The Wales rugby team is on its way to the Rugby World Cup after jetting off from Heathrow today.
The squad were up in the early hours, leaving their base at the Vale Hotel in the middle of the night to catch a morning flight from London.
And before they left there were emotional goodbyes to the family members they are leaving behind as they head to Japan for an adventure that will hopefully finish on November 2 when the World Cup final is held.
It was a particularly emotional day for Leigh Halfpenny, who joined his team-mates after cruelly missing out four years ago because of injury in the final warm-up game.
It will be Halfpenny's second World Cup campaign, with the 30-year-old notching up six of his 82 Welsh caps in the 2011 tournament in New Zealand.
This time, though, he had to say goodbye to to his partner Jess Tumelty and eight-month-old daughter Lily Louise.
"Great few days at home with the family, going to miss my girls. Looking forward to the weeks ahead," Halfpenny wrote on his Instagram account.
Wales scrum-half Aled Davies too posted a family farewell snap on his Instagram before the Osprey took flight with the Welsh squad to the Far East.
For the 27-year-old it will be his first World Cup adventure having made the first of his 19 Test appearances against Tonga on the 2017 summer tour.
The pair are just two of the dads in the squad, with captain Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Biggar among the others.
You can see all the pictures as the players checked in at Heathrow in the gallery below.
Wales were among the late departures to head off to Japan, with the likes of World Cup rivals England, Australia and New Zealand already ensconced in their team hotels for the tournament.
But leaving London on Wednesday meant Wales did miss much of the fallout from Typhoon Faxai that wreaked havoc in Tokyo at the start of the week and disrupted travel plans for the nations who departed early.
You can read about England's nightmare arrival here.
