We landed safely at Heathrow and then proceeded through customs & immigration. Once again they didn’t check anything in our bags - NZ & Australia really are a lot more fussy about what they let into the country than the places we’re been to so far. We were also surprised at how antiquated things seemed at Terminal 4 in Heathrow – we had to line up for ages to get processed.
Natalie and Hayden met us when we walked out, and were all smiles in spite of having to get up at 5qm to come and get us. A forty minute ride had us back in Bramley, Surrey, where we met Sue, Natalie’s Mum. Once we settled into our room (ie dumped our bags) and freshened up, Hayden cooked us a wonderful breakfast. We drank coffee and caught each other up on what we had all been up to (Natalie worked at Idea Services in Dunedin until recently).
After we got all that out of the way, Natalie and Hayden took us on a tour of the local sights. Guildford is the main city in Surrey, and several movies have been made in the little villages in the local area - The Holiday, and 4 Weddings and a Funeral being 2 of the more famous ones. We had lunch in a village pub and continued on our tour of Surrey. We also walked around the ruins of Guildford Castle, which as built by William the Conqueror shortly after 1066. Of course it rained for part of the day – so naturally we had a BBQ for dinner and a great time was had by all. It felt just like being back in Dunedin on a typical summer’s evening.
Jet lag finally hit us the next day, so we took it pretty easy. We went on a wee drive and saw the ruins of Waverley Abbey, which was built in the 1100s. Wow!! The Maori hadn’t even discovered NZ then. Natalie intends to get married there when Hayden finally gets around to proposing to her. We also went to watch Hayden play cricket at a little village called Abber Hammer, getting there just in time to see him face his two last balls – the first one hit in him the crutch, and the second one clean bowled him. He was not a happy chappy for a while after that.
On Monday morning we took the bus into bus to Guildford. £30 later we were on a fast train bound for London, where we got off at Waterloo Station. We walked over to the London Eye and then all the way along the South Bank, stopping at the Tate Modern (among other things) where Hamish got told off for taking a photo of an Andy Warhol painting. We didn’t see the signs that said NO Photos, and lots of other people were taking photos. But we still have the photo so it was worth it. It was also good to see original paintings by people such as Monet, Manet, Picaso etc. We also walked through a vey interesting and old Cathedral along the way – built over 1,000 years ago.
We finally got to London Bridge, and crossed it with the throngs of other tourists. Got to the Tower of London to find out we had only ½ an hour to do the tour as it was closing, so that planned was scrapped. It was going to set us back £17 each anyway.
We took the Tube over to Victoria Station, found a little corner pub called The Prince of Wales and had our first London beer while we waited for our host, Cameron, to meet us. He finally arrived about 8pm, and we walked the few blocks to his basement flat in Westminster – the sort where you have to go down stairs below street level to get to the front door. Our room was a converted a coal room under the footpath, which had been renovated for use as a storage room. Cameron had put some airbeds in there for couchsurfers, and it served the purpose very well. The sleep was very sound, until 8am on the dot when a man started using a jack hammer about six foot above our heads.
So another day of adventure started. We set off around the corner to one of the theatres next to Victoria Station and bought cheap tickets the stage show “Wicked” – £20 each for seats five rows back from the stage, and slightly off to the side. Then we headed off on the 3 blocks to Buckingham Palace to see Aunty Liz and Uncle Phil, but no, the bloody Changing of the Guard was happening. We’re sure that every tour bus had dropped their passengers off there. We’ve never seen so much pomp and ceremony just for a change of shift. Well that’s what it is, right? We got bored with it after about 30 minutes (the main guy was still walking backwards and forwards across the yard like he couldn’t make his mind up what to do next) and went on to see more stunning buildings like Westminster Cathedral (Catholic), Big Ben & Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, New Scotland Yard. Onwards we walked to Trafalgar Square, which once again was very impressive with statues and fountains everywhere. Next visit was to the National Gallery. This place was amazing we got to see Renoir, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, and Cezanne. And yes, Hamish was told off again, this time for waving the guide book around in front of a Van Gogh.
After taking in so much culture we had a rest out the front on the lawn, and then it was off to Leicester Square, where we both hit the tired wall. So we found a bus and went back to Westminster. It was around 5pm so we went to a pub and had a beer or two and some food. This revived us so we were now ready for the “Wicked” show. It was fantastic, our seats were great, and can’t say any more as we would rave on too much – excepting to say that Deb has been humming the songs ever since.
