Oz

Home safely!

Landing in Hobart

Dubai

Arrived in Dubai at around 4.30 am after a reasonable flight (7.5 hours) - if there is such a thing. 

Spoke with  James who was awake in London and following our flight. 

Had about an hour stopover before boarding for the flight to Brunei. 

Dubai Airport walkway - I know, poor excuse for a photo!

Another uneventful flight to Brunei, arriving at around 5.30 pm after an eight hour flight. here we had a two and half-hour wait for the flight to Melbourne. We left at 8.00 pm for the last leg to Oz.

Brunei

Leaving London Day

It rained heavily overnight and this morning, at the same time we were reading headlines in the Oz papers that Melbourne was experiencing their coldest morning in fifty years. It looks like we have dodged a bullet with the Hobart weather too, a high of 1 to a low of -1 - yeeps!

Piccadilly Circus - London

Regardless, we finished our packing this morning and then Jim came by and took us to Heathrow. 

It is always a sad day leaving Maddie and James - it seems so long for when we will see them again!

We passed through the system at terminal 4 without a hitch. Flight to Dubai was about three-quarters of an hour late in departing.  

Chiswick, Penultimate Day - Theatre

Last full day in London! Spent most of the morning sorting out all the gear we had accumulated over the past seven years. Some hard decisions as to what we pack and what we toss!

We spent some time taking a walk along the high street at Chiswick before returning to the flat for some lunch and preparing to go to the theatre with James. 

James took us for a meal before attending the wonderful musical “Tina”. 

“Tina” was a superb musical. Tina, Adrienne Warren, had received fantastic reviews and she didn’t let us down tonight.

  

Hanwell - Dining & Theatre

We spent a leisurely morning at Maddie and Kevan’s house. An early morning walk was part of the day, then did some shopping, before relaxing during the afternoon.  

We later left for Covent Garden where we met Kevan for a meal, before we going to the theatre. 

The restaurant was the Barafina in Dury Lane. This was a Spanish tapas-bar designed around servings family style Spanish meals. The concept was  a particularly open arrangement with the chefs cooking the food on the other side of the counter. The food was absolutely delicious. 

Then to fill in time we stopped at The Nell of Old Drury for a drink before moving onto the Duchess Theatre. 

The show at the Dutchess Theatre was called The Play that Goes Wrong, a very hilarious comedy. It was incredible to see the timing required by the actors to fit in with the catastrophic happens with the set destruction. A very funny and entertaining show. Thanks Kevan and Maddie. 

Bye, Bye Hilton

Just the day we didn’t want it to rain, it did! Poor Hilton, on his last trip with us, had to endure very trying conditions! 

We had planned for a final clean out this morning but the heavy rain put a stop to that. Nevertheless, we were able to stack our gear up on the seats and do a fair job of the cleaning. 

The trip to High Wycombe promised to be problematic given that there had been a very serious traffic jam around our area from the early hours of the morning. We got caught up in parts of this as we drove to Andrew and Toni’s Home for the change over. 

Andrew was out front, in the rain, as we drove up the driveway. We welcomed him into his new “home” and proceeded to go through the list of items we wanted to show him.  

During this process James arrived to collect our cases and bags - seemed to be much more than we anticipated! 

Having shown Andrew all the idiosyncrasies of Hilton, we sat down, completed the transfer  of ownership requirements and handed over the keys - Hilton was gone! Very sad 😢. 

So many fine memories over the past seven European summers. 

Best wishes to Toni and Andrew, the new custodians of Hilton. 

James called by and picked us up - with all our luggage - and drove us to Maddie and Kevan's place. It was still raining heavily when we arrived but it was a nice warm welcome from Maddie. Later the skies cleared and we went for a walk around Hanwell - the first we had done in a couple of days.

Runnymede

Gomshall was a great place to stop overnight. We left there relatively early, sadly knowing this was the last full day in Hilton. 

 

Not far from Gomshall is the delightful medieval village of Shere, once described as the ‘wildest’ in Surrey with sheep stealers, smugglers and poachers finding refuge in the surrounding hills. Shere is also noted for a man being charged for playing cricket on the sabbath - this was 1671 and one of the first ever mentions of cricket. 

We stopped at Newland’s Corner for a few moments to take in the very picturesque view across the valley. 

After this, we drove on Guilford to do a little shopping before continuing on to the Thames at Runnymede - famous for the 1215 signing of Magna Carta. 

Magna Carta forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners.  It has been described as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot". Little did the self-interested barons know that it was the foundation of the protection of all citizens. 

We had lunch in the grassy surrounds of the Runnymede ancient meadow. We took a walk around the site, taking in an interesting art work of Hew Locke called “The Jurors”. This work or art was commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta. 

 The Juror is 12 bronze chairs, each decorated with images and symbols of past and present struggles for freedom. 

After a conversation with an English chap about world politics and cricket,  we went back to Englefield Green to clean and pack up the van ready for the handing over tomorrow. (Sadly)

Gomshall

On the road early this morning after our farewells with Fran. It had been a very pleasant two days with her - as it always is.

We made our way up the A3 motorway to the village of Gomshall, just east of Guildford. It was here that we had planned to meet former colleagues, Norma and Colin, for lunch.

On Colin’s recommendation, we met at the old Gomshall Mill.  The Gomshall Mill is a 17th-century riverside mill building with the river running right through the middle. It also serves the most delicious meals!

By coincidence, Norma and Colin arrived at exactly the same time that we did - and coming from opposite directions. It was great to enjoy their company for a drink outside the pub before taking in the ambiance of the dining area inside. 

The Gomshall Mill was once an important corn mill,  and now the best pub in Surrey in 2018. There was a corn mill here from the time of Domesday in 1086.  Its use as a corn mill continued throughout the medieval period. In the 17th century it served as two mills, one for corn and one for malt. After its closure in 1953, the mill lay derelict until 1964, when the building was converted into a restaurant and antique shop, whilst still retaining much of its machinery.

It was much later in the afternoon that we said goodbye to Norma and Colin. 

We stayed at Gomshall for our overnight stop. 

Abbotts Ann

What a lovely quiet village. Not many places around the UK that you are free from the world of motorways and heavily trafficked roads. Abbotts Ann is one such village.  

A very relaxing day. Painted Fran’s shed a greyish colour to match the garden setting. Did some reading, talking, drinking and eating - a good way to spend a day!

Had a walk around Abbotts Ann, a very quaint ancient village. First settled in around 50BC, it has seen Romans, Norman, abbotts and a father of a Prime Minister making significant contributions to the village over 2000 years. The name Ann comes from the Celtic “Anne” meaning ash tree stream. 

Fran’s house is the old school house built originally in the 18th century by the developer of the very first iron plough.  

London-Abbots Ann

A very quiet night in Hanwell. During the morning we joined Maddie at a small coffee place in Hanwell before venturing off to see some houses she and Kevan were interested in.  

Kevan met us a little later and then we made our way to Ealing for some lunch at a rather special burger place. 

On the way there,  we came across the Thurkkai Temple of Ealing's chariot festival. This Hindu chariot festival originated in Jagannatha Puri on the east coast of India and dates back over 2,000 years. 

Today we saw three large, brightly coloured “chariots”, being led through the streets accompanied by musicians.

Worshippers in traditional costumes followers the chariots. Spectators carried plastic baskets filled with offerings, such as fruit and coconut halves, for the gods.

We had a very tasty burger for lunch. Then we walked back to Hanwell, met James to hand over a case of our clothes before leaving for Abbotts Ann to visit our friend Fran. 

Leaving London on a Sunday afternoon we thought would be an easy task!  The traffic was horrendous but with some rerouting from Google Maps we were able to miss the worst of it. 

After a slow trip we arrived safely at Abbotts Ann where we spent the very pleasant night with Fran. 

Hanwell

Up early this morning to beat the traffic into London, but, surprise! surprise! a traffic jam on the M25! Another early morning accident which caused a massive slowdown on the M25 even before the sun had fully risen above the horizon.  

We arrived at Hanwell in time to select a safe and accessible parking location - a short distance from Kevan and Maddie’s house. Not an easy task to find parking in the streets around Hanwell. 

We had planned to meet Maddie later in the morning but found our plans were completely upended by the last thing we thought might happen - the van wouldn’t start. After all the miles we had done, and all the different places etc that we had travelled, right at the end of our trip we have a flat battery. You wouldn’t believe it! 

Our only thoughts were to get the van started and to locate a auto business that would sell and fit a battery - on a Saturday afternoon! We contacted the road side assist in an endeavour to jump start the van, but this was going to take at least another hour!  The roadside assist was just booked when James turned up and we decided to jump start from his car to save time. This being successful we then canceled the roadside assist and drove to the battery replacement centre and had a new battery fitted. 

After all the drama we returned to Maddie’s place for the afternoon and the evening. It was lovely to be with her and Kevan, catching up on all the news.