SUNDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2026

(Amsterdam, NL – Home, UK)

The lounge was nice. Huge. And just one of several KLM lounges there, I think. It was, however, not in the same direction as our departure gate. After leaving the lounge, we set our watches for the hike to gate D24. Nearly a kilometre later we arrived to find boarding already in progress, a few minutes early. The pilot must be keen to get going. We boarded, while luggage and refuelling were still taking place, pushed back roughly on time, and then set off for the Ponder runway. As soon as the pilot said it would be a ten-minute taxi, we knew which one that was. It’s the scenic one, posing the highway, the canal, the trees and the farmland on the way.

Once up the cloud mostly obscured the scenery, with a brief exception of the wind farms just off the coast of the Netherlands. In flight we were offered breakfast, but declined. Then we were offered stroopwaffles to go with our coffee and juice, and we certainly didn’t turn those down. My apologies, but they were eaten far too quickly for a photograph.

There were layers of low cloud and mist in Manchester as we flew in, which had been a familiar thing for the last week. Then, as the cabin crew referred to it, we had a “butter soft” landing (we were on the old runway which has a distinct bump in the middle of it to give pilots and extra challenge) and taxied to the stand for an on time arrival. I say ‘stand’, because although it looked like a gate at a terminal, it was next to the old terminal 3, no longer in use, so we needed a bit to get to terminal 2. We were straight through passport control with no queue and then we waited for the luggage. Lots of cases appeared, but not ours. Eventually though we spotted one case, then another…and then that was it. Weirdly, one of our cases appears to still be in Amsterdam. We filed a missing case report and went to get our taxi home. Our taxi was only just arriving, due to an accident on the motorway, so we all convened at about the same time at the pick up point.

The drive home was smooth, via the back route to avoid traffic. At the time of writing, we’re still awaiting the suitcase. 

We have seen so much, hiked so far (around 52 miles) and been lucky enough to spot elk, moose, deer, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, a red fox, squirrels, a black swift, crows, stellar’s jays and more. No bear, which is both good and a shame, depending on where they might have been encountered.

Usually this would be my last post, but I will be making other posts with more photos and videos, as I did get behind. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this slideshow  (no music to this one) of a few scenic highlights from our trip. https://vimeo.com/1241746775