We have been back home now for a month, we left Lucca on the 3rd of March. We first caught the train from Lucca to Florence, then the 250kph Eurostar train to Rome and then a local shuttle train to the airport. We flew with Emirates on the new A380 Airbus to Dubai where we had a four hour wait before boarding a 777 for the eleven hour flight to Perth. When we left Lucca in the morning it was around 8°, when we landed in Perth it was around 38°! It took us a couple of days to get used to the higher temperatures. The primary reason for our return was to be able to celebrate our Grand Daughter Ella's first birthday and our daughters 25th birthday. But since arriving back we have spent a lot of our time working with Sarah and Richard trying to help them catch up with work and trying to give them a bit of a break from ten months of very intense work and a very rapid learning curve. We had intended returning to Lucca on the 9th of April, but with so much work to do while we are here we have decided to delay our return until the 6th May. While we have been home we have caught up with both our 4WD club and our Ulysses group and have been treated like returning heroes, the welcome has made us both feel very special. We have also been able to catch up with our friend Ben and relive the adventures we shared with him. It was great because Ben was able to remember things we had forgoten, he also gave us all his photos and some of his video to add to ours. We have also caught up with other friends, but we still have more to see before we go.
We are both looking forward to getting back on the road and continuing our adventure, but I feel it may be a bit harder to leave our family this time and at the moment we are thinking we may return again for Christmas.