Coast to Coast UK - And here we are!

May 14, 2024

After 22 hours of flying time, interrupted only by 1.5 hours of queueing time at Singapore airport where we only had time to move from our incoming gate to the outgoing gate and queue for the security screening, we arrived into London Heathrow at 0635 this morning.

Both flights were quite tolerable. I only got through one movie on the first leg. I spent the remainder of the time reading, or eating, and I am happy to report, the food was very enjoyable. I only had to hand a couple of snacks over to Wallsy because there was a chilli or capsicum factor, which is unusual. Wallsy managed a decent couple of hours of sleep before Singapore, whereas I tried and failed.

On the second leg however, leaving Singapore at 2315 local time, meant it was 0200 by the time we had eaten (again!) and they had dimmed the lights for sleeping. Because I do not get on well with the supplied headphones which are always too big for my head, refusing to sit anywhere near my ears, I gave up on the idea of any more movies, and settled instead to try and snooze. I did manage some sleep (even missing the take off because I nodded off!) and although it was interrupted by intermittent snack distribution and rubbish collection, I arrived with much more sleep under my belt than usual.

The new e-gate system for Australian arrivals at Heathrow, streamlined the process somewhat, although with the Melbourne-Singapore-London flight arriving at around the same time as the Sydney-Perth-London flight, there were a lot of arrivals to process. Baggage collected quickly, customs was a breeze – no one asked if there was anything to declare, we just walked on through, so we able to quickly catch a train on the Elizabeth Line into Liverpool street Station. Here, after ascending multiple escalators from the bowels of the earth, we found the Circle Line which popped us out at Tower Hill Station.

Wallsy was responsible for the accommodation bookings this trip, which means there are no Airbnbs involved, but there was a surprise destination for our two nights in London … we are staying at the Tower Hotel, with a view of my favourite bridge from the window of our room. I’m very excited, so much so, that I have announced my retirement from accommodation booking and will be leaving it up to Wallsy in the future. This will be fine until of course, he falls back into old habits and books a ‘soulless’ Holiday Inn, or worse still, a Holiday Inn Express, in which case the job will be wrested from his hands. I’m happy to say he has excelled himself this time though.

Once we had found our hotel and I had recovered from the surprise, we dropped our luggage, found a coffee spot and then walked up the hill to catch a Hop on Hop off Bus with a view to finding a museum of interest, as although it was warm by English standards (a high of 20 in London today), it was a bit drizzly and we also weren’t feeling overly energetic. To achieve this we took the Red Route bus as far as Marble Arch where we switched to the Blue Route in order to reach the area which holds the Science Museum, Natural History Museum and the V&A. On the way, we witnessed something you would only expect to see in Britain ... 3 mounted Life Guards - 2 troopers and a trumpeter, crossing at the pedestrian lights on Hyde Park corner.

Reaching the museum precinct, we opted for the Science Museum, and spent some time learning all about James Watt and other pioneers of steam driven machinery which had been the impetus for the Industrial Revolution. We then went upstairs to further explore the role of London and The Royal Society in science and innovation, before Wallsy heard the café calling and both lagging a little by then, we refuelled with cake and coffee.

Wandering back to take a look at the old Gloucester Road Tube Station we then caught a Blue route bus back to Marble Arch to reconnect with a Red route bus and complete our round trip. The traffic made the return journey quite slow, and we arrived back at the hotel, with just enough time to check in, and have a much longed for shower to refresh ourselves before heading out again to our dinner booking in the building known as the Walkie Talkie, a fifteen minute walk away.

The driver who took us to the airport had mentioned that there is a great garden bar at the top of this particular building, as well as a couple of restaurants. You can also get free tickets just to go up and take a look, but they have to be pre-booked and there were none available when I checked. I booked dinner at the Darwin Brasserie on the 36^th floor instead, which gave us access to the balcony on the 35^th floor on the way through. We had an amazing meal before wandering back to our hotel, around the walls of Tower Hill and along the Thames.

As I write, I am seated at the window of our room, looking out onto Tower Bridge, which is magnificently lit for the night.