We had a late start to the day.
I guess we got down to breakfast about 9am and took our time just watching the world go by up and down the river as we ate breakfast. It’s such a hard life!!
After breakfast we took a boat ride across the river and walked down to the Peninsular Hotel to have a look around (This was the other hotel we looked at to stay in, but the Oriental won!). It was a much larger hotel than the Oriental, but looked like there weren’t too many staying there, similar to the Oriental. I think all the big hotels are doing it tough at the moment. After a brief look around we walked back to the Oriental wharf and got the boat back.
We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon finishing off our packing and relaxing.
We checked out at 1:50pm, and found our transfer was already at the Hotel. Our ride was a largish late model Mercedes, a nice way to finish the holiday.
We got to the airport in good time and checked in with no hassles. The airport is pretty big, and before we went to the Airline Lounge, we had a look through the duty free shops, they all seemed expensive, and when we found a good deal on some alcohol we found out we couldn’t take it on the plane, so that ruined that idea!! The only thing we finished up getting ( Ok, that I got) was a weird looking thing we could use as a Christmas decoration from Thailand, it looks a bit like a little alien!!
Our flight was delayed a little, the flight crew were caught up traffic problems due to a very heavy rain shower on their way to the airport.
We eventually got away, and the flight was fairly uneventful. I didn’t get much sleep (people walking around the cabin all night and talking to the flight attendants!!), Deb did a bit better than me.
We arrived in Sydney right on 6am and were given “Express” cards for immigration and customs. It was great to get priority service and we were through in a breeze. One thing though, as we came through to the immigration area, the whole plane load of us were made to walk single file past an Infrared Camera. They were looking for people with a fever, and maybe “Swine Flu” candidates. As far as we are aware, everyone on our flight was fine. I was surprised to see many people at the airport wearing face masks, up until now that was something we had only seen in Asia, admittedly most of those wearing the masks were Asian, but there were a few Caucasians as well.
Our flight to Adelaide left on time and we were home about 10am. It was so nice to be met at the airport by friendly faces. Carly, Kieran, Ella and Ethan were all there to meet us and take us home. Ella was holding up a sign and they were all beaming great big smiles to us. 
After a lot of BIG hugs and kisses, we got our luggage and were home in no time. Aiko greeted us at the front door. She was so excited to see us and was after as much attention as she could get from us. It was so good to see her and that she was really excited to see us.
Carly had topped up our fridge and pantry with some supplies to get us through today  . Her and Kieran then made us all lunch, and Ben, Sarah and Tessa (Dante had a birthday party to go to, we will catch up with him on Saturday when we go to watch him play football J ) arrived around noon . It was great to see them all. We spent the afternoon chatting about what we had been up to and sharing a few pictures, and finding out what had been going on back home all the time we had been away.
After a long day and jet lag setting in we got to bed around 9pm, Deb was back up at some ungodly hour (1am maybe!!  ), I slept through to about 7am.
It’s going to take a little while to get back into the swing of “normality” and our brains back in gear.
It’s also time to start planning our next adventure!!!!!!! 
Its’ been great sharing our pilgrimage with you all, it really has been a wonderful time exploring all the new parts of the world we got to, and learning so much about other counties and cultures, and the people who share this world with us.
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