london

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #27 – London UK C & Home 09/11/25

9/11/2025 After my superb daily routine protein enriched brekky at my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel, I booked my Heathrow Express Train $53.00AUD for tomorrow’s departure (8.35am) to Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 (T4) & the XPT train from Brisbane Roma St to Grafton NSW train ($22.30AUD) for Wednesday 12/11/25. All should be set now & to eliminate any further anxiety build up for my departure however I’m still pondering on the train system seeing the train website says change at Terminal 3 Station for Terminals 4 & 5.

I headed off East along my usual direction of Bayswater Rd to Marble Arch (2.3km) where it meets Oxford St & went further down this street amongst the shops, past Regent St (very busy with shoppers) & ultimately down Charing Cross Rd which takes you through Shaftesbury Av & then Leicester Sq, to West End & to Trafalgar Sq with the iconic Admiral Nelson’s Column (169′ or 51.5m tall) overlooking the area.

Travelling this route took me through West End & the theatre area which presented a whole new theme of experience & in people watching was a delightful change. In the daytime it displayed much happiness & excitement.  Certainly, a change in demographic behaviour of people being so vibrant & alive to other parts of the city. Not sure how it would be at nighttime when in full swing & if it is really safe walking around plus the tube stations. There are so many theatres in West End district & no doubt if I was travelling with someone would have taken in a show or two.

When I reached Whitehall the barricades & police became very visible, for The Remembrance Day March was on & it was packed with servicemen & women marchers, bands, television cameras & people. It was a wonderful thing to see, albeit I only saw the last 40mins of it. London certainly put on a magnificent march; service & the applause was amazing. On its conclusion, it was certainly difficult for pedestrians to get around & escape the large corral they had put us in. The onlookers were more than keen to seek out a view of their loved ones & to see them march. Wherever I tried to squeeze through the public areas were jam packed & I could only take photos when the volume of people subsided a little. In trying to see as much as possible I ended up in closed off barricade corrals & no-go zones where I had walked days earlier & after a while I did about a complete circle of about 1klm before a barricade was ultimately released (procession was now over) letting me get some freedom.

I found a cafe just north of Westminster Abbey for a very late lunch & to sit & watch the volume of people walk past & the veterans & family members fill the surrounding pubs & hotels for the celebratory alcohol inducements & I must say, well-earned. The area was now pumping & wasn’t long before the alcohol in takers were squeezed out onto the footpaths. I’d like the police to try & push them back in & a battle they would surely lose. With a few things running through my mind I had forgotten to look at my ‘action list’ of today’s tasks & completely forgot to view St Paul’s Cathedral which is almost sacrilege in not undertaking. I drew this cathedral frontage to scale when in my 4th Year apprenticeship, decades ago as an assignment, so again not happy Jan!!!!

With my passive coffee intake & light lunch I headed up towards Buckingham Palace then back up to Oxford St to exchange my British Pounds for AUD at a sell rate of 2.40 which was the best I could find & there were quite a few of variations from all different outlets. Even some souvenir & candy shops did money exchange, but they looked more than suspicious when looking at the constant middle eastern or similar looking men with razor black eyes looking straight through you. Call me judgmental but I did not feel comfortable with their bold stances & voice tones. I found a reputable money exchange outlet in Oxford St providing the best outcome for me. I made sure no-one was watching me place my AUD in various pockets of clothing & backpack before leaving the counter. This area is full of people shopping & interacting and it felt like a random ant colony being attacked & at times with the demographic I had to remind myself I was walking in London UK (felt like another country at times).

By the time I had done all that it was getting a little late as I wanted to unwind before packing my bags, etc in readiness for the 3.30am alarm. I had walked 27,824 steps = 21.7kms & also pre-booked the taxi for 4.15am to Paddington Station.

10 & 11/11/25

Alarm set for 3.30am & finally to bed at 9.45pm which was much later than I wanted. A customary London black taxi arrived 4.15am as planned with a young English driver (expecting a foreign driver as I had often seen). He was quite a lively comedian this early in the morning & what seemed only a few minutes I had arrived at Paddington Station. He was a pleasant surprise to experience a real taxi driver & cab. Without a hassle I caught the 4.30am direct train to Heathrow Airport T2/ T3 platform. At this terminal stop I must disembark but stay on this platform as per the platform announcement & digital signage for the next train in 5mins takes you to my required Terminal 4. So easy. I must be there early as I’m prevented from checking in online for some reason. Following the good signage, I found my Qatar check in section. No problems, except for the wait & eventually we boarded for the 8.35am departure to Doha & I had the whole 3 seats to myself. Yay!!

