33,000 feet up!

One way to kill some time on a long haul flight is to write another blog entry, listening to some beautiful opera choruses. Strong temptation to sing along! Indeed, this will be the last entry before we arrive home. And thanks to a disastrous start to this leg of the journey, we have an extra two hours on board. We had taxied out almost to the runway only to be told that one passenger felt too sick to continue and had to be returned to the terminal. Of course this meant getting her cases from the hold and the crew flinging open all the hand luggage compartments so that all passengers could identify their own. A delay of two hours will probably mean we will miss our Jetstar flight to Sunshine Coast from Sydney. Never mind.

Preferred form of boating

Leaving Norfolk we headed south to Cambridgeshire, staying just a 15 minute bus ride from the centre of Cambridge. Good thinking as both traffic and parking in the centre of the city would have been a nightmare. Cambridge was really enjoyable, in large part due to sunshine and blue sky. It was open day for all the colleges and so we were able to see into some of the areas that may otherwise have been inaccessible. We relaxed on a chauffeured punt trip on the River Cam with not a lock to be seen! We were lucky enough to get a punter/poler who was incredibly enthusiastic about its history and its famous former students. He was a real character and kept up his entertaining banter for the full 45 minutes. Apparently St Johns College has a bell tower without any bell, due to its sponsor's untimely death in a train crash which caused a shortfall of cash. To compound the college's embarassment, it also has a clock tower without a clock! Why? Because the architect forgot to factor in the weight of a clock in the design of the tower.

Punting at Cambridge

We were also very fortunate to be at Cambridge on a day when the Kings College Choir was singing in the chapel for evensong. The chapel itself is an amazing masterpiece of architectural design and construction and great to visit. The choral singing provided by 20 boys and 14 men was brilliant, with the harmony and blend of voices as near to perfect as we've ever heard.

The onward trip from Cambridge was supposed to be to Oxford, about a two hour drive away. Due to a dearth of available accommodation at reasonable rates, we changed both our minds and our direction. We headed back to some of Adrian's family towns in Suffolk and then on to Braintree in Essex before heading towards Hertford. Hmmm.....got there around 4.30 and no accommodation anywhere. Rather than sleep in a single bed at one of the pubs or in the car, we chose, in desperation, a 5 star place called Hanbury Manor, near the small town of Ware. A beautiful setting with a great golf course but the rooms were in a grand old building (a former convent) with grand old creaking floorboards and heavy internal swing doors in the corridors that banged every time someone passed through them. Not a good ratio of money spent to quality of sleep. Ah hindsight...should have stuck to the original plan.

On our last day in England we headed to Windsor to visit the castle. We had been warned about the major motorway that circumnavigates London and in some places traffic slowed to a crawl so the drive took us longer than anticipated. On arrival, the town of Windsor was absolutely packed with tourists and there were long queues into the castle.

Eton College

It was also the hottest day this year in England with temps around 30 degrees celsius and we would have been queueing in the sun for at least 45 minutes. Unfortunately, therefore, the Windsor Castle plan was jettisoned and will have to wait to another time. Instead we enjoyed lunch, a walk around some of the town, a stroll down to the nearby Thames, a visit to nearby Eton College and watching the remainder of the Wimbledon final in comfort at our airport hotel.

 

 

 

We were happy to once again return our rental car in one piece. Indeed Adrian was particularly relieved. Does it show?

 

Sheer relief !

We stopped over in Dubai and despite not getting to our hotel until almost 9 pm, we took a taxi in to have a look at Dubai Mall, complete with water fountain and light show choreographed to music and held every 30 minutes, its aquarium and ice-skating rink. On arrival, the temperature was 41 and that was at night. Horribly hot. Fran had read that Dubai was promoting respectful dress for all, including tourists so she did cover her shoulders. However she couldn't understand Adrian's apathy each time she reached for his hand going through the Mall. He kept saying "you'll get run in". He was right....the sign below says it all!

 

Don't say you haven't been warned!

Swimming not a good idea

We have had a great holiday and consider ourselves very fortunate. We saw and stayed in some wonderful places, met some great people and shared travel stories and ate and drank well. We were also blessed with good weather for the seven weeks. Hope you have enjoyed our blog as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.

Tallest building in Dubai

 

Last word...As predicted, we missed our Jetstar flight to Maroochydore due to delay in Dubai and are now cooling our heels for the next 4 hours at Sydney airport and had to fork out $150 for the privilege. As for Karen, she behaved so badly that she will be retired and will not be accompanying us on any more trips.

 

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