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Day 8: Inverness, Loch Ness
Our last full day in Inverness and, once I finish this entry, I’ll have caught up on the backlog of days. G wanted to have a quiet day pottering around the B&B and town, possibly a little burnt out from our “short trip to Dufftown” yesterday where he was the driver. M&P wanted to do some wandering around Loch Ness, so I happily joined them. We headed south, and were soon alongside the loch, traversing the Great Glen that basically splits the Scottish mainland into two bits. It’s certainly a very beautiful split, driving along Loch Ness if one stunning view after another, once the trees part. Our first stop…
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Day 7: Inverness, Culloden, Dufftown, Speyside
“A short trip to Dufftown”, words that will live in infamy almost as long as the Duke of Cumberland’s orders of “No quarter” at Culloden. Travelling with a member of Clan Donald, a visit to the battlefield of Culloden was on the itinerary. You won’t get a history lesson here, as a chunk of what I know is derived from reading the Dr Who novelisation of The Highlanders as a pre-teen. The visitor centre was a decent experience, more balanced than I expected, but I guess we’ve got to a point in time where we can interpret events like this with a more nuanced view, looking at world context, the…
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Day 6: Glasgow – Inverness
Writing this two days behind, while G, who has been part of the team keeping me up drinking some quality drams, complains that I’m not up to date. Last morning in Glasgow was uneventful, I did the usual wake up too early so was left with a bit of time to wait before I could check out of my room (they only had part-time reception and wanted to make sure I checked out properly). Turns out no one turned up at 9am so ended up lugging my bag in one hand up Bath St and calling them to let them know I was checking out. Met the gang at the…
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Day 5: Glasgow
Now where were we? Then it was walk, kebab, sleep, hangover. Welcome to Glasgow. Ah, I remember now. It was a rather slow morning, doing as little as possible while my liver and kidneys did what I brought them along to do, and the paracetamol kicked in to help some. I was upright and mostly human by around 11.30am, just a little too late to get the breakfast menu at the nearby Smile Cafe, but in time for the lunch menu including some amazing pizza by the slice. And when I say slice, they say 1/4 of a whole pizza. With this amount of salami and zucchini pizza, plus a…
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Days 4: Frankfurt-London-Glasgow
Early start in Frankfurt, as my flight to London was a 7am departure. I figured if I got to Frankfurt Hbf a little after 5am I’d be fine. It took me a little while longer than expected to get everything together, not helped by a crap night attempting to sleep while my brain kept poking me to make sure I didn’t oversleep and miss the flight, so I got the the station around 5.15am, still a comfortable amount of time in theory. I hadn’t accounted for the happens-more-often-than-expected thing that German trains sometimes do run late. Germans will joke about this, crazy as the concept seems. So I board the…
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Day 1 – Transit to London
delayed on tarmac olympic screamer leg room culture swap bizarre night club delayed landing run to Holborn checking in the flat the neighbourhood the noise the fruiterer Trying something different, I figure if I put a bunch of dot points a the start then I’ll try to write to these and remember everything. Or most things. Or something. It wasn’t the greatest flight from Changi to LHR, which had nothing to do with the lovely SIA staff. Got on the plane with plenty of time, though furiously chugged water at the gate before the screening, forgetting the whole liquids thing. Remind me next flight to pack an empty bottle. It’s…
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TiconTour13 is nigh
I thought I’d have a bit more time to post the lead up to this, but am almost all packed and off to the airport tonight. Tomorrow morning I’ll have 2.5 hours at Changi airport, then it’ll be next stop LHR (London Heathrow). I should be arriving around 3.30 pm GMT (none of that UTC stuff here for this trip!). The cat is being pouty beside me, she knows what suitcases mean: one less slave. As to the cases, I’m taking two: a small, almost hand-luggage sized one full of books (14.7kg), and a larger one with everything else (12 kg). I’ve also gone to the darkside, travelling with a…
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Ticontour13 – coming soon
