Family Gathering Trip Day 1 - England - London - Getting There & 1st Day

The day has finally arrived. I am off to England & Ireland. 

My Parents drove up from Cooma to Canberra and arrived at my place around 10am. We left for the airport at about 10.45 arriving at Canberra Airport with plenty of time to spare. Lisa, Jason, Isobel and Alexander came to the airport to see us off.

We boarded for our first leg of our journey at about 13.10.  

Canberra Airport

It was interesting flying over Lake George. I didn't realise there were so many wind turbines. It was very dry.

Lake George

Upon arriving in Sydney we left the plane and were loaded onto a bus. It was all a bit bizarre as we we set off the bus drove about 100 metres, turned around drove back past the plane and dropped us off about another 100m further on.

We proceed to the international transfer gate and were put on another bus. There were 4 people on the bus with Cricket Australia tops on, I recognised one person who turned out to be Darren Leahman.

We had a couple of hours wait till we boarded flight QF1 to London.

We boarded the plane and waited to undertake our long journey. The first 7 hours of the trip went well I watched a couple of movies, we were served our first meal, Dad & I had ordered gluten free meals so we were served first. The meal was terrible it was some spicy curry.

The next 7.5 hours were terrible I couldn't get any sleep I got sick of watching tv and I couldn't concentrate to read. It felt like the longest 7.5 hours of my life.

We were very glad to arrive in Dubai so we could get off the plane. We only had enough time to get of the plane go to the loo and find the gate where we had to board again. In no time at all we were back in our seats for the final 6.5 hour trip to London.

Dubai Airport

Mum & Dad getting ready to settle in for another 7.5 hours

I look better than I feel.

Dubai Airport

We set off for the next leg with hopes of being able to get some sleep. This was not to happen. I managed to doze a bit a couple of minutes at a time. At 3.30 we were surprised to be served another meal which they called supper.

Yippee we are finally over England.

First view of the English countryside.

There's the Thames.

Yippee we finally made it. It was good to get off that plane. We headed off to get our bags we saw Shane Watson in the luggage area. We then headed to Customs and were relieved to see the line was not very big, we were through in about 10 minutes. Whilst waiting in line I am sure that I saw Will Anderson. 

We had nothing to declare so walked straight out and headed for the tube.

We emerged at Warren St Station on Tottenham Court Road and headed for our apartement.

Our Home for the next 4 days.

The Kitchen


Living Room/My Bedroom.

 Having my first cup of tea in England.

After dropping our bags off and having a cuppa we headed off to the Marylebone Markets (0.7 miles from our apartment) to get some nice fresh produce for the next few days.

Fitzroy Square a block from our apartment.

The beautiful buildings around Fitzroy Square.

My dream car has always been an Aston Martin so I got very excited when we found 3 in the same street, but it was Harley Street, they must belong to rich doctors.

The Harley Street Clinic.

The Marylebone Market.

Some lovely raw milk. We bought raw cheese and the best butter ever from this stall.

The tower is the BT (British Telecom) Tower which is right behind our apartment.

The first motorbike store I have seen in London.

We returned to the apartment to drop off our purchases and then headed into Oxford St.

Oxford Circus.

On our way back from Oxford St we stopped at Sainsbury's to get a few grocery items. I found these glasses of wine I have never seen anything like these in Australia.

Our first nights dinner, a lovely rare breed steak, mash potato, carrots and asparagus.

We went to bed around 7.30 as we were so exhausted after being awake for nearly 2 days.