Wednesday 12 March - a very long day

The time had come to fly back to England. Packing took quite some time! On such a beautiful morning, breakfast had to be outside.

The Silver Bullet was delivered to New Zealand Rent-a-Car, we checked in and completed some last minute shopping.

Auckland's water sparkled beneath the 747 as we climbed into the sky about 1.30pm. The waves of the Tasman sea were long and white on the coast stretching away to the south. It was possible to see Mount Ruapehu above the cloud and Mount Taranaki stood out clearly as a sentinel above the cloud for around the first 40 minutes of the flight. I really didn't want to leave.

The long sunny day provided brilliant views of Australia, from the city of Adelaide next to the coast to the red expanses of Western Australia. Huge clouds only appeared as the plane approached Singapore, which, at dusk, was grey and wet. So we didn't venture out, but we did utilise the (very) few Singaporean Dollars I had been clinging to for seven weeks on a Belgian chocolate indulgence.

Just as the day had been long, the night was long too. Almost the whole of the next leg (about 13 1/2 hours) was in darkness. Back in Manchester, it was just 3 degrees and unpacking awaited....