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Published: August 25th 2008
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August 23 2008 - Canberra to Sydney to London to Edinburgh
Even though we both knew the itinerary, it seemed to take forever to travel from home to our first stop in Edinburgh. We are really grateful to John and Paula who picked us up from home and drove us and our 40kg luggage to the airport. Time for a quick cuppa and a chat before we headed for the security gates and the first of many times we had to extract the laptop, declare that we weren't carrying liquids and waiting to hear the beep go off as we passed through the scanners. Thankfully they didn't.
A short trip to Sydney via a little eggbeater and then a short wait for our flight to Heathrow. Thankfully Sue has joined Qantas Club so we could spend the wait time in the lounge instead of sitting idly by in the transit lounge. We boarded our 747-400 at 4:30 pm and then headed off to Singapore. There was a short stop at about midnight Singapore time to refuel and clean the plane. We had to take our cabin luggage off so when it was time to re-board we had to do
the security clearance thing again (out comes the laptop, oops forgot to get rid of the water bottles, still no beeps from the scanner). At about 1:00 am Singapore time, we took off and settled in for the long leg to Heathrow - nearly 13 hours in the air!! Even though we had a bit more room than in economy, it was still hard to get a decent sleep and we both felt a little washed out when we arrived in London.
We had about 3-4 hours to wait for our next leg to Edinburgh but thankfully had access to the BA business lounge which made the waiting a bit easier to take. A bit of concern when I noticed a carryon bag and laptop that looked abandoned in the lounge. BA staff made a couple of announcements but I am still not sure if the gear was claimed or they had security take it away and send the robots in to dispose of it.
Finally our flight to Edinburgh was called and about an hour later we landed in the Scottish capital. We had a car booked and went to do the pickup, only to discover that
instead of an Opel Vectra, they had allocated us a Volvo CX90 - very nice but sooooo many buttons and controls to try to work out. Especially difficult with only 2-3 hours sleep in the last 36 hours or so!! Got the GPS working and twenty minutes later pulled up at our Fountain Court apartment just off the City Centre.
Edinburgh Sunday 24 August 2008
Very nice little unit and we scored an off-street car park in the complex as well! Sue had a quick nap (for about 2 hours) and I did a little explore of the area. Had a nice dinner and a couple of quick ones at the pub up the road, then back to the unit. Afraid we didn't last past about 8:30 pm (add nine hours to adjust to OZ time) and crashed. Up at 3:30am but not fazed as we are still working on the time change. We had a quick look at options for the day and it looks like we will check out the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Also the Fringe festival finishes today so we will take in some of that as well.
P.S seems the locals only drink beer in pint glasses, so Geoff felt obliged to join the custom. This could account for the quick descent into unconsciousness!
Edinburgh Monday 25 August 2008
Well now we know what happens when you have jetlag...... you wake up at 3.30am and want to start the day. Pity no one else does! So we read books, watch the same stories on Sky news that the rest of the world gets and hear how well the GB team did coming 4th on the winners table in the Olympics. Same comments, different country. It could have been Australia.
We started out at 8.30am looking for some breakfast and returned at 4pm having done the Royal Mile. Talk about easing in to some heavy duty walking slowly? I reckon we probably walked about 10 kms and by the time we returned my legs were aching a lot. The highlight of our walk to, and between Edinburgh castle and Holyrood castle was the opportunity to get a good idea of the history of the old town. When we first came upon Edinburgh castle the sight was very impressive as it rises out of a
volcanic plug and is about 100 metres above the lower road. As we climbed the stairs to the top we saw the temporary seating for the Tattoo were still erected and marvelled that the spectacle we see each year on the TV happening here on a narrow road leading uphill to the castle. Amazing how TV makes everything look different.
We made our way down the Royal Mile taking in the architecture of the 1700's which rises starkly out of the roadway up to 5 storeys high. There is little colour or decoration and most buildings are covered with centuries of soot. The conformity of the architecture is destroyed when we reach the end of the 'Mile' near Holyrood Castle with the appearance of the Scottish Parliament which is an ultra modern building. What a shock in this historical precinct.
We spent a few hours taking in a photo exhibition at the Parliament and then toured the castle. This castle is still used by the Queen when she comes to Edinburgh for receptions, garden parties and investitures. It has a remarkable history, particularly at the time of Mary Queen of Scots. It must be a very cold place
to stay as there are wooden floors, high ceilings and few curtains. We had our first taste of acting the tourists as we strolled from room to room with our audio guide. It was a strange dance as small groups of people moved in unison from room to room. It was a good way to learn the history of the people and place at your own pace. We finished our tour at the ruins of the 12th century Abbey and the palace gardens.
Later in the day I tracked down the statue of the Greyfriars Bobby, a small dog that is famous in Edinburgh for his devotion to his dead master. I remember seeing a very old film telling the story and vowed I would track him down if we ever came here. The statue sits in a busy street leading down to the Greyfriars church and can easily be missed. Mind you it amazed me how popular he is with many tourists stopping to take photos.
After a long day we headed back to our lodgings for a well deserved rest and will later head back to the pub for a meal and maybe a pint!
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Chris
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Photos
Glad to see you made it. It looks like you have made it into some kind of aspect ratio space warp though :) Is that because the travelblog is forcing the aspect? Also I notice some of the outdoors shots are a bit overexposed (the sky is glowing, and the castle ramparts etc look a bit washed out). Make sure the exposure compensation is set to about -0.7 or -1.0 (under-exposed). The D40 apparently tends to overexpose. You can always lighten an underexposed photo, but if it gets overexposed you will lose colour detail. Also a tip, if the foreground (those goofy looking tourists) are more a lot more darkly lit than the background (eg. in shadow or bright background), you can use the onboard flash to tweak the light level. You may have to fiddle the exposure a bit to get it to look right.. Keep us posted. Chris.