Avatar
      michaelsusannagle

      We were definitely a little fragile after that experience. It was pretty traumatic!😨
      But things can only get better.
      Love you guys.
      Xxx

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  2. Dianne Carey Avatar
    Dianne Carey

    Oh my goodness, What an experience. Thank god you are both alright. The photos are amazing.
    You look like a model Susan. Completely unfazed.

    look forward to hearing more adventures and seeing more photos.

    lots of love , Diney xxxx💕

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    1. michaelsusannagle Avatar
      michaelsusannagle

      I was sweating bullets I can tell you – it’s a wonder they didn’t do a cavity search!😰
      Onwards and upwards:)

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