Farewell London...Bonjour France!

It was a very early start for the morning – actually managed to make it to breakfast at starting time for the hotel restaurant! We jumped aboard the tube and headed west to Hayes and Harlington Station. After a heavy 10min trek to the Spaceship van depot to pick up our new friend for our journey – Mulder (of X-files fame ie Mulder and Scully).

Dave and I along with passengers for this leg of the journey Tom and Bec headed off bound for Dover.

WE did get to quickly admire the white cliffs before hightailing it to JUST make it aboard the P&O Ferry to Calai.

The white cliffs of Dover



Mulder - of Mulder and Scully our SPACESHIP!



90mins later we landed in Calai France and quickly had to adapt to driving on the right (eg the wrong) side of the road. Dave did extremely well and only had 1 minor slip up along the way.

We continued on bound for Rouen with the help of our trusty Navman “Jim” who is a British Female voice – not sure how that happened, however once she was Christened that was it. Jim lead us on a slight goose chase and tried to take us through the local forest but apart from that Jim and i made a great navigation team.

Steak TarTare aka mince on a plate!

Rouen was the location that Joan of Arc was executed – burnt at the stake. A large cross monument and modern church now stands on the site as the original church was bombed extensively during the war.

We had a lovely dinner in the town square – site of the original marketplace and right next to the monument and church for Jean de Arc. Dinner was accompanied by music from an oompah band – this was a little unexpected as I thought that we wouldn’t run into one of these until Germany or Austria.

After dinner we wandered some more and then headed back to Mulder and allowed Jim to guide us back to Tom and Bec’s hotel where Dave and I camped out in the carpark.

Last days in London :(

So the weather in London (although summer) has been unseasonably HOT! Hitting a top of 32⁰ today – A MASSIVE heatwave we are told. Now coming from QLD this is NOTHING – but you see the problem is there is that NO WHERE is airconditioned – not the hotels, info centres, buses, trains – nothing, so you cant escape it. Despite this we decided to carry on with our sightseeing program. Today started with a bus through Mayfair checking out the designed shops and impressive car showrooms (Dave was very excited about the Bugatti Veyron) and continued the trip to St Paul’s Cathedral. After the mistimed visit yesterday our trip was well rewarded this time, allowing us to cec out the impressive architecture, mosaics, quire and high alter. We also saw a C of E Eucharist performed by a woman priest – who Dave said was young and hot, might bring more people back to church! We then walked up the hundreds of stairs to the whispering gallery where you can hear what is whispered on one side of the dome all the way from the other. More stairs brought us to the stone and golden galleries right on the top of the dome. We enjoyd great views of London with St Paul’s being situated on the top of Ludgate Hill in the centre of the old Roman city of Londinium. We were told areas around Londinium were rife with the plague which the people thought was carried by their cats and dog, so the city of London paid them to kill their pets and throw them into howling ditch – safe to say they didn’t do a very good job if the animals were still howling!

From here we crossed the Millennium footbridge named by the Londoners the wobbly bridge as it swayed over 1 foot in each direction when it was first erected. On the southside of the Thames we visited the replica of Shakespeare’s globe theatre. The tour was really fascinating – wish we had that guy when we were doing Shakespeare at school!

We headed back into Westminster to see the Abbey but unfortunately it closed at 3:30pm so we substituted this with a visit to the Royal Mews or stables – where the horses, carriages and cars used by the royals are kept. We checked out the impressive coaches and also learned about how the grooms and carriage keepers work with military precision to get the carriages in and out of their garages – not an easy feat. The VERY impressive Golden state coach takes 2 full days to get out of the room where it is kept.

Finished site seeing we went onto the  Queen’s theatre in Westend to see Les Miserables. Althougha wonderful production it was a little hard to take, in the stuffy theatre with no aircon. We literally sweated through with the actors.

Who would have thought we could bring a heat wave to London

The next day the heat broke and the grey skies and rain storms set in – ahh this was the London we had been waiting for. We decided to have more of an administrative day and plan out how we were going to get to the depot to pick up our camper van for the next leg of the trip as well as working out how to buy a ticket for the ferry from Dover to Calai. We also made use of the Wifi at the hotel having a 25min Skype call to Mum and Dad.

We took the rest of the day to do a few more “jobs” including buying another mobile phone – we figured this would be 100% easier to do in an English speaking nation than in the rest of Europe.

We also took a memorable shopping trip at Primark- London’s version of Kmart to buy some clothes for San Fermin AKA the running of the bulls in Pamplona Spain – compulsory white clothes with red sash. I’m not sure if it was due to EOFYS or if this shop is always like this but the word bedlam comes to mind! I wish we had thought to take a picture of the chaos but somehow we managed to come out the other side as survivors – plus we found what we needed!

After this we headed back over to the Globe theatre via the tube (this was the 3^rd time we had been there by this stage) to watch a production of Dr Faustus – a Christopher Marlow play about the temptation of the devil and power. It was really excellent and both of us actually enjoyed it far more than the Westend production. We did however have to stand for the entire 3hours in the pleb pit around the stage but it was well worth it. An excellent finish to a beautiful city. We really loved London!

London Continues

Jet lag over - Let the fun begin!

After a couple of lazy days and meeting up with friends in London - Tom and Bec, Ringo, Steve and Suz, it was time to hit the tourist trail in a big way.

Day 2.

