Blogs from Heathrow Airport, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

The first blog of my African adventure is taking place at London Heathrow. I flew from Dallas to Chicago (flight was late, of course) and barely made my connection to London. I am carrying a god-awful backpack that must weigh 300 lbs, at least it feels like it! I am also pulling a small suitcase behind me. It seems crazy I know, but the main issue is my camera equipment. I am travelling across the planet to Mozambique where I will research, watch, and cavort with whale sharks and manta rays...I must have my camera equipment! Checking my cameras, strobes, chargers, mounts, and computer seems risky to me, from Dallas to Chicago to London to Johannesburg to Inhambane, Mozambique. A lot could go wrong in that distance, and there will be no camera stores in Tofo, ... read more

Hello all, So as I am doing a big moving trip I thought it might be good to do a travel blog again! Even though I can partially blame my bad thesis writing on my blog! Nonetheless I wanted to share this adventure with my few friends and family that might like it :) Crazy last few months and weeks, an amazing leaving do and a nice chilled week end with my dear friends in brighton and a departure at 6 in the morning with so so many luggages and a long trip, we are now finally waiting for the plane. I am so tired, but I ate the amazing fruit given to me by my friends and now chilling. Saying goodbye the last few days was hard but I know I ll see them again ... read more

So here's our first blog and a map showing our route (which certainly could have been organised with less airmiles if BA flew directly between every country we wanted to visit). Day one of the trip didn't start too well when the check-in attendant asked if we had Australian passports as we didn't have visas for our UK passports...fortunately after a quick call and £30 each, she managed to arrange one. Even better news was that the visa person decided we should be upgraded to business class; hopefully Stacy's Gold BA Exec card will have the same effect everywhere we go. Probable schedule: 13 April - Fly London to Sydney >01 May - Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney 02 May - Fly Sydney to Cairns > 11 May - Cairns, Whitsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef 11 ... read more

This is the first chance I've had to log in since leaving Maryborough, so I'm playing catch-up ... (Thursday) “Flight attendants, take your seats now! Passengers, secure your seatbelts.” The flight captain’s urgent instructions soon scattered the attendants and was followed by the mass clicking of seat belts, a few moments of turbulence, and then … silence. That minor drama as we flew through a thunderstorm out of Singapore was the only hiccup during our 30+ hours of travel from Maryborough to Southhampton, England. Mind you, the tight security, including police walking around the Aubi Dhabi airport carrying semi-automatic weapons, was there for a reason considering their neighbours’ history. Although a tad daunting, it did make us feel secure. The Arabian flight service, Etihad, on which we travelled from Brisbane, was also run with military precision ... read more

How is it even possible that it's been 2 years since I packed up my desk, packed up my room, packed up my bags and left the world of 9-to-5 behind me? Time has flown by and in just a few hours I will be packing up my bags once again, checking in and jumping on a big plane winging its way back to Blighty. In many ways I absolutely cannot wait to set foot on British soil (or tarmac) again, but a part of me will never be ready for this moment. So in a desperate attempt to calm my brain and organise my emotions at this turbulent time, I thought I'd do a blog on all the highs and lows from my travels. Plus it'll save me answering the “what was your favourite thing ... read more

I arrived in Melbourne after a very short (only 3 hrs) flight at 10:30pm, and in true backpacker style, decided to sleep in the airport that night. Didn’t see the point in paying for a bed for the night plus the shuttle bus fare to the city, when, if I waited until the morning, I could get reimbursed. (This is the kind of thing backpackers take advantage of.) My plan didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. The airport made very loud, hourly announcements, so sleeping was pretty difficult, but there was a coffee shop open all night so I did get to drink lots of coffee. Spent the next three days looking for jobs and handing out CV’s to local restaurants and shops. Melbourne hostels are quite a bit more expensive than up north, so ... read more

20 minutes ago I should have been stepping off the plane into 32 degrees of heat in Nairobi, I had grand plans to visit the national park in the afternoon and maybe stroke a giraffe in the giraffe centre... but no my plane was delayed initially by 15 minutes due to the plane being late, and when it arrived it had a technical fault so it was delayed a further half an hour but an hour later it was cancelled. This is the first cancelled flight I have ever been on so what happened next was all new to me. they advised us that they were going to take us out to the bus stop and pile us all on coaches and take us to the park inn all 350 of us! of course then there ... read more

Thursday February 9, 2012.....We landed at 8 am (U.K Time) the next day in London and after what seemed like an hour of wandering through miles of empty terminal, we made our way through customs. NOTE: Either they spend many hours training their agents to look bored and disinterested or they must only hire those who can already maintain a totally disaffected look. In fact we saw one agent who performed a remarkable eye roll and glare when a traveler ahead of us was directed to her desk. Quite amazing really...she was able to make all the passengers in line cringe and shudder. I do believe I saw one or two older passengers cross themselves and mumble a quick prayer to the saint of air travel not to get sent to her. Once allowed ... read more