A NORTH Yorkshire couple who were trapped in the Caribbean by the volcanic ash cloud after getting engaged underwater have made an exhausting journey by plane, train and boat to get home.

Frederick Atkinson proposed to girlfriend Hannah Lazenby by pulling out a sign saying “Hannah will you marry me?” while the couple were diving during a dream holiday in Trinidad and Tobago.

When Miss Lazenby, 30, of Sowerby, near Thirsk, accepted, Mr Atkinson, 31, put a ring on her finger while the pair were underwater.

The couple continued enjoying their holiday until they found out their flight home had been cancelled as a result of the Icelandic ash cloud.

After catching a flight to New York, they had to sleep rough in airport camps set up for stranded travellers by the US Red Cross.

With no flights to the UK, the couple queued through the night for tickets for a flight to Oslo, in Norway. They arrived last Tuesday to find the next flights back to the UK would leave in five days.

So, they decided to catch a train to Bergen where, they had been told, a ferry was arriving to collect stranded Brits.

They made an eight-hour journey by train, before boarding the ferry for an 18-hour trip to Scotland. Another train took them from Aberdeen to York and they arrived home at about 10pm on Thursday.

Miss Lazenby, a nanny, said: “We need another holiday now. If we can get through this we are set for life. We’re just so happy to be home.”