Journey of love

DEVOTED husband Gary Mulcahy made a mammoth 40-hour journey from Spain - so he could be with his wife on their wedding anniversary. And it cost him hundreds of pounds.

Gary, 35, from Skelmanthorpe,West Yorkshire, was due to fly home from Zaragoza in northern Spain on Thursday. But he and four colleagues were left stranded when terror alerts at British airports meant flights to the UK were cancelled.

Gary was determined to get home to wife Victoria in time for their third wedding anniversary on Sunday.After a 40-hour journey by train, taxi, coach and car he finally made it back at midnight on August 12.

He said: "We could have stayed on in Spain, but it was important to me to get back."

Gary had flown out to Zaragoza on August 1 with four colleagues from Leeds-based company Environmental Project Management. They were fitting an environmental system at a printing factory. They were due to fly home last Thursday, but their flight was cancelled.

So, they booked flights from Bilboa, hired a car and set off at 9am to make the three-hour drive to the city. After suffering a puncture on the way they arrived - only to find that flights to the UK had been cancelled there, too. The next available flight home would have been on August 13.

No accommodation was available in Bilboa, as there was a festival being held in the city. So, the five men got a taxi to the coach station and got a coach to Biarritz before boarding a train to Paris. They arrived in Paris at 6am on August 12, hoping to get a seat on the Eurostar back to London.

But they had to wait until 4pm that day. They got corridor seats on the train through the Channel Tunnel. They arrived at Waterloo Station in London at 6pm.

After getting a taxi to Liverpool Street Station they caught a train to Stansted Airport in Essex - where they had flown from originally. After taking a 30-minute airport coach ride to the car park they faced the long drive back to Yorkshire.

Gary said: "We were all really tired. It took us about 40 hours and cost about £2,000 in total to get home. We'll get our £25 plane ticket refunded, but that's it. There wasn't much help when they told us the flight was cancelled. I basically arranged everything over the phone."

Victoria said: "It's the sort of thing he would do. We had planned the weekend for ages. I had arranged a babysitter for our little boy, Alfie, and we had a meal booked. Gary certainly put in a lot of effort to make our anniversary. We had a lovely night out."