Sydney to Newcastle – Fulfilling a 31-Year Premier League Pilgrimage

[kamchatsky]

Prologue

I live in northern region of Sydney. Travelling to Newcastle would only take me 2 hours on M1. I have done this quite a few times. You wonder, why would I be writing an AFF trip report that I can simply drive for 2 hours?

The reason is that when I refer to Newcastle, I meant Newcastle UK (NCL), and not Newcastle NSW (NTL). NCL is more than 10000 miles away from SYD. Whereas NTL is only 88 miles from SYD.



Then the question is, why would I go all the way to Newcastle, the other side of the world? Well, this is because I fell in love and followed Premier league team Newcastle United since 1994, when I was just finishing high school, and just after Premier League was formed. I have been a long-suffering supporter for the last 31 years. I saw them relegated from Premier League twice and lost the FA Cup final twice and Carabao Cup final once. They finally won the Carabao Cup last year, their first domestic trophy in 70 years, even though it is the smallest trophy in the top-flight English football calendar. People asked me why I don’t follow bigger clubs such as Manchester United/City, coughnal, Chelsea, Barcelona or Real Madrid etc, the clubs that actually won big trophies. I cannot really answer you on this but somehow, even though I have never been to Newcastle before, I could not change my support to any other European club all these years.

One of the things I really wanted to do in my life was to visit St James’ Park at Newcastle and watch a Premier League game. St James’ Park is the home stadium for Newcastle United. For various reasons, I have kept putting away from visiting St James’ Park all these years. You know, money, lack of time, higher priority stuff like marriage, kids, family etc.

I have been to Europe twice, once in 2009 with my wife, and second time in 2023 with my wife and 2 kids. However, both trips were in the middle of summer and during the Premier League off season. No one in Europe were playing football at that time. The timings just could not work out.

But my kids are starting to grow up, so I thought this is my chance to finally go to Newcastle to watch a game. I just need to have a good excuse for it.

Therefore, in January 2025, I proposed to my missus to travel to Europe in December 2025 – January 2026. We would be going there for 6 weeks, and travel to Newcastle for a few days to watch a Premier League game. It would fit company Christmas/New Year shutdown, and also summer school holidays for the kids.

They did not like the idea as Europe would be cold, wet, freezing and dark during that time. The experience would be much worse than travelling there in summer. Also, we would need to visit my in-laws in China during that time, when it is Australian school summer holidays and office shut down. So, by August 2025, it was decided by the family that we will be going to China again for family reasons, I thought my dream of visiting will be postponed again ……

Then one day, my missus said to me, "whilst we cannot go with you to Europe, maybe you can travel to Newcastle yourself from Hong Kong, and all of us stayed in China instead with the in-laws. This is the best she could offer as we may need to visit in-laws more regularly, or they stay with us in Australia as they were getting older and older ……". I could not believe she said that to be honest. I thought it was all a dream. Given the health conditions of my in-laws, this may be my only chance to go to Newcastle for a long time. I won't be able to go anywhere if the in-laws decided to move in with us later.

So, I very quickly look at the Premier League 2025/2026 fixtures to see if it fits with our planned trip to China. Newcastle was playing Crystal Palace on 3 January (NOTE: later changed to 4th January for TV broadcasting requirements) and Leeds United on 7 January. Both are home games at St. James Park. Those were the games I could fit with our existing itinerary. OK, I could make it work. But I would have to go solo on my Premier League Pilgrimage, rather with my family.

I ended up booking QR J from Hong Kong to Europe using my AA miles and also QR Avios. My intra-Europe flights to/from Newcastle UK were paid in cash.

