Brake pedal travel

[Big G]

('98 Mk4 Golf TDi)

On Sunday I whipped off the rear wheel to investigate my sticky hand brake. I haven't long replaced the cables and installed little springs on the arms to assist the handbrake coming off so I was slightly puzzled/annoyed this was happening again.

Turned out the arm on the caliper wasn't releasing properly even with the springs on there to help out. so I brushed off all the mud and crap that had attached itself to it and hit it with the copper hammer which seemed to do the trick. Caliper arm now releasing nicely.

So I cleaned the pads and greased them all up and refitted. now the pedal has weird long travel before going hard halfway down.

Removed caliper again last night and pumped the pedal again which proved with a visual check the caliper wasn't sticking...

any ideas? I didn't break the hydraulics when I did the h'brake fix I don't appear to be leaking fluid anywhere either.
Also it seems the ABS comes in a bit more enthusiastically than before