Well, the return trip home has been... not exactly a nightmare but a night of obstacle-course annoyances that made me want to tear my hair out at some points.

As mentioned there was a two hour delay in setting off from Sydney - which was actually fine as there was no speedy turnaround needed. However it was far too late for Mike Leeder to meet up as it was after 1:00am when I collected my bags and shuffled into Hong Kong's main terminal. I'd heard lots of good things about the '24-hour airport' from several people, so I was disappointed to find that the only thing which seemed to be '24hrs' was a solitary noodle shop and the same guy hassling me to hire his taxi. The trains had ceased running into HK around midnight, so I was stuck at the airport for the night. I decided to get some money from an ATM, just in case I got a noodle craving at 3:00am and....the damn machine ate my credit card.

So I phoned parentals and got them to find the Yorkshire Bank number and put a block on it, then settled down for the night. I hit the sleep wall at about 5:00am and dozed for a few minutes. The Qantas desk opened at about 5:30 and they informed me the flight was probably full and I needed to pay extra anyway. There was some confusion with the language barrier as they kept pointing at my ticket and said I'd have to pay another $150. It turned out that they meant $150 HONG KONG dollars, though they were pointing at the Australian $ amount. So it was about £20 extra rather than £75 as I originally thought!) In the end I DID get on the flight and DID get First Class, so all good despite the stress.

Slept and eat well on the flight. Typical excellent service from Qantas plane staff. My bag was last off the carousel at Heathrow - so was worried for a while that I'd made it but it hadn't.

Now on train back to Leeds, but had to pay a whopping £99.50 for a SINGLE ticket to Leeds. Un -fucking-believable when I normally pay £79.00 return and the station was full of £10.00 return offers if booked in advance. Even the guy who sold the ticket agreed it was outlandish, but the only other alternative would have been to wait until after 7:00pm to travel. Not an option.

Now I just want to get home. Australia was superb - thanks, Carmel! - but looking forward to waking up tomorrow with all the travel bit behind me. For a while.