UK tourists have spent thousands of pounds on new flights and endured long drives in a race to get home before new coronavirus travel rules kicked in.

As of 04:00 BST on Saturday, travellers returning to the UK from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago must quarantine for 14 days. Children in families who did not return in time will miss the start of school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But searches for flights to Portugal rose as it was put on the safe list.

Meanwhile, extra restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19 have come into force in north-west England. It comes as a further 18 deaths have been recorded in the UK, bringing the total number of people to have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus to 41,423.

The quarantine measures for Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago have been imposed because of a spike in coronavirus cases in those countries, the UK government has said.

As of 21 August, the UK recorded 21.2 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people over the last fortnight, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. In comparison, Croatia had 47.2 cases per 100,000, Austria had 33.0 and Portugal 28.5.

There were about 17,000 British tourists in Croatia on Friday, according to the country's national tourist board.

On Friday evening, British Airways flights arriving from the Croatian city of Dubrovnik and the capital Zagreb at London's Heathrow airport were among the last to reach the UK before the deadline.

Jennifer Ivory, from Walsall, in the West Midland, said she was disgusted by the rule change which meant that her children would have to miss the first week of school after they return from the Austrian Alps, on August 26.

She said: "We were looking forward for my children to return to school as near to normality as possible, but now we've got to explain to them that they will not be able to go back at the same time as all of the others."

She said that the holiday was "the one thing we have been looking forward to" after she was recently made redundant last year.

But now, she says, it has been "spoilt".