Back home at last

Here's a picture I took from the airport terminal in Manila when people were first discovering the extent of the damage to the plane. A few others are here. We're now back home in Melbourne after 45 hours of travel and its come not a minute too soon. It feels great to be home. When we arrived at Melbourne there were crowds of reporters, TV cameras and photographers on hand. We've even been asked to do a live link up with New York for Americas NBC network but they want to do it at 9:00pm our time - so we've declined!

Its obviously front page news in The Age in Melbourne and they seem to be saying the age of the plane and some previous corrosion could be at fault - we discovered the plane was 17 years old. Not sure how long they are in service but that seems fairly old. There are also reports of an oxygen cylinder may of exploded. Regardless, it seems Osama was not to blame, which is somehow comforting.

Its slowly sinking in how fortunate we have been - its easy to be flippant now its all over but it could of been a lot, lot worse. My flight to Hobart next week is not appealing at all. The kids are OK which is the main thing, Ethan was holding his ears on the flight to Melbourne and saying he was scared it would happen again - but hopefully its not scared him of flying for good.

A relatively happy end to two very long and very stressful days.