Almost done with this trip.

All that remains is to fly from Chicago to London, stay one night and then fly home to Brisbane.

While waiting at Chicago O'Hare Airport we were tempted to stay another night. Why? I'm sure you are curious when we have stated a few times in recent blogs that we are ready to go home.

American airlines have a strange system of selling tickets for flights. They over-sell the flight in the hope that some passengers will not turn up - they like to fill every seat.

Our flight was over-sold and requests were made for any passengers with flexible timetables to give up their seat to one of those who would otherwise miss out. The sweetener...US$500.00 voucher per person to be used on the airline any time in the next 12 months, an overnight hotel room at the airport and guaranteed seats on a flight at 9:00am the next morning.

This would have been a tempting offer if we were able to use the voucher, but we won't be back in the USA until September 2020 which is outside the 12 months window for usage.

So, while the airline sorted out who would be flying and who would miss out, we waited patiently in the boarding area. Our flight left an hour late!

We arrived in London at 7:30am, took the shuttle to pick up our hire car and by 9am we were headed off for a day at the beach.

Brighton is on the south coast of England about 60 miles from London and is a favourite beach holiday spot for the Brits. The Promonade has the English Channel on one side and a continuous row of huge hotels on the other. The Brighton Palace Pier reaches out into the water and is a magnet for tourists who are encouraged to spend their hard earned pounds in the numerous amusement arcades on the pier.

We drove further along the coast and were surprised to see white cliffs like those that Dover is famous for. The historic town of Rottingdean is picture postcard pretty and boasts its own Netherland-style windmill.

Royal Tunbridge Wells was next on our day out. This is one of the locations used for the British Open Golf. We stopped for coffee to help keep ourselves awake (our bodies were telling us we had been awake for 27 hours with only a brief nap on our flight).

It was time to head to our hotel for a shower and sleep.

Our last day in the UK warranted a sleep-in and late breakfast. We don't fly out until 9:25pm so we still had a day to fill in.

Oops! Slept too long, missed breakfast after waking at 9am.

After a late check-out we drove out to Windsor to visit Harry, Meaghan and little Archie.

We have visited Windsor several times. The whole area is stunning, cafes, tourist shops and of course - The Castle.

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, it is said to be Queen Elizabeth's favourite weekend home - all according to our friend Mr Google. This beautiful structure has been featured twice in recent times as the wedding venue for Harry and Meaghan and also Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.

We wandered around the village, had brunch and purchased some gifts to take home to grandkids. We reminisced about our visit to Windsor four years ago with our daughter Stacey, her husband Brett and three of the grandkids - William, Thomas and Hayley. Good times!

With still eight hours till departure we went for a drive to have a look at Ascot Racecourse - no racing today but we could imagine the pomp and ceremony that would have been happening two weeks ago when race week was on.

Maidenhead was next - we drove around a bit - nothing to write home about really!

We are now sitting at the airport waiting for our flight. Kerrie has spent all the cash we had left - and a bit more Greg suspects from the extra carrier bags she has collected.

After an 11 hour flight to Bangkok, a nine hour layover (thank goodness we have a room to go to at the Transit Hotel), and then another nine hour flight to Brisbane, we will be home.

This will be the last blog entry for this trip. We hope you have enyoyed reading about our travels. Don't forget to leave us a message in the comments and to check out Greg's YouTube channel - Villain Catcher - for videos of our trip.

That's a wrap!

*Blog of the day - 16