Life is a Journey

Can’t believe it’s almost over. 6 weeks today we had just arrived and the whole trip stetched out in front of us. Now, we’re headed back home with lots of wonderful memories, souveniers, video and nearly 5,000 photos!

We woke about 5.45am to the sound of rain of the rooftop. Reluctantly got out of bed, got dressed, finished packing the final items, had breakfast and cleaned up. We then drove to the motorhome owners home, which was just 15mins away and said goodbye to our home for the last 3.5 weeks. Barry, the owner, then drove us in his car to Heathrow. The drive took about 1 hr 15mins and thankfully there was no traffic (early Sat. morning is a good time to travel in London :-)). Christy thought it was great that she got to sit in the front seat.

We arrived at the airport about 9.30am and got checked in. We then went through security where Amy had her first personal search with the wand and Pop had his bag gone through and some toiletries confiscated (the same ones who flew with from Australia!). We then did some last minute shopping in the airport and picked up some supplies for the plane. Boy, was it crowded. Not too fun at all but I coped. Finally our flight was given a gate number and headed over.

It was a strange set up here and we had to get booked into the flight (again) and then wait. Of course, there were no toilets in the waiting area and it was still over an hour till we’d be up in the air so the girls and I had to sign out again and then sign back in. Our flight was late in boarding due to a problem with the air con but finally we were onboard, settled and ready to go.

I watched 3 movies and a couple of TV shows. I did try to sleep but wasn’t very successful as there was too much noise around. The girls managed to get a little sleep.

At Singapore we had to disembark with all our cabin bags and reboard 30mins later. We decided to go for a bit of  a walk before getting back in the security line – crazy I say!

It was now around 3am UK time and I was feeling sick – from over tiredness. Luckily I managed to get around 4 hours sleep and felt much better. I watched a bit more TV and then it was time to land..or so we thought. We had been running early but there had been some strong winds come through Sydney so runways had to be changed, which meant we had to circle for around 30mins before we could land.

We did manage to see the sunset though out one of the back windows.

Finally we landed about 7.30pm. We then passed through customs and collected our luggage. We were chosen to have our bags sniffed by the dogs which the girls thought was fun. I’m happy to have the bags sniffed but would not have been happy if I’d had to open a bag – they were stuffed full – not quite how they looked when we travelled over :-). We met our driver around 8pm and were home just after 9.30pm. We were starving and very grateful that Kevin had bought us some Dominos pizza and was keeping it warm in the oven. It was SOOO appreciated. He had the house all tidied and had bought me two beautiful bunches of flowers. The dogs gave us a big welcome home, as did Nan. I’m not sure what time we headed to bed – probably around 10.30 – 11pm. I had a great nights sleep in own bed and woke around 6am this morning feeling so much more refreshed.

Once again we would all have liked to sleep in but we had to started with our last leg of the journey. First up it was back over this bridge.

Then most of today involved motorways which made for easy driving for Pop, but it was rather boring for me – I spent quite a bit of time reading blogs since we had internet access. We could not believe how much traffic was on the road.

We stopped at a Marks and Spencer and pick up some lunch which we had in the motorhome once we arrived at Duxford Imperial War Museum. I had the Mexian 3 bean wrap again. YUM!

After eating we headed into the musuem – my gosh – it was SOOOO much bigger than we’d expected.

So many planes and so little time. It was really hard to keep the kids moving along – they wanted to look at everything and do ALL the hands on activities.

We spent around 3 hour here and really enjoyed our visit. We know Kevin would have loved it. On the way out we stopped for an ice cream.

and the girls went for a ride…

It was then just a 5 min drive tonights caravan park.

We got set up and then on with the “fun” task of packing the suitcases and cleaning the motorhome (ready to hand it back in the morning).

The girls had fun playing with their new knitting things.

Tonight I made a omelet for Poppy and Amy and I had a superfood salad I’d picked up earlier. Yummo!

Hoping to have an early night and good nights sleep. We drove the motorhome off at 8am tomorrow and head to the airport for our LONG flight home.