After a disturbed overnight sleep (the guy in front insisted on reclining his seat as much as possible), we arrived in Changi Airport , where I had a 5-hour transit time. So I settled down in my favourite seats near the windows (and the Butterfly Gardens), watched the planes outside in the setting sun, and continued work on this blog (trying to catch up on the lack of blogging in the past couple of weeks while we cruised the Doubs and Saone).

I was also sitting near the big-screen TV, and so in breaks from blogging I watched a bit of soccer with a bunch of English guys who looked like they were on a group trip (maybe on their way to the Rugby World Cup in Japan?).

As often happens in Changi, the 5 hours went remarkably quickly, and I was soon on my way back to Gate B5 (where we had arrived some hours before) for the final leg of the flight to Melbourne. Once again I had an empty seat next to me, and this time I got a good sleep on the flight. I woke as we were flying over western Victoria, and got some good photos of the sun rising in the east.

Ground fog covered much of the countryside, and it looked like a giant spider-web across the landscape.

We arrived in Melbourne a little after 7am, and despite some long queues at the self-serve passport clearance, my suitcase was waiting for me on the baggage carousel. When filling out the customs form on the plane, I noticed a question asking whether I had been on a farm or a river in the past 30 days. I had never noticed this question before, but this time I ticked YES, given our recent time on the barge on the French rivers. When I got to the final customs clearance, I explained why I had ticked YES, and they just waved me through. But at least I left with a clear conscience. I was in the arrivals hall well before 8am.

I then caught the SkyBus into Melbourne, arriving at Southern Cross rail station around 9.30am (the bus driver kept apologising for the peak-hour traffic which delayed us a bit). But I had plenty of time up my sleeve, so it didn't worry me, and I had plenty of time to find the Myki office to ask my two questions that I had tried to answer for myself when in Auxonne. The customer service guy at the counter was most helpful, and showed me how to find my card balance online - but even for him, it was not an obvious process. He agreed that the website could do with some improvements. He then found the timetable for my bus to Taggerty, and printed it out for me, and let me know that I could use my Myki on the bus.

I still had a couple of hours to kill before my train to Ringwood (the weekday morning McKenzies bus to Taggerty runs only from Ringwood, and not from Southern Cross where it runs from for all the other times), so I settled down in the quiet waiting room and continued work on the blog. I arrived in Ringwood about 12noon, so had plenty of time to find where the Route 684 Taggerty bus departed from at 1pm. Surprisingly it did not depart from Ringwood rail station, but from a bus stop on the other side of the Ringwood Eastlands Shopping Centre. So I ventured into the humungous centre, and promptly started to lose my way. But after wandering up and down stairs, and through carparks, I finally found the bus stop. I then retraced my way back into the centre for a coffee, and hoped I could find my way out again. Luckily I had plenty of time on my side, and I arrived back at the bus at 12.45pm, ready to touch-on with my Myki card and settle down for the trip to Taggerty, via Healsville and Marysville. It was nice to be a passenger for a change going through the Black's Spur, and able to fully appreciate the beauty of the majestic Mountain Ash trees and the the delicate fern trees.

After getting off the bus in Taggerty, I walked with my luggage to the Taggerty General Store, where I wanted to leave my luggage, rather than drag the luggage along our 1km gravel entrance road up to the house.

So, without my luggage, I enjoyed the stroll in the sunshine up the hill to the house. When I left 3 months ago, I deliberately parked my manual transmission vehicle pointing downhill, so that I could jump start it by rolling down the hill, if the battery was flat when I got home (as it had been for 8 previous years). No one was more surprised than me when it started first go! So I headed back down to the store, collected my luggage, did a little shopping for essentials (milk and beer) and then headed home. I stayed awake for as long as possible to avoid waking again in the middle of the night, and went to bed around 10pm. I hadn't seen the alpacas or goat since I got home, but instead of them welcoming me home, I had another friend saying hello from the wall above the door to my bedroom. Sweet Dreams!