Back in Canberra

Well folks, the show is over. Lynne & I arrived back into a cold Canberra at 2100 last night after a good 24 hours of travel from the door of the Ibis Hotel in Charles Street, Manchester to home in Canberra. It was indeed a grind through the fatiguing hours of flying, then the hassles of transferring between planes.
We started off at about 0600 on Monday morning, well organized to get a minicab [Somalian driver] to the departure terminal at Manchester Ringway airport. We had not read the ticket properly, and found ourselves at the wrong terminal!! Luckly, our early start meant that there was good time for us to transfer on the free shuttle bus; later, once on board the jet and sitting on the tarmac, the departure was delayed an hour...not a good start!
Service was impecable from the Singapore Airlines cabin crew; who kept us fed, watered and amused for the 12 hours across Europe and then Asia, through a day and night, before we landed at Singapore Changi airport in a tropical dawn on Tuesday. En route there were glimpses of the Black Sea coast and Caucasus Mountains behind Georgia.
Only a few hours on the ground there, including a free transfer on the automatic monorail shuttle trains, before we were on our way to Sydney through the daylight hours of Tuesday. The transfer bus at the tired looking Sydney Mascot airport was $11.00.
After a few hours wait at T2 we boarded the Virgin Airlines Boeing 737 for the short flight to Canbera and so to home.
Canberra has a springtime feel, with grass, trees and weeds bursting out of their winter hibernation. Daylight saving started on the weekend, so we are now GMT +11 hours. A huge blue sky and a chill wind; swallows dipping to and fro and on the nearby pond proud parent black swans with their two downy grey cygnets. The resident magpies lost no time in realizing that we were back and so came down for their usual feed of bread.
Before winding up this blog I plan to download all the pix we took and create a Picassa web album; I also want to do a check of all the gear I packed to go away with that I did not use as well as note the favorite gear of the trip. The only souvenirs that I came back with were about seven maps and two scarves... more details later.

PSD