Day 97/98/99, 22nd-23rd November 2011. New Zealand - Australia - Bangkok - London - HOME.

This is it, the final part. You will notice that its 2 days, but actually 3 days long, because that is how long we were actually traveling. It has kind of worked out cool that it was 99 days long, it was unintentional, but makes me wish I would have extended the trip by one day to make it to 100. I totally would have if I had known.

So, we had to get up at 4am this morning, and we rang our parents to say this was it, we would be seeing them soon. Of course it wasn't for another 2 days that we landed in London, but we were starting our journey home now. We got all our things together, and got on the airport shuttle at 5am, arriving at Auckland airport at 5.20am.

We went to the Qantas desk to check in where we were hit with some ridiculous charges, which is why I will never fly with them again. To cut a VERY long story short, if we checked in our extra luggage in NZ and didn't pick it up again until London, then we would have had to pay thousands of dollars for that. The only other option was to check the luggage in for each flight seperatley for each flight. Because we wanted to do this, Qantas charged us for wanting to pick up our own bags and check them in again. Yes, rather than them  them do the extra work of moving our luggage between our transfer flights, we were going to do it ourselves, and they were charging us for it...!!! We angrily paid a $300 'fee' to be able to pick up our own bags, and then made our way through security to wait for our flight to Sydney.

While we were waiting for the flight, I bought the Kardashian's book, I love them lol. There were computers in the departure lounge so I went on facebook while we waited and got given the great news by Dean that he was coming to visit us in London next month, so we were excited to hear that. Then it was time to get on the first of our flights. It was only going to be a short one, and it went really quickly.

3 and a half hours later, we were nearly in Sydney, Australia. 

When we landed, we did all the boring stuff again, went through security (where they were filming that border security tv show) picked up our luggage, and then made our way to the departures side of the airport to wait until we could check in for the next flight.

I wish we could have spent some time in Australia, but because of money there was no way we could have afforded to visit properly. The first thing we did was get some lunch, even though it was really early in the morning there. The lunch was really nice, the food was much nicer than what we'd had in NZ. After lunch we had about 3 hours until we could even check in for our flight.

We found an area where we could sit with 4 suitcases and 4 heavy pieces of hand luggage, and spent the next 3 hours taking it in turns wandering around while the other one sat with the bags. I finished my Kardashians book and it was just a really long boring wait, until we could check in for our flight.

Luckily, because the rest of the flights home were with British Airways, we only had to pay once for the extra luggage. This time it was only about $50 a bag, proving how ridiculous Qantas's prices were. Once we were checked in and through security, it was time for some (more) shopping. They had a Victoria's Secret and I just could not help myself. I bought a cute tshirt and a purse. I know I really didn't need to buy anything else, but we had spent so much money on this trip, why stop now? I also had to buy some water as I had stupidly bought loads before we went through security and of course they had taken it off me.

Christmas decorations at Sydney airport

Waiting...

Before we got on the plane, we got some dinner, even though it was more like lunch time, our timings were way off lol. I had some really nice pasta, I can't remember what Gary had but he didn't like it. We also wanted to buy some food and snacks for the flight, but there was nothing to buy really, we ended up buying some gross looking sandwiches that we didn't end up eating.

It was soon time to board, and the plane took off from Australia at about 5pm. When we were in the air, I read a bit, I was re-reading the Hunger Games again, and listened to my ipod for a bit while Gary did his usual and watched as many films as possible.

I had pre-booked us seats at the back of the plane where the seats are in 2's so nobody was sitting next to us. Although we ended up with this really annoying girl in front of us who kept talking to us. She kept making conversation every time she caught my eye so I had to make an effort to not look in her direction.

Even though we still had about 7 hours until we reached Bangkok, where we would have to get off the plane and get back on again, I took some sleeping tablets, hoping to get some sleep. Next thing I knew I was waking up after about 6 hours sleep, and it was nearly time to land in Bangkok. I was very pleased and surprised by this situation.

Flying over Bangkok at night was amazing, it was all lit up, and made me really want to not get back on the plane when we got off, but go and explore instead. Of course we couldn't, but if we had the money, I would have just stayed there. Annoyingly, we had to go though security again, and they took all my water away from me AGAIN. It was about midnight and there were no shops open in the airport so I was angry and thirsty. Bangkok airport was really exciting, especially as we have never been to Asia before. It made me really want to visit.

Soon enough we got back on the plane, and just as we were about to take off, there was a problem with it. The electricity in the cabin was broken and the air-con didn't work. Oh my god, it was so hot. For 2 hours we had to sit there in the pitch dark, boiling hot. I was not happy. Of course Gary managed to fall asleep right then, and I was just sitting there dying of over heating, and I had no water as it had been taken away.

Eventually the problem was fixed, and we were on our way to London. This was the final leg of our journey home and I just felt sick with worry and anxiousness. I was so scared about everything that faced us when we got home. Of course we had the issue of telling our parents that we had got married without them. But mostly I was worried about everything returning to normal. I really loved the traveling life, and seeing so many beautiful places, meeting so many people, and experiencing so many things. I was not ready to go back to life how it was before we had left. I have made no secret of how much I hate living in London/ the UK, and it really upset me to think about coming back.

I just listened to music for a while and watched tv, and took some more sleeping tablets and fell asleep. I was lucky again and woke up just a couple of hours before we were due to land in London. This was it, it was all coming to an end :( It was funny that we had been so worried about this over 24 hour flight (since we left Australia) but it had gone so quickly and we actually found it really easy!

As we approached London, it actually looked really nice, it was still dark because it was so early in the morning, and we flew over the London Eye and it was all lit up really pretty. Then we landed, it was the weirdest feeling ever and I can't explain it. It's not like how you feel when you come back from an amazing holiday, it was worse. Knowing how long you had looked forward to it for years, and had the best 3 months of your life, and knowing you would never be as happy and free again as you have been in the past 3 months. It sucked.

The only thing that was of course exciting, was knowing we were so close to seeing our families again. We got through the airport as quickly as we could (had the worst luck waiting for our luggage, 3 of our bags were the very first ones out, and our 4th bag was the very last bag out) and couldn't wait to see our parents. As we came out of the airport, and saw our mums and dads, we ran to them, it was so nice to finally see them again. I blurted out that we were married straight away because I was so scared of how they would react, luckily it was happiness all around! :)

And thats pretty much it... we drove home, saw our brothers and sisters, unpacked, and ate some welcome home cupcakes that my sister had made us.

I feel just as sad coming to the end of this trip report as I did coming to the end of the trip. It was over so quickly and I am so grateful for the experiences we had. It has been so lovely for me to re-live them through this blog, its great to know I can look back on this for the rest of my life to remember what fun we had.

We did have the time of our lives, and thank you to those of you that have read this the whole way through, it means so much to me. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventure as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Lots of love xxxxx