London (second time around)

Wednesday December 22, 2010 

I woke up at 9:30 am and ate the breakfast provided by the hostel, which consisted of cornflakes. And that was it. I only had a few bowls because the milk ran out, which was pretty disappointing; why didn't they go and buy some more? They should have had plenty in reserve anyway. Grumble grumble. I didn't have time to get more milk myself because I had to get to the meeting point for the free walking tour of London. This meeting point was the Wellington Arch, which I walked to from the hostel, a good half-hour walk through Hyde Park. My tour guide was called John. He spoke clearly and told a good yarn, and he's also an actor, apparently. So I don't remember too much about the tour, but it was informative, entertaining and enjoyable. Here are a few of the photos I took during the tour: 

A monument at the south end of Hyde Park, London.

Wellington Arch, London.

Behind that wall over the other side of the road is the Queen's back-yard.

Changing of the guards.

Buckingham Palace, London.

Changing of the guards.

A couple of squirrels.

Lancaster House, London.

A sentry near Lancaster House.

St James's Palace, one of London's oldest palaces.

Some statues beside Pall Mall and Waterloo Place, London.

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.

Horse Guards viewed across Horse Guards Parade, London.

Big Ben, London.

North entrance of Westminster Abbey

The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament, with Victoria Tower on the right.

After the tour, most of us went to a restaurant/pub near Leicester Square. The tour company (Sandeman's) must have some kind of agreement with the restaurant because they seem to take each tour group there at the end of the tour; the restaurant would get a fair bit of business out of it. I ordered fish and chips, as most of the group did, but the serving size was very small, quite disappointing. The company was fine though, and I discovered I was sitting with two girls from Melbourne - Lisa Smoorenburg and Lauren Deeth. I told them I also lived in Melbourne, but that I was originally from Daylesford; coincidentally they said they'd met someone earlier in their trip from Daylesford. Being a small town of 4000 odd people, I figured I'd probably know the person they met from Daylesford, or at least know of them, so I asked them; turns out it was David Rowbotham, who I went to school with and who I just missed by a day when I was in Marseille a few weeks earlier. And also coincidentally, Lauren Deeth is best friends with Lauren Brownhill, who is the older sister of Stacey Brownhill, who is one of my younger sister Rachel's best friends. And Lauren Deeth had also attended my sister Rachel's 18th birthday party in our shearing shed at home on the farm. Small world. As my former housemate Jim used to say, it's as though we all live on the same planet! 
My next task was to wander the streets of London to find a bike shop selling the elusive Schwable Marathon 26x1.5 tyre which I'd been looking for all over Europe for the past few months. Since my front tyre had exploded yesterday, I would need a new one to replace it once I picked up my rebuilt wheel from the bike shop. Could I finally find the tyre I was after right at the end of my trip? I was confident I could, in a city of eight million people. Sure enough, after visiting half a dozen different bike shops, I eventually found the tyre I was after, and bought it for £30 without thinking twice. If only I'd had those tyres fitted on the bike when I started the trip, I probably would have had about thirty less punctures than I did! I would still have to ride to the airport the next morning, so I'd reduce my chances of getting a puncture then, and at least I'd have good tyres on when I got back to Melbourne.
I then walked to Evans Cycles in Waterloo and picked up my wheel that they rebuilt with a new rim for me, which cost £72, including the rim. I fitted the new tyre there at the bike shop, and good old Florey was back on the road. I'd had enough of walking, it's a bit too slow to get around London, so I was happy to be back on the bike.
I rode back to the hostel and spend the rest of the evening there. I sat down with the iPhone to charge it, drank cups of tea with biscuits and surfed the net, investigating my flight booking and the current status of Heathrow Airport. Britain and much of Europe was still going through a cold-snap, and there had been an unusually large amount of snow, and so Heathrow Airport had mostly closed down, since they didn't have the equipment to clear the snow from the run-ways. And they were copping a lot of flack for it. The snowy weather was causing all sorts of chaos across Britain, so it was a good time to get out - except that it looked like my flight would be cancelled! I'd booked the flight before I left for the trip, and booked it so that I would arrive back in Melbourne on Christmas Eve, so that I'd be home with the family for Christmas, but now I expected I wouldn't make it home for Christmas. Most of the flights out of Heathrow had been cancelled for the previous several days, and there was apparently a huge backlog of people trying to get out, so I didn't like my chances. I figured I'd just have to go to the airport and try to catch my original scheduled flight and see how I go.
In the hostel I got chatting to a few friendly girls called Alex and Lauren, who were from Australia, Queenslanders from memory. There was also another bloke called Gianni Acciarri, from Italy. He was a freelance programmer, and his English was very good for an Italian. We walked to the supermarket to get a few things for tea. It was only a little supermarket though, and too expensive for me, so I rode to another larger supermarket and bought a heap of cheap food, including a few baguettes, cheese, salami, tomato, milk and salt & vinegar Pringles - much more than I needed if indeed I could catch my flight out the next morning. I ate the rolls for tea, and then just chilled in the hostel chatting to various folks, including an Irish girl, an American bloke and another two from Arizona. Upon hearing my predicament with the uncertainty of my flight leaving as scheduled, the American bloke suggested I call QANTAS to check whether the flight was cancelled. Not a bad idea, I must say. He recommended I download an app on the iPhone called Talkatone and call from that for free. So I did that, the app did the trick and I called QANTAS and got through pretty quickly, and the woman reckoned my flight would go ahead as scheduled. That was good news, but I was still sceptical; I would soon find out.
I'd been hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep, but I ended up running out of time; I surfed the net into the wee hours, then had to just pack up my stuff and head off, just before 6 am. I was keen to leave a few hours of contingency time in getting to the airport, just in case I broke down or got lost, and because I didn't know how long it would take to get there in the snow.

The bike riding for the day, Waterloo to Marylebone.

Overview of the route from Rome to London

Ride stats:

Distance: 6.25 km
Average: 17.5 km/h
Maximum: 24 km/h
Time: 21:22
Total ascent: 56 m
Total descent: 29 m