And so it came to an end

A very long overnight flight seemed to go on forever. Boarding at 10:30 Singapore time (12:30 local) they of course felt obliged to keep the lights on until dinner(?!!) was served. This took 2 hours. And of course they felt obliged to serve breakfast 2 hours before landing. This gave us 3 hours of quiet time. The girls slept toe to toe curled up on the floor and Neil and Ro tried the same on the seats. Needless to say not much sleep was had and after the long day previously we walked off the plane feeling like Zombies.

Melbourne airport has had some improvements over the last 10 years, none of them actually translate into efficient handling of the customer (except the trolleys are now free). And so we queued (2 plane loads) - single file past a sniffer dog, queued at through passport control, fought the crowds to get to our luggage carousel and then promptly fought our way back through the same crowd to get to Customs. Utter confusion and extremely poorly thought out. Makes you wonder why we try to attract international visitors here when we muck them around like that. And of course, there is no train connection ( whereas everyone else has one).

Luckily, once we were through, we were quickly collected by Herb and the quiet roads saw us home smartly and relieved that we’d actually made it with only a couple of hiccups. We spent the day forcing ourselves to stay awake, unpacking, and generally getting used to the extra space, whilst thoroughly appreciated the full fridge, and pre-prepared lunch and dinner (how cool is that!)



The girls put their charm bracelets together and the phone has been running steadily with people welcoming us home.
















And so to some transport stats we collated:-

Planes – 9
Trains (Metro) – 29
Intercity Trains – 6
Eurostar – 1
Cars – 7
Vans – 5
Taxi – 3
4WD – 1
Buses – 26
Ferries – 3
Gondolas – 1
Boats – 4
Cable Cars – 2
Parasail – 1
Ferris Wheels – 3
Quad Cycles – 1
Push Bikes – 3
Km’s walked - countless

So that was over 100 different trips on transport (woo hoo ! – no idea if that actually means anything or not).

As a final wrap up we’d like to say a special thanks to the following people.
Gabby – lift, Paris planning & execution, company and delivering the new drivers license.
Brian and Fran – The best next door neighbors who helped up all the way through and especially in our hour of need.
Polly and Paul for showing us a wonderful part of the world with fabulous hospitality. Midsomer Murders will never be the same.
Sarah, Nick, Nicole, Oliver and Rory for sharing their lives, their rooms and their house in such generous fashion (the quiet day at the cricket was, of course, painful with just the two of us).
Marg for preparing our home coming so nicely.
Herb for getting us home quickly and safely.
Everyone who left a comment on the blog. We reveled in knowing that people were out there watching and the feedback gave us made us feel at home even though we were so far away.
And to everyone who has tracked our adventures – we hoped you enjoyed the trip and thanks for sharing it with us.

Tomorrow, school and work (aka “The real world”) beckons. Until next time…..