First on the list the famous 221b Baker St - home and office of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. A bike ride through Regent's Park on hire bikes from the one of the hundreds of bikestations dotted around London and cruised around the park where we saw a squirel and a giraffe - oh I may have forgotten to mention that the London zoo is located within Regents Park and you could see straight through into the giraffe enclosure.

Day 3

A Big Bus tour around London which we then used for transport for the next couple of days provided a great commentary of the city and ensured we didnt miss a thing. We also purchased a London Pass - ebtry pass for the majority of interesting attractions and sites around London - BTW if you ever want to buy one of these just pick one up from the tourist offce when you arrive DO NOT prebuy on the internet or you will wait in line for a whole morning as poor Tom and Bec found out.

Trafalgar square with the monument to Nelson and massive fountains commemorating his victory (and consequent death) at the battle of Trafalgar.

10 Downing St - home of the primeminister of England and underneath this building and its surrounding streets the Cabinet War Rooms - underground war bunker of Winston Churchill during the London Blitz. Dave also found another Churchill - CLIVE. We dont actually know who "Clive" was but his statue was outside the Churchill museum so we decided it was Clive Churchill in the history according to Dave and Cass.

Tower Bridge - not to be confused with the London Bridge - Londoners are very concerned about this fact.

The Tower of London where we had an entertaining Yeoman (Beefeater) tour - yes Dad they included the Welcome Home Australians for us. The tour guide "Bob" explained the history of the towers and various uses including treasurey, armory, palace, prison, torture dungeon and execution ground for politial prisoners most notibly Anne Boelyn. We also saw the crown jewels and various other royal treasures. Wishing that Dave had the money to buy me a star of Africa what a ROCK! You can tell where my interests lie.

We cruised up the Thames back to Westminster - a lovely way to view the city.

We ended up meeting Ringo and his girlfriend Rachel again on the Southern Bank of the Thames and finished the evening with a ride on the London Eye. Amazingly our ride took place at 9pm and the sun was only beginning to set! We had a perfectly uninterrupted view of the city - ahhhhh London weather dont know what the Poms complain about really....

The fun begins in London!

In the early hours of the morning we touched down in London. It was a beautiful sunny day - no i am not being sarcastic, it was literally bright sunshine, blue skies and no clouds!

We successfully navigated our way on the tube, after being given a free all day pass by a random who was just arriving at the airport (first impressions = English very friendly people) and were on our way to our hotel at Marble Arch! Marble Arch by the way is now on he site of Tyburn gallows where the majority of executions were conducted from 1388-1773.

After checking into the VSC we decided to continue our newly found tubenavigation skills by riding into Oxford Cirus and then walking down Regent St admiring the shops and amazing buildings all the way down to Picadilly Circus.

We then kept up the walk heading down Pall Mall (the beginning of the Monopoly street collection) towards Buckingham Palace where we ran into the Scots Guard band playing astirring rendition of "What a feeling" from Flashdance - definatley not what we expected! We arrived at Buckingham Palace just in tme to see the changing of the guards and hooked up on the back of a tour so we could evesdrop on the guide's explanation of the gates surrounding te Palace, nearest to which we were standing ironically was Australia Gate. The Queen also departed via helicopter while we were there and we saw the changing of the flag on top of the palace from the Queens flag to the Union Jack symbolising her departure.

After this we took a leisurely stroll though St James Park and along the Bridcage walk to Westminster Abbey and Parliment House and of course Big Ben (or at least the closck tower that contains Big Ben) named after Benjamin Hall - lucky his name wasnt Richard Hall (bad joke i know but was on all the tours). More to follow on a later blog.

We continued our walk along the Thames across Blackfriers Bridge to the Southside of the river and along to the Imperial War Museum - on a past trip to this was one of my favourite museums. So we spen the afternoon experiencing the 1st and 2nd world wars via audio tour, walked the trench experience (not as stinky as last visit by the way) and a special Holocaust exhibition - very harrowing.

We finshed the day with a pizza and fell into bed at 7pm -still light out....PHEW

And so we begin... Brisbane-Singapore-London

It was all action stations as we finally got ready to leave on the European trip of a lifetime. After spending 6 hours in the Gold Coast hospital the night before thanks to a last minute appendix emergency (Kate's - not mine or Dave's)and then having to locate the poor little patient the next day - we were serriously diverted 10times before someone was able to locate her in the day surgery unit...

Anyway - we were off!!!!!

The flight from Brisbane to Singapore was reletively uneventful and seeing as it was around 2-12pm at night for us we didnt have the great urge to sleep at all. Once in Singapore we found our next departure gate -which was conveniently located next to our arrival gate (someone was a thinker there) andset off to explore the awesome airport. Our exploration was short lived when we dicovered these free automated calf and feet massagers along the concourse and then sat there getting massages for around 40mins. (we were also trying to sort out our travel sims in ths time not just sitting around some more for the fun of it). We figured it was also proactive DVT management and that the little kids that wanted a go could just wait!

The next leg of the journey was in an Airbus A380 (the big double decker planes for those not in the know). We went for a hiking adventure up the stairs into business and first just to see the comparission between our humble squasiness and the luxury that an extra couple of grand makes.

13-odd hours later we landed in London.

Just as a side note: Snaps go out to Dave's for his first time out of Oceania and for touching down in 2 new continents in 1 day!