I managed to have an uneventful flight home, I arrived at the airport to find all but one flights before mine cancelled but our boarding progressed. When I checked in I put my bike on the scales with my yellow dry back which was usually secured across the back of the bike as my additional hold luggage. The woman on the counter said it should be £400 for excess baggage but their card machine wasn't working so if I was able to take the dry bag on as an a second item of hand luggage there would be no charge. What a great result!
The bike arrived safely into Manchester airport and I set about assembling it in freezing temperatures outside the terminal which was a bit of a shock after the last four months of tropical heat.
I made friends with the guy at the taxi office who was chatting to me on his cigarette break and went off to read my blog but came out when I was ready to set off to take a photo of me wearing pretty much everything I owned.
I had ditched all my other clothes along with anything else which was not critical to get me excess baggage cost as low as possible so headed into Manchester stored the bike at my hotel heading out into the city centre to hit the shops and replace some items. After this I had a pub lunch and then checked into a hotel room. I got my head down as my body clock was 9 hours ahead and I'd been on the go for 48 hours with no sleep.
It was then Saturday and I set off in the morning to cycle back and close the circle with a finish at the pub from which I had started from 355 days ago. However, the Corvid 19 restrictions caught up with me again as the pubs were all required to close the previous evening.
I'm always keen to try the local cuisine when I get to a new country so stopped off on the way for a re-fuel. I then set out on my last leg to the finish where my sisters and friends were going to be now waiting in the car park.
I pulled into a chorus of "He's coming home he's coming home" and a champagne reception whilst trying our best to maintain social distancing.
After this we were driven away by the bitter cold so I checked into mission control for a quick update on my location and a brew!
It had been a great adventure and nearly Textbook as the beer I picked up on the way home suggests.
It was a shame I didn't make it to my final destination but to get to the border and within sight of Singapore is good enough for me. I would certainly not like to be starting today with the world going into lockdown for what looks like the next 2-3 months.
It was fantastic to see so much of the world and such a diverse cross section of places and people. The people made the trip and being on a bike you get such an opportunity to interact with so many people along the way with too many example of human kindness that I can recount.