I landed in Doha on time for a 2hr10mins layover, but our plane came in 30mins late with no notification until almost boarding time. With the forthcoming announcements we were told to enter a secured departure section for boarding. With me taking full notice of this announcement & the attending airport staff talking I stayed outside of this entry so as to warn the incoming passengers that once you enter there are no toilet facilities & you will not be allowed to exit & re-enter. Over a hundred passengers were trapped in this secured gate area for a further 20mins than planned. Some people struggled with no toilets in this area & were keen to obtain the plane’s toilet asap, despite the airline hostesses trying to get them seated first. What a debacle, but a lot of passengers were saved & thanking me with my warning outside of this gate. Eventually, we were all seated but very late for departure & I was beaming due to having a spare seat next to me for the long haul 14hr10min last flight leg. This is a hard extra-long flight to handle but I survived (this is my 4th, 14hr+ long haul flight I have undertaken since finally getting my passport at 60, back in 2016). Japan was 10.5hrs in 2024.

Unfortunately, the struggle part of the return home happened getting through our Australian Border Control & the frustrating Brisbane Airport Train to Roma St Station that got me to my George Hotel on George St at 7.20pm with no dinner opportunity apart from a sandwich & protein drink from a 711 shop. Finally, had a chance to wish my eldest son, Scott a happy birthday! That night I was contacted by NSW Transport that my train trip to Grafton had changed & now it will be by bus. Arghh!!!

12/11/25

Alarm set for 3.45am for another early checkout to walk up to Roma St Station to take in the recent change from a train to a Translink NSW coach bus to Grafton at 5am sharp. After a bit of check in hassle with my bag overweight for bus which is beyond a joke. The arrogant young lady doing her job I suppose made a big song & dance on my large bag being 21.5kgs, 0.5kgs over the limit. For a bus!!!! In my calm but frustrated conversation I stated, with onlookers present, I had been in 8 countries, 9plane trips & 7 trains over 43days & never been treated to such BS & arrogance. One lady standing next to me totally agreed with me & said “only in Australia” & typical “union flog” were her words. I took my bag behind this transport szar & took out some items & returned it for weighing which complied. To be a further pain & trying to get through to the szar on how a touring bus is loaded, all suitcases (heavy or not) are placed to the lowest level of a touring bus to help with the centre of gravity (bus is not top heavy then). She had such a vague look & said my bag is now right. Lol!!!! I then took my bag behind her again while she weighed other bags & returned my items to my bag, unbeknown to her. Problem solved & I even loaded the bag for the thankful driver in the base of the coach bus.

The bus left exactly 5am for a great trip to Grafton via the Pacific Motorway & ultimately the M1 expressway arriving at Grafton Train Station 9.30am with a full bus of passengers. I caught a local bus over the HUGE Clarence River to Prince St (Main St) & had a coffee at a fav café, Toast then a local 380 bus to my hometown, Yamba an hour away. I finally arrived at The Wobbly Chook (my 2nd home. haha) at 12.30pm for my brother to pick me up belonging to my cousin & his family where it is a boutique hotel of 20rooms, cafe & micro-brewery which atm is the only one in Australia operating like that.

Yes, I had a great welcoming home .. people missed me. hah. I am one of those lucky people that has never suffered jet lag, so I am able to handle all the time zones & body clock issues. All in all, my travelling time getting home was in total (allowing for layovers, hotel stay & waiting times) at 44hrs 20mins. 37hrs directly associated with travel & all of a sudden, it hit me … I had just completed Europe Stage 1 & saw so many things I thought were out of my reach in life.

Suffice to say, I’ll end my Blog #27 & my Europe Tour is now over, for reality will soon hit me with so many cousins awaiting my return to help them with their building & renovation projects & the dreaded Wobbly Chook detail kitchen clean (6hrs straight) I do every Wednesday morning when they close for half a day. Hope you enjoyed the volume of reading & more importantly, the photos? Many thanks for reading my 27 blogs on Europe however, I intend to do a summary blog on Europe Stage 1 a little later.

If you need more sleep time reading you can keep scrolling down from this blog on this website to see years of previous trips. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #24 – London UK- A 06/11/25

 HUGE number of photos of major London in this blog. My main London day & what a day!!!!!

6/11/25 Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel on Bayswater Rd is a fantastic stay & my room is very nice & the bed & the room entailed a great sleep. 7.30am is my usual fantastic breakfast on the 1st floor (same as Reception), so I was there at 7.45am & did I eat well! This enables me to get through my day without stopping for lunch .. too much to see. With great haste I was out the door & walking through Hyde Park again along dedicated walking trails but more a direct diagonal approach towards Hyde Park Corner (towards the Westminster City Centre). From there you see so many war memorials like The Bomber Command Memorial, statues of great significance like The Wellington Arch & beautiful autumn landscape everywhere you look. Amongst all the tons of leaves all over the grounds playful squirrels are abounding in their joyful playground. Obviously, people feed them despite numerous warning signage everywhere. I found one squirrel looking at me & when I did some soft clicking noises it came closer & then without any hesitation scrambled up my jeans to my knee allowing me to photograph it before it knew I had no food for it & ran back to its leafy playground. What an experience & to see them so playful .. leaving you with smiles all round. At certain points of walking paths intersections there are some handy directional signs, for this park is huge!

Within the meandering 5klm walk from my hotel I came up alongside Buckingham Palace, via Constitution Hill & the magnificent gates that would have cost a fortune to fabricate. I spent some time there seeing the magnificent Queen Victoria’s statue out the front & to take it all in; for my Mum was a real royalist who almost met the Queen in Parramatta when I lived in Sydney (The Queen basically walked past her at the gates to the new Cumberland Stadium of Parramatta’s Eels NRL club she was opening). I was so angry she ignored Mum, being the oldest in the very small crowd & out front). Mum was 1month younger than the Queen & they grew up ‘together’ in difficult times. Mum even looked like the Queen in life stages. I made this an important 1st thing to do in London for her. Happy now Mum (Mum passed away 2013)? She didn’t like Charles much, nor I.

The palace seemed much smaller than on TV & not as glamourous. Needs a bit of a wash on the sandstone. The famous balcony is not as high as I had thought also. The gates & fences were quite outstanding & so was the security (police with machine guns, etc). The Royal Guards (2 sets of 2 guards) do a well synchronised routine of walking the security gate of the palace. From the LHS, the palace extends well back & shows the gate where the royals, visitors & co would enter with their cars & again the security was quite impressive. There’s always a crowd here, so take your best photo possible.

From there, I went up the famous The Mall & towards the CBD with great historical buildings of grandeur & a little further The Duke of York Column caught my eye with its 40m height & a unique granite column slightly setback from The Mall roadway. With a little more walking I found myself at Trafalgar Square with an even more impressive Lord Nelson Tower Statue with its large bronze lions which is 52m high with Lord Nelson standing inclusively at 5m tall. This place is vibrant with street performers & pick pocketers of course, etc but it’s a great place to absorb & people watch. Phone snatching is prevalent in London now, so that is the major worry lately. This area then lead me to Whitehall (Parliament Area) where Royal Guards on horses are a photographic icon guard the complexes with high security police behind. I managed to see the horses & guards do their changeover to precision. This area also has the famous Cenotaph in the medium strip of Parliament St for Remembrance Day coming up.

A few more metres up I really wanted to go down Downing St, but the highest police presence prevents me plus it looks like there are permanent media setups just outside #10. Later on, I found out I missed a favourite of mine, The Captain James Cook Statue, for he was the one who discovered Australia, via Botany Bay on 28th April (my birthdate) but in 1770. One of the greatest navigators in history & achieved so much for England & the world. However, when looking at my photo of the Old Admiralty Building writing this blog, I had unknowingly taken a photo of the statue, so not all was lost.

Walking just a little farther I came across Westminster Abbey with the adjacent St Mary’s Chapel & the almost adjacent Big Ben (1mile away = 15min walk from Buckingham Palace) where I heard the bell tones of both icons along with the massive crowd near the river area. The Abbey was conducting a ceremony & services for the start of Remembrance Day & War Week. The suit dressed veterans & their family reps were very impressive, along with their badges & medals. The ground was cordoned off, so we could only watch with admiration. I was so impressed with the standard of this gathering in recognising the war veterans. So many poppies & miniature crosses all over the ground. I was a bit down on coming into the end of this wonderful ceremony but also no admittance today for the Abbey. So many great buildings in this area, like Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament (Lords & Commons), Victoria Tower & further away The Queen Elizabeth 11 Centre in purple lights. So much history here.

My next choice was to take a river cruise on the Thames River nearby. I took the option of the short river cruise of 3miles from Westminster Bridge (Westminster Pier) to Tower Bridge (Thames River Cruises suited me best at £14.50 return). We headed down the river seeing the main highlights like The London Eye (a giant 135m Ferris wheel with 32 air-conditioned capsules each holding 25 guests, located on South Bank). This attraction is the most popular paid tourist attraction with some 3mil passengers annually. It costs around $60AUD a ride for some 30mins rotation.

There are so many bridges of the River Thames, but one major structure caught my eye was the impressive Waterloo Bridge, totally constructed by women at the end of WW2, due to the lack of men available for construction. This bridge was built within the timeframe & under budget .. possibly no union involvement to stuff it up. I was so taken up about this bridge I neglected to get a photo. Another, almost hidden landmark near the HMS Wellington was The King Reach Commemoration Memorial which was erected for other reasons but establishes the boundary between The City of Westminster & London City. Of course, you can’t miss the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral & The Shard (London’s highest building at 310m & about £28.50 to do the lift to the top). The other thing was made clear to me was The London Bridge is not the Tower Bridge, such is my travel ignorance at times. HMS Belfast is right at the Tower Bridge & is permanently docked into this location as a naval museum. After we docked at the Tower Millennium Pier, I then walked over the bridge in all its magnificence & then onto the Tower of London adjacent to the bridge (notice my bridge photo with the iconic red bus in the centre of the bridge).

Walking right around to the other side of the Tower of London fortress I purchased the entrance tickets from the on-site office at £28.50. I walked straight in without much security checks & took the priority decision to view the Crown Jewels. The misconception is there’s no real high tower (my expectation) & the whole complex is basically a low-level fortress surrounded by an intentionally dried up mote, converted to a green landscape now. The actual ‘tower’ is a very large building, about 5storeys high with towers either side of the entrance doors & is located in the centre of the fortress.

I was so impressed with the tower’s entrance doors I was overtaken by some young ladies taking a group photo. I offered to take their photo for them, but one lady was already getting their camera ready, so I quickly scrambled under the security rope barrier to be outside the camera scope. When the photo was taken the ladies said thank you & I didn’t have to do what I did, although much appreciated. I said, that’s what I do & then told them about my adventure of being at the Louvre (Paris) when it was robbed (scroll down to see my older blogs) & they were so enthused I continued & said I had some cheaper jewellery for sale to much laughter & then prayed the Crown Jewels were still safe inside. LOL to more laughter.

The jewels, crowns, robes, spectres, etc were beyond belief!!! Of course, no photography, video .. nothing but your eyes to ‘record’ these amazing treasures. The crown used by Kings & Queen’s in their coronations was too much to comprehend in its magnificence. Super impressive. As you enter different chambers to do the viewing you can, if you look closely, you can see the steel safe doors, each about 250mm thick. So much locked security. It takes quite some time to view all the items in this tower & takes most of your time, leaving very little time for me to view all the other areas. This fortress area is huge!! Bought some great booklets to remember the Tower of London experience for £13.00.

Leaving the fortress, I walked aimlessly around the City of London CBD to photograph certain iconic buildings but with time closing in on me I had to walk with more pace back to the Tower Millennium Pier & finally managed to get the return cruise after a bit of an issue with a ferry conductor who had it wrong (wasted 40mins of my valuable daylight time). By the time the next cruise boat arrived it was dark however I managed to see the river lighting of the landmarks & buildings for great photos so that made up for the delay.

From Westminster Bridge to my hotel (Kensington) was walking in the dark & not doing the short cut through Hyde Park that late for obvious reasons. All the way back to my hotel using the walkways of major roads were plenty of people so I had no real apprehension doing the journey. London certainly looks brilliant with the lighting everywhere. King Charles obviously has no such pleasure on night lighting .. Buckingham Palace looks quite dim & uninspiring. With such a huge day I broke my walk record on this 44day Europe tour at 32,555 steps = 25.55kms from 8.30am – 7.20pm. No buses, taxis or Uber for me.

I’ll end my Blog #24 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blogs will be more of London UK. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.