The transfer from London to Manchester was a little bit confusing as the check-in clerk in Adelaide had told us our luggage would need to be picked up at London International, cleared through customs and then re-put back on the plane to Manchester. This contradicted the ticket stickers which clearly stated that the luggage was checked all the way through to Manchester, complete with "International Transfer" written all over the sticker.

So after a brief visit to ask the friendly chap in the turban where we should go, we were back on track and heading towards Terminal 1. The route to terminal one started out as a few narrow corridors, a set of escalators and then turned into a bus ride from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal.

Once we got off the bus we were hearded into another large queue, which we initially thought was customs. After a while it became aparent that this was in fact another security gate, for the domestic terminal - a bit odd considering we'd just gotten off a plane in the International terminal and had not yet left what I'd call a secure area.

Once through the lengthy security checkpoint, we followed the signs to terminal 1. We walked through a maze of passages and long corridors that exceeded 1km, at my best guess. Finally, we reached customs - which was virtually empty, and was completely painless - "Hi, passports please, thanks, have a nice day". That was it.

The last 'run' to Terminal 1 was another 500m or so down yet more passages where the flight crew were waiting patiently for us and a few other stragglers.

The flight to Manchester was also uneventful, although the passengers were not exactly amused by the cabin manager's comments at the end of the flight - something along the lines of "we trust you loved your flight with BA so much that you'll run out and tell all your friends how good it was". I think RB has them worried :)

An hour later we were in Manchester airport and looking for a bus to take us to the hotel - none were around and it was obvious the place was deserted, so we grabbed a taxi instead.