So eventually the itinerary is as follows:

Part 1: Family trip to China

19 December 2025: To Guangzhou: QF415 Y SYD-MEL, QF29 Y MEL-HKG (cash), China CRH G6564 to Hong Kong -Guangzhou dong (East)
20 December 2025: Restday at Guangzhou
21 December 2025: To Guilin: China CRH D1872 Guangzhou nan (South) – Guilin xi (North)
22 December 2025: To Yangshuo County: River Cruise
24 December 2025: To Guangzhou: China CRH D1835 Yangshuo – Guangzhou nan (South)
25-30 December 2025: Visiting Families at Guangzhou

Part 2: My Solo Premier League Pilgrimage

31 December 2025: To Hong Kong and then Doha: China CRH G6583 Guangzhou nan (South) - Hong Kong West Kowloon, QR817 J HKG-DOH
1 January 2026: At Doha, to Barcelona: QR141 J DOH-BCN (HKG-DOH-BCN on 75K AA award)
2 January 2026: At Barcelona, to Newcastle UK: BA485 Y BCN-LHR, BA1340 Y LHR-NCL (cash)
3 January 2026: At Newcastle, Stadium Tour at St James' Park
4 January 2026: At Newcastle, Newcastle United vs Crystal Palace at St James' Park
5 January 2026: Visit Edinburgh via train, then to Glasgow via Flixbus at night
6 January 2026: Visiting Glasgow, go back to Newcastle at night
7 January 2026: At Newcastle and Durham, Newcastle United vs Leeds United at St James' Park
8 January 2026: To Dublin then to Doha: BA8965/EI3351 Y NCL-DUB (cash), QR46 J DUB-DOH
9 January 2026: To Hong Kong: QR816 J DOH-HKG (DUB-DOH-HKG on QR 90K Avios award)
10-11 January 2026: At Hong Kong, meet up family again
12 January 2026: QF128 Y HKG-SYD (cash)

This trip report is split into 2 parts. One is travelling to China with my family visit. The second part is my Solo Premier League Pilgrimage, 31-years in the making. This is the flight map for my report:

 

[drron]

Good for you. I have always had such dreams but haven't acted upon them. my teams though were selected because of their lack of results. Sounds silly but the only games I went to as a youngster was North Sydney in the ARL as it was known then. I lived at Lane Cove. They last won a first grade trophy in 1927. When they were booted from the NRL I thought my dreams were shattered. But fittingly like Phoenix they are arising from the Ashes as the Perth Bears next year 100 years after their last trophy. Hopefully I remain fit enough to make a pilgrimage to PER to see them again.

My Premier League team is Stoke City. A bit like the Bears being founding members of the Football League in 1888. But spend a lot of time out of the EPL. I did tay up in 2011 to watch the FA cup final in 2011. Sadly they lost.

In the NFL I followed the Eagles from the early 80s. They often showed a lot of promise but fell short. They were following my eams usual rajectory but in 2017 won the super bowl hence my avatar.

So I will follow your quest with interest and won't cheat by looking up results.

 

[harryhv]

Another lifelong fan. Our family moved to Newcastle in 1956, I was 5 years old and amazed to see a massive heaving crowd as our train pulled into Central Station. All waiting to greet another train, the one with the Newcastle United team coming home with the FA Cup.

Sadly we haven't won it since.

 

[kamchatsky]

Good for you. I have always had such dreams but haven't acted upon them. my teams though were selected because of their lack of results. Sounds silly but the only games I went to as a youngster was North Sydney in the ARL as it was known then. I lived at Lane Cove. They last won a first grade trophy in 1927. When they were booted from the NRL I thought my dreams were shattered. But fittingly like Phoenix they are arising from the Ashes as the Perth Bears next year 100 years after their last trophy. Hopefully I remain fit enough to make a pilgrimage to PER to see them again.

My Premier League team is Stoke City. A bit like the Bears being founding members of the Football League in 1888. But spend a lot of time out of the EPL. I did tay up in 2011 to watch the FA cup final in 2011. Sadly they lost.

In the NFL I followed the Eagles from the early 80s. They often showed a lot of promise but fell short. They were following my eams usual rajectory but in 2017 won the super bowl hence my avatar.

