Ho...ho... ho... ho... home!

Ah the mis-adventures of travel glad to hear you made it in one piece. Our own mis-adventure was at the beginning of our current trip when my partner scanned our credit and bank cards and forgot them in the scanner. It was a good thing we had a bank statement showing we had savings with HSBC which gave us money from our account even though we had no bank card with us. I was very impressed with their service and getting us out of a pickle. I sound like an advertisement for HSBC huh?

Love the story and glad you are home safe. 6 years ago, I lost my passport on the way home from the airport, and had to get the new one two years early. Guess what? I found it last week in a file I had brought home from the trip, .

Funny - it's just clicked that 'things happened' both ends of this trip.

My neighbour drove me to the coach station to catch my bus to the airport. Walking in, I looked for the printout of my ticket.
Oh no! Not my ticket and, more importantly, not my Ruinair boarding pass either!

As luck would have it, I'd arrived early for my bus, and Ruinair had shifted my flight time by another half-hour. I raced home, picked up printouts and was back in good time ... phew!

But you can't escape fate, can you?
At least being there was amazing.

Seems hard to stay away from travel troubles; in 1994 I set off for a solo year-long RTW, got to the airport here only to find I had left my passport, visas, travellers' cheques, lots of foreign cash, credit cards and two books of air tickets at home. Lucky for me my son had driven me to the airport so he raced back home, picked up the missing stuff, and bulleted back to the airport, just in the nick of time. His expression said it all, he was not impressed.

I think it must be catching. When I returned from living in Solomon Islands (also 1994), I brought 2 teenage students for a holiday. We were flying from Brisbane to Cairns, and I left all our tickets on a friend's kitchen table. Qantas very kindly moved us to a later flight, and allowed me to call the friend who was meeting us in Cairns. Friend with kitchen table raced home to get tickets.
Not sure it would be that easy these days.

Hey Ozzie, we might have crossed paths sometime in 1994. I was in Solo from the beginning of July to end of October.

Did you ever visit Selwyn College, Watsoff? I was usually there or in town about once a fortnight. Did pay the occasional visit to Tabalia and Kohimarama, and even Planned Parenthood with senior biology students. That year I owned the most ancient Hilux on Guadalcanal.

No, I never got to visit Selwyn College. I spent my time in Honiara, Malaita (W. Are'Are, Auki and Malu'u), and Bellona. I might have seen the Hilux tootling down Mendana Avenue, though :-))

That hilux was beaten up in Malaita before moving to Ggilbert Camp with an American optometrist and his wife. I bought it from them when they upgraded (slightly) to another ex-Malaita vehicle.
Did you ever come across the Bartimaeus eye clinic in Chinatown? He was teaching locals how to dispense glasses and test eye sight.

No, didn't come across the eye clinic, although I spent a week sleeping on the floor of the old Hapai Shop in Chinatown in 1994. What a blast! So sad that it was burned down during the riots.