Chapter 1: London

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DAY 1
At 5pm on Saturday we were sitting have a 'last supper' with the kids at the Southern Cross in Wellington. Watching driving winds and horizontal rain lashing anyone or anything in its path, wondering if Wellington Airport would be closed and our big adventure would fall at the first hurdle.

FAST FOWARD a day to 5pm Sunday and we were sitting in the Monkey Puzzle Westminster District London enjoying Bangers and Mash! I knew it, I'd been warned, I thought I was prepared - but STILL I ordered and award winning Badger beer off tap and the bloody thing was warm! 21 degrees and muggy and I'm sitting in a lovely beer garden drinking warm beer - the whole UK beer experience is going to be a much bigger challenge than I first anticipated!

SHATTERED! 23 hours of solid flying with just a 3 hour stopover at Singapore Airport. Thank god for the showers there, after a 10.5 hour flight from Auckland (leaving at 10 to midnight) and facing the prospect of a 12.5 hour flight from Singapore to London they were a saviour. No gym cubicle type stuff either - these were amazing, so much so that we've added a couple of photos. for just $8 you got a decent shower - everything provided, plus complementary water and snack bar if you wished. great service.

HEATHROW was mental! We arrived, walked for what seemed like miles along endless corridors to end up in a massive Border Security room - along with at least a 1000 others. You think Westfield Queensgate during the School Holidays is mayhem - in terms of big crowds and massive queues at home we're deifinitly playing none league footy and Heathrow Border Security is without doubt Premier League. It was jaw dropping stuff going from YAA we are here when we landed to OMG how many people are we behind in this queue. Our queue was one of 3 massive zig zag lines and initially we came to a hault right at the back of the formal queue - it continued beyound us, around the corner and out the door. To be fair the Border Control people were pretty efficient and we got through in about an hour.

DARLINGTON HYDE PARK
Our accomdation for the next 10 Days is about 10 mins from Hyde Park and 5 mins from Paddington Underground. The immediate area in full of 'cheap (a very relative term for accomodation in London)and cheerful' accomodation, of which the Darlington is rated the best of the type in the area (Trip Advisor). Basically the area would have once been grandish Victorian/Georgian homes and you get a real sense of woman with parasols, holding little doggys, accompanied by men with top hats and canes strolling leisurely through the leafy lanes. That is until you turn the corner a few minutes down the road and its - women in full Burka dress, hustle and bustle, large groups sitting at streetside cafes, laughing, talking, drinking and not a word of english being spoken! Most of the signwriting on the shops is in arabic to - Little Lebannon! All in all seeems like a pretty good base for our London adventure.

Down for our first full English Breakfast (of many) - then off exploring!

TIP1
bringing a 4 way plug which you can then plug into single adaptor, give enough plugs for computor, hair dryer, battery charging etc.

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Photos

Singapore Shower
facilities at signapore airport are awesome for the tired traveller.

Darlington Hyde Park
Base for our London adventure 1

Darlington Hyde Park
Jeanette at entrance

Darlington Hyde Park
Darlington is one of a number of 'cheap and cheerful' hotels in this block, this block is one of many in the area.

Comments

[Terence]

Warm beer.
The solution to the warm been problem is to go to pubs that have "extra cold" beers on tap. Which are reasonably common, and are the same temperature as beer over here. But only the big breweries like Carling and Fosters have their beers in an extra cold option so it's be like coming to NZ and drinking speights and export. I'd suggest preserving with warm ales, and trying as many as you can, but it's definitely not to everyone's taste.