So I will follow your quest with interest and won't cheat by looking up results.

Well I am sure when the Bears comes back to life, you will go and watch them again.

You are certainly a diehard fan, you are the first person I heard who goes for Stoke City, and staying with them even they went back to the Championship and stayed there.

The Eagles won the Superbowl last year too, completely smashed Chiefs/Mahomes, I was happy. My NFL team is the Buccaneers.

Another lifelong fan. Our family moved to Newcastle in 1956, I was 5 years old and amazed to see a massive heaving crowd as our train pulled into Central Station. All waiting to greet another train, the one with the Newcastle United team coming home with the FA Cup.

Sadly we haven't won it since.

It must have been a long time between drinks for you. You must have felt great that we finally got something last year.

 

[kamchatsky]

Part 1: Family trip to China

19 December 2025:
QF415 Y SYD-MEL A321XLR
QF29 Y MEL-HKG
China CRH G6564 to Hong Kong - Guangzhou-dong

It was going to be a long day, we woke up at 4:00am, and will travel to Guangzhou via Melbourne and Hong Kong. We arrived at SYD early, checked in at 6:15am, for 7:25am departure.

QF415 is on A321XLR and it was the first time I even flown XLR. I do like the cabin, nice and bright, and huge overhead bins. The flight was uneventful. The food and drink were simply hot tea and a packet of yogurt/nuts. To me it is more of a snack than a meal as Qantas advertised. So for domestic I always prefer VA than QF as it is usually much cheaper in air fares, and food offerings are similar. In this case though, I booked as part of the international journey.

Post in thread 'Qantas domestic economy meals'

Jan 20, 2026

19 December 2025: QF415 SYD-MEL 7:25-9:00am

• kamchatsky

• 
• 
• 

After arriving at Melbourne, we went to T2 to clear immigration and later boarded QF29 to go to Hong Kong. We don't have lounge access as we don't have OW status.

The A330 looked old, feels old, but the seat was actually comfortable because we managed to book rows of 2 side seats in 2-4-2 configuration, and the fact that this is a day flight helps. All of us either have window or aisle seats. I decided to have an aisle seat, sitting next to my son.

I managed to find enough movies to watch on the IFE, and have a nap on daytime. The food is certainly not inspiring, and to me I prefer QF give me all pre-packaged foods like nuts and ice creams, as their cooked meals are average, the second meal of pasta was awful. It was that bad, I rather they just give me Nissan Cup noodles and hot water instead.

Post in thread 'Qantas international Economy Class meals'

Jan 16, 2026

19 December 2025: QF029 Y MEL-HKG

The first meal with beef, the pretzels, ice cream and cookie were OK. The mash potato tasted very average.

The second/light pasta meal looked bad, tasted bad ......

First Meal:


Second Meal (Light):

• kamchatsky

• 

We arrived at HK on time, then we took Airport Express to HK West Kowloon High Speed Rail station, we cleared immigration and took G6564 to Guangzhou East. By the time we got to Guangzhou East, it was 10:40pm. We checked into Ji Hotel Guangzhou East Station, next to the station, and we crashed in bed and sleep.

 

[kamchatsky]

20 and 21 December 2025

We spent 20 December to recover and chill at Guangzhou, in preparation for our side trip to Guilin and Yangshuo County.

Guilin, Guangxi Part 1

On 21 December, we woke up at 5am, caught a taxi to Guangzhou South station took China CRH D1872 to Guilin North station. It is one of the “slower” Harmony Series train, with maximum speed of 250km. The train took 2 hour 50 mins to arrive at Guilin at 10:15am.





