No-plane family have to take flight to make Sydney wedding

Ms Coggins said unfortunately the world "isn't currently set up to make low-carbon travel easier than flying"

A family attempting to travel to a relative's wedding in Australia without flying were forced to board a flight at the end of their four-month journey.

Shannon Coggins, Theo Simon and their daughter Rosa, 19, had hoped to avoid planes completely during the epic 10,000-mile (16,000km) journey.

They left home in Somerset on 16 August for the 28 December event in Sydney.

But in South East Asia their travel options ran out and they were forced to take a short flight.

Writing on the family's blog, Rosa said: "It really was tough, having to get on a plane after all we had achieved without one."

The family decided to stop flying for holidays in 2002

However, she added that she hoped she had shown people "that so much is possible without hopping on a plane" and when when you use one "you miss the world that makes up the spaces in between.

"It takes away from what an amazing thing it is to be able to travel halfway across the world and see what an incredible, diverse and endlessly interesting planet we live on."

The family decided to stop flying in 2002 "because of its effect on the climate".

Mr Simon, from East Pennard, said: "We stopped flying a long time ago because of our own carbon footprint, which we looked at and we thought we can't justify it anymore."

But when Ms Coggins' sister, who lives in Sydney, revealed she was getting married, the family started planning how they would get there without using a plane.

They travelled through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia using multiple modes of transport, before taking a flight from Dili in East Timor's capital to cross the Timor Sea to Darwin, Australia.

Mr Simon said: "The travel was a thing in itself. It was a great experience.

"We wanted to do it with our daughter in her gap year - see the world."

The family thinks they have used five times less carbon travelling than if they had flown all the way.

Ms Coggins said the wedding "was so beautiful" and their journey there was "a fantastic way to meet people and see the world".

"Our mum died when we were young, so we've been really close, so it was really important to get here.

"So I'm flipping glad we did."

Ms Coggins and Mr Simon both gave up their jobs to make the journey with their daughter, which they said required a "monumental amount" of planning.

They said they learnt how to say "thank you" and "sorry" in every language and added that people always stepped up to help them whatever country they were in.