Stay tuned for more info. Brighton, London, and other places. Flights are booked and paid for, from late October and returning early November. Had originally booked to leave London on 5 November. Worked out it was Guy Fawke’s this morning, and changed my flights. This turned out to be a challenge, as the Singapore Airlines website cheerily changed my flights to London as well, not the dates or times, just the ticket type. Yay. In the process I lost my lovely seat on the A380 SIN-LHR, the one I paid extra for a good seat. So Singapore Air got a rather terse bit of feedback from me. Flights all sorted…
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Day 32 – London – Transit – Dubai – Transit – Perth
The end. Woke up in London, packed all the last minute stuff, and had out last continental breakfast. Also 5 minutes for my last errand, leaving behind the contained mum’s ashes were in. Took this to the church around the corner, St James. Tried to find someone to speak to, in the end I wrote a note, lit a candle, and put my remaining coinage into the donation safe. Had a miniddrama at the airport, as Emirates wanted to slug us extra for the upgrade (apparently the UK has a tax on upgrading to business class). Us, being simple, honest folk who believe if we’re quoted a figure, we’ll pay…
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Day 31 – London
Sadly our last day in London. Sad, as there’s still so much to do and see. I am looking forward to being home. To make the most of it, we seized the day for a last stroll through Hyde Park, hanging with the squirrels, before strolling down Oxford St. I was feeling a bit foot weary, so thought we could catch a few buses around, from Marble Arch down to Trafalgar Sq, but L wanted to walk, knowing we’d be sitting on planes for the next day. So we compromised. We walked to Regent St, via Selfridges so L could have a Lola gluten free cupcake (a delayed birthday cake).…
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Day 30 – London
After yesterday’s culture, today was all about touristy stuff. I guess it’s one of those things, L and I don’t really see ourselves as tourists, as those are the folks on package tours who turn up in big buses and get led along and shown things and stuff like that. We’re visitors, we turn up, do our thing at our own pace, doing our own research and stuff. I think it’s a more internal, mental thing. (We did try to describe ourselves as travellers, but over here they’re gypsies.) We visit places, we don’t necessarily tour them. Today’s visiting involved strolling through Green Park, finding that to be one of…
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Day 29 – London
Ah Monday, a day of culture, or something. Another day and i’m feeling a bit walked out after yesterday’s efforts at Kew gardens, so the path of least walking sounds good. This means tube with a change to the Victoria line, and down to Pimlico for a quick wander through Tate Britain. The Tate is kind of a selfish pleasure for me, as it’s full of my favourite paintings, or at least should be. It’s also been a bit of a let down, too, over time. My first visit was when they had closed the Pre-Raphaelite room, so allI got to see was The Lady of Shalott as it was…
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Day 28 – London
Today we caught up with L’s cousin E, who lives somewhere south of woop-woop (actually in the commuting belt for London, but outside the M25 so therefore in the boonies). We rushed down breakfast in order to make all the right trains, and got ourselves to Hampden Court, locale of the famous palace where Henry VIII liked to park his rump on occasion. Met E, and decided to check out the grounds of said palace. Not sure about E, but L and I were craving a little greenery and open space. The greenery soon got cold, so we decided a picnic in nearby Kew Gardens would be good. We piled…
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Day 27 – London, L’s birthday
Today was L’s birthday. Regardless of how old she claims to be, in London she is a baby (I would say spring chicken but we’ve seen that on a few menus lately). The hotel building is many times her age; our local underground station is three times her age; and London had grey hair before she was born. We spent the morning wandering around the Camden Markets, an interesting sprawl of little markets that combined make up on big marketplace. Interesting, fascinating stalls, shiny things, clothes, souvenirs, fabulously smelling foods from around the globe, the ultra modern and the trendy retro, bizarre and grotesque items, and heavy metal t-shirts, among…
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Day 26 – London
Another catching up binge. It seems that time flies when you’re … tired. As much as anyone loves travel, it is tiring being a long way from home for any length of time, and it’s starting to catch up with me. With the zombie cold from hell that has been following us back with a vengeance, I miss the comfort of home. So trying to remember back to last Friday. kicked off the day with our favourite laundromatte. We’re getting the hang of these machines. Then it was time for the big time machine trip: The British Museum. Home of much cool things, from the old to the really old.…