After arrival we headed to Reed Flute Cave by hiring car via Gaode/Amap. We spent about 60 mins there. The cave is large and amazing, but probably too much lighting which made it less natural. But it does highlight the magnificence of the cave:



Vegetable Mountain:


This is my favourite part of the cave. I love lakes and this gave me a very soothing experience:

 

[kamchatsky]

21 December 2025 - Guilin, Guangxi, Part 2

After visiting Reed Flute Cave, we hired a car using Gaode/Amap to Guilin and checked into "ATour Hotel Guilin Two Rivers and Four Lakes Elephant Trunk Hill". It is located just behind Sheraton Guilin. In China we preferred to stay at ATour or Ji hotels as they are mid-range Chinese brand hotels that are half the price of international branded hotels, and in many cases, they are newer, better conditioned, and has free self-serve laundry. The room we had was very comfortable.




After check-in and had a late lunch, we walked to the Elephant Trunk Hill area along the Li River, another major attraction at Guilin. There were plenty of electric bamboo boats on the Li River enjoying the scenery.



Then we swung by to Shanhu Lake to see the Sun and Moon Towers:



Then we went back to the mall next to the hotel



One of the famous flowers from Guilin is the Osmanthus flower. They make just about every food with such flavour. I loved their Osmanthus icecream. Sorry, I forgot to take the picture of actual icecream because it was too delicious!




At night after dinner, we went out and went to Shanhu Lake to see the Sun and Moon Towers again. It looked better at night:

After that we went to the mall again before heading back to the hotel, there were a lot more people out and about at night:

 

[kamchatsky]

22 December - Guilin to Yangshuo County River Cruise

We took a river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo County. We need to go to Mopanshan Passenger Wharf (25km away) for the cruise. We ordered a car hire at 7am, but no driver picked up our order, we tried again and again, after 15 minutes we managed to finally hired a car via Gaode/Amap for 30RMB, only for the driver to cancel the booking when he arrived and we re-negotiated a separate price on the spot (80RMB), not using the Amap app. The driver was much happier and spent the next hour telling us how difficult it was to make money as the platform took at least 30% of the fares, that the wharf is very far away from Guilin, and it is absolutely middle of nowhere, and the driver would not be able to pick up any passenger from the wharf, and it is only used for departure only. The driver said that no one would pick up the standard Gaode/Amap/Didi fare because it meant that the driver would be losing money taking our job as they would have to then spend time and money driving all the way back to Guilin. So, it is very common for driver negotiate with passengers separately on this trip as a lot of people take this cruise as part of their visit. Any other time I would be angry about this, but we actually did our homework via RedNote, and knew that this was very common so we were not surprised.

After arriving at Ferry wharf, we proceed to get onto our cruise to Yangshuo. It is a 3-star boat (there are 4 and 5 stars but you pay more). The cruise took 4 hours, started from 9:30am, and finished at 2pm.



There were at least 6 boats all departing at similar time. Some of them are 4 stars. For us though, 3-star boat was enough:



We prepaid our lunch on the boat. Children western meal was 40RMB, and adult one was 60RMB. They actually tasted quite OK:



Even though weather was overcast, the scenery was beautiful.


Then the River Cruise arrived Xingping Town, a lot of people start holding up 20RMB and take pictures. This is because the scenery is featured in the China 20 RMB note. I just took a picture below of someone else holding the note for me





We finally arrived at Yangshuo Town, we deboarded and walked down to catch a hired car. Below is the scenery of Li River from the Town:


Then went to check into "ATour Light Guilin Yangshuo Yulong River Ten-Li Gallery Hotel". Even though officially ATour Light hotel is officially 2.5 star, it is very new (only opened in July 2025) and the room is very comfortable. It has everything you needed, including free self-serve laundry. I wish all hotels have such features. They even have 2 Queen bed configuration that allow all 4 of us to sleep comfortably. We only paid about 350RMB per night which is a bargain. There are international branded hotels locally, such as Voco, Banyan Tree, HGI. But they are either hideously expensive, or really run down place with high prices.





At the roof of the hotel, there is a bar and can also see the scenery of Yangshuo on the background: