Hello London! [Backpacking over 60]

This is the second instalment of Libby’s 2006 international holiday with no plans. To see her previous blog, click here. 

Hello London! We had arrived. 

We went with my brother to get the car in the carpark. We had leased it for all the time we would be over there and I am so glad he was driving as he had picked the Renault up in Paris a few days before and of course because most of our time we would be in Europe it was a left hand drive… not a mean feat to drive that in London rush hour!

We arrived at our only pre arranged accommodation for the whole time we would be over here.

It was very clean but a rabbit’s warren of hall ways and small rooms but smack bang in the middle of Earls Court. We got our bags into the room and realised our phones even with global roaming weren’t working properly, we thought! Yes they were but we also realised the way they set up it would cost us an arm and a leg to use them… we would buy a cheap one tomorrow with an English sim card. My brother left to find accommodation where he could keep the car close and be in contact tomorrow

Dont forget we were over here for the World Cup! We went in search of of somewhere to catch a game and have a drink we only walked about  two minutes around the corner and found a pub. The game Australia and Brazil was just about to start so we got a drink and found a table… Lucky! Within minutes of the game starting we heard this guttural GUZ, GUZ, GUZ (the first name of the Aussie coach at the time). Next thing the pub was over run with Aussies all wearing Aussie shirts, hats, flags and with plenty of high spirits. As the game started our national anthem was being played and all of the Aussies in that pub sang it word perfect at the top of their lungs – it was great to hear! We left when the game finished we needed sleep but the other guys partied on until the wee hours.

We fell into bed at 9pm and when we woke it was 4:30am the next morning but we had been woken by the cries of seagulls. Once I had looked out the window to make sure our arrival in London wasn’t a dream I went back to bed and promptly fell back to sleep until about 6am. Breakfast was at 8am and boy oh boy we were starving!

After breakfast we were off to do some sight seeing. Our travel agent at the time had got a “Hop On Hop Off” bus tour included with the accommodation. It was a big red double decker open top bus (we liked it so much we did this in a couple of other countries). We saw it all and if something took our fancy we would get off have a good look and then hop back on the next one along. One thing we found interesting was the way they deter pigeons from all the popular landmarks it was with falconers. Yet, some of my only memories of London before we left was feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar square. We did London in a day, no mean feat but we were expecting to come back before leaving to go to home (next year we will be going back only taken eight years)!

When we got back to our room we were again starving but not feeling like going to a restaurant we went to a supermarket we bought everything that looked good took it home and had a picnic on our bed and washed it all down with a French wine… just chillin’ until tomorrow when we leave here and start our adventure!

Yeah, we are to be picked up today by my brother but we really didn’t need to wake so early.

Old buildings creak and this one is a doozie it really creaks. The people upstairs were moving around at about 3am, my husband reckons a bit of “hanky panky” was being had, not sure about that! My take on it (not the hanky panky) but the creaking is it was the Victorian eras alarm system if anyone climbed through a window as soon as they set foot on the floor you would hear them!

Plans changed, the traffic is so bad my brother can’t get any where near London it has taken him 20 minutes to travel 200 metres. So we will meet him at the train station and we said goodbye to London. it took us about an hour to get from Earls Court to Harpenden (a bloody long way) up north where the car was parked.

Next stop Bradford to say hello to our English rellies.

Hello Bradford!

Wow what a change all my childhood memories were gone in a few hours. I had to remember it had been a long time but what had happened to where we lived was unforgivable. A lot of the places had been pulled down and where there had once been tidy gardens and nicely kept houses were just rows and rows of unkept gardens and rubbish. About the only place that looked exactly the same was my paternal grandmothers house was just as I had remembered it.

After saying hi to relatives that we shocked to their socks as not expecting us we went looking for accommodation. The only place available due to the world cup was Bradford Hilton and it was right opposite Bradford City Hall. As kids we were told that the Town hall was built out of coal… what a fib that was! It has all been cleaned up now and isn’t black and sooty like it was back then.

We had a meal and went to our rooms I fell into bed at about 11pm, I think my husband did too can’t be certain though as I was asleep before I hit the pillow!

We awoke the next day to explore the city centre. Bradford had put on the weather for us it was freezing! After being frozen to the bone and not really remembering anything of the city centre we went off to spend some more time with the rellies. After all the hellos and promising to call back before we left to go back to Australia we headed for Dover.

We stopped at some roadhouse so my husband could watch some game he was certain he couldn’t live without in the World Cup. Again we needed somewhere to sleep. We found a little Inn that must have been built when Queen Elizabeth first was Queen. The rooms were very small and you had to bend your head to go through a door but it had the best beds and lots of hot water!

We were awake very early and headed for the tunnel… no vacancy until 5pm!

Not to worry we headed for the Ferry and got on no problems. We went and had breakfast as we watched the white cliffs of Dover recede into the distance.

Goodbye England for now and hello Europe!

Stay tuned for Libby’s next instalment in her incredible overseas adventure! 

Have you ever returned to where you lived throughout your childhood? Tell us about the experience in the comments below…