Homeward bound

So it's all over. If I am honest I am a little lost, the last week and a bit have been so intense, there is a feeling of a hole being left now that it's finished. Still, we still had to get home to England. We started off with a nice leisurely breakfast in the fantastic Raddisson restaurant. Jeff and John had prepared an oscar ceremony for the team, each of us receiving a little gift based on some aspect of our personality or riding. It was very funny, and had us all in fits of giggles! We were joined by Ian, our team leader, for final goodbyes. I don't think he wanted to let go of us really ;)

The group then split as there were two flights out of PE to Johannesburg, the early group leaving at 10:15 and the later group at 1:20. I was in the later group so spent the morning hanging around the hotel and had a couple of beers with some of the group. The flight to Johannesburg went smoothly - I slept for most of it, and we met up with the rest of the group in the airport. Lots more hanging about was achieved, before out 8:30 flight to the UK. The flight was fine on the most part, but I didn't manage to get any sleep (despite my lovely new squishy neck pillow - would have been better if it had come with a mesh bag though (only a few people will understand that seemingly random reference!))

The flight landed on time at Heathrow and once we had all collected our bags we said our goodbyes which was a fairly emotional experience, but we all know it is fair well rather than goodbye as we are sure to see each other again.

So it's all done without too many injuries (for me at least). I escaped with a badly bruised ankle, numb left hand, bruised hip and dodgy shoulder, I expect those to all work themselves out over the next few days and weeks.

Over the next few days I will update the daily entries with a bit more detail - much easier with a real keyboard than the iPhone - fix the typos and add some pictures.