Helicopters went by ship. When 230 Sqn was sent out to Borneo IIIRC they went on the Albion. The Navy had stacks of carriers then so it was quite easy to arrange a lift.
Flying was far too difficult. When 110 Sqn disbanded in 1971 we looked at flying our oldest aircraft, XD183 back home. This aircraft had spent all its time in the Far East apart from forays back to the UK to be changed from a Whirlwind 2 to a 4 then to a 10. It would have taken 28 days and involved a fair amount of servicing at Sharjah. That is assuming it stayed servicable and all the diplomatic clearances fell into place.
There was a system of returning household items like furniture back to the UK called indulgence freight. When there was space available, normally quite quickly, your stuff would be freighted back to the UK. Those that could afford it would buy cars duty free oversea confident that when they were posted home a conveniant carrier would be sailing for the UK for a refit or something. So it was when Confrontation started. This carrier that was heading westwards across the Indian Ocean turned about and at the same time they were tipping Mercedes, Fords etc over the side.
XD 183 solved the flying back question by having an engine failure and was written off.