Next morning was the start of another part of our adventure. We said our goodbye to Cameron and went via the Tube to Heathrow Airport where we picked up our rental car. We had pre-booked it before we left, but on pick up realised it was way too small for us with all our luggage, so we upgraded to a Peugeot 308. Made our way back to Natalie & Hayden’s (using the GPS we’d{really it was Hamish the Gadget Man} purchased online prior to arriving in London), picked up our main bags and continued on down to Crediton in Devon to see Sam – checking out Stone Henge on the way.
It was soooooo good to see him again. Once we had re-acquainted ourselves with our baby boy, we headed back to Exeter and he took us out for a meal as a birthday present for us. We had a lovely evening together and from there we went to our Exeter CS host (yes, we were couchsurfing again). This time we had a lovely Polish & Danish couple who has been in England for 13 years, Sylvii and her husband Leo. They very kindly said that Sam could stay with them too so that we could spend as much time together as possible – we are very indebted to them for that.
The next day we went for a drive to Torquay and by the time we got there it was pouring rain and we couldn’t see a thing. So we drove back to Exeter in the rain. Cooked a meal for our hosts and had an early night.
On Friday, the three off us headed off for Oxford. On the way we stopped in Bath, where we did a tour of the Roman Baths. That was very interesting and enlightening – Debbie never thought history could be so enjoyable. The architecture in Bath was very different to anything we had seen in England so far. We took a slight detour from bath and visited the one of the large White Horses etched into the hills around Avebury - basically the top layer of grass is taken off to expose the white clay beneath. Pretty cool sight, and visible for miles. By the way England still travels in miles - we didn’t know that! Next stop was the Avebury Henge, the ginormous version of Stone Henge that is not that well known, but is much older. It has lots circles of stones and covers several acres but isn’t in as good a condition. However, we thought it was just as impressive, and it was great that we could walk freely amongst it all. Onwards to our destination, a Travelodge on the outskirts of Oxford – struggling through our first major travel jam of the trip, taking over an hour to travel the last 10 miles. We found out later it was the last day of school, and apparently everyone in England was trying to get down the same 3-lane motorway we were on. Blurgh!!!!!!! Very tired by the time we got to the motel. Big sleep.
Next day was the Airshow at Fairford Airbase. We were woken at 0600, or 6am, by a very anxious Hamish. He was fussing around and making us breakfast, telling us whose turn it was in the bathroom and in general organising us. We were on the road at 0714 and were on our way to the Air Tattoo, which is the largest Air Show in the UK (as far as flying displays goes). It was a relatively quiet and quick trip and quick until the last 10 mile which took nearly an hour. We went through several checks, including one where a policeman took a sniffer dog all around our car. Finally at the gate the guys got a metal detector wand thing waved over them, then the next check they searched our bags. You would have thought we were actually getting on one of these planes.
The area was MASSIVE and even though there were 160,000 people there it didn’t feel like it. The area for displays and stalls and planes and people etc etc was the full length of a runway (2 miles). There were free double-decker buses running constantly taking people from one end to the other, with stops along the way.
We saw Squirrels, Chipmunks, Falcons, Lynx, Hornets, Hawks, Albatrosses, and Warthogs, (Debbie wondered for a while if she was at a zoo rather than an airshow). All jokes aside we saw some amazing planes and flying. Some of the pilots really knew how to throw those planes around. The highlights would have to be the WW11 Lancaster Bomber flying with a Spitfire and a Hurricane. Also the Vulcan bomber, which looks a bit like a giant stealth bomber, but was actually built in 1952. Hamish saw 20 planes he had never seen before and said that he had ticked several things off his Bucket List.
The next day we headed into Oxford for a quick look around. We paid dearly for parking, so decided to only stay an hour – and it was raining again (our only day without rain so far had been the airshow) The place was pretty but full of tourist with umbrellas, you could hardly walk on the footpath, so we were happy to leave. The architecture was pretty impressive though.We got back to Bramley by late afternoon. Not long after we arrived, Erin and her boyfriend, Ryan, arrived after flying back from Sienna, Italy. What a lovely time we had with our kids at Natalie’s place. We had a meal together that night with Natalie, Hayden, Sue, Ryan and The Joneses.
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