The flight from Auckland stopped at Los Angeles for a couple of hours before continuing to London.

From the air Los Angeles was a sprawling mass of concrete. There seemed to be quite a number of other airports close by LAX.

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LAX. Beyond, although hard to see is another airport.

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Finally a bit of green!

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After a couple of hours we took off again for London.

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NW coast of Ireland – there is an airfield down there.

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Birmingham.

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Some of the next pictures contain airfields.

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Chesham, where I used to work.

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Chesham, Amersham and Bovingdon VOR in the distance.

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Wembley Stadium.

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Regent’s Park.

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Buckingham Palace with Hyde Park beyond.

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Buckingham Palace and the Thames.

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Hyde Park.

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Brompton Cemetery.

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Kew. The Public Records Office and Kew Gardens in some of the following pictures.

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Syon Park.

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We landed an hour earlier than scheduled. Our AirNZ flights were very good – friendly service and the meals were excellent.

Immigration was quick but it took ages for our bags to arrive. We were collected by my Mum & Dad, dropped our bags off at home and then went to our local pub, The Beehive, for lunch. Mum and Dad had left us some welcome home balloons, cake, food and cards which was very kind of them.

Mum, Dad and Noel.

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Pete turned up in the afternoon and briefed us on what he’d needed to fix while we were away. We were very lucky as he had happened to turn up one day when water was all over the kitchen floor from the washing machine and he prevented it spreading further.

The Spitfire OU-V flew in during the afternoon too. Max flew alongside this plane and Noel has been up in it.

In the evening, shortly before going for dinner with my parents we had a couple of drinks at the flying club and were welcomed back by various friends.