Day 16

 

Our final day (and a half) was largely spent getting home.

After breakfast most of the group took the local trolley bus to an Outlet Store complex. Some students were keen to spend a few more US dollars on the cheap clothing, shoes and electronics while others were happy to window shop or rest back at the hotel.

The final packing required some creative solutions to the 50 pound/single piece of luggage restrictions with some students ’renting out’ spare space to those who had none.

We had an opportunity to review our tour while waiting for the bus- the feedback from the students was very positive and there was also some useful suggestions for improvements for future tours.

The first flight to New York was late arriving which made it very tight for Emma to meet her mum. We were able to get her off the plane before anyone else so she could get to her flight to Germany.

The check-in and security lines for our next flight were very long which used up two of the three hours before our next flight. We then had a 13 hour flight to Dubai with most students getting a reasonable amount of sleep. This flight was an hour late which meant we had to be rushed through security to get to our waiting plane. Our final leg to Perth took 10 hours.

Before leaving the plane we all put on our Space Camp flight suits which prompted many queries from the surrounding passengers. We finally cleared customs and walked out to meet the many friends and family who had come to meet us. It felt good to be home!

 

I would like to thank all those who have supported this tour-the parents for giving their children this wonderful opportunity and the school’s administration for allowing it to run. A special thankyou to Janet Mengler for her help with the organisation and supervision and to Jeff Mengler for his help on tour.

 

Graeme Roberts.