Getting Here

JRR Tolkien gave his The Hobbit a sub-title, There and Back Again. It's a great title, concentrating as it does on the journey. There is no doubt that Australians travelling abroad, ie to the Northern Hemishere destinations of the UK, Europe, and the US really have their work cut out for them. Australia is a LONG way from any of these major world centres. You really get to understand this when you travel there.

I won't bore you with the travails of long-haul flying, but honestly Northern Hemisphericals just have no idea what we are talking about or what we have to go through to visit their auspicious climes. They can flit across from here to there in no time at all, whereas Aussies have to go through 14 hour flights to the US and up to 22 hour flilghts to the UK and Europe. If you fly Economy, that means you are sitting in a cramped narrow seat with not much leg room if you have a bag under your feet, and you may be sitting next to a less-than-optimal traveller who is grunting, sneezing or all over the shop.

Chris and I flew Emirates this time. I must say, it was a better experience than Qantas. The seats were more comfortable and the screens were bigger and brighter. We stopped off in Dubai and rented a day room for five hours where we had a nap, showered and changed, ready for the final seven hours.

Dubai airport is gliltz and gold. It is huge, as you would expect from an oil rich country in the Middle East. It seems to be a long massive cylinder squished down on top so that it looks a bit like one of Frank Herbert's giant sand worms.

Chris and I had splashed out on new state of the art neck cushions made of memory foam, manufactured by Cabeau. We used our Cabeaux, as we like to call them, on both legs of the journey, and I must say, they were very good. We both got a little sleep, which is way better than last year, and that does make a difference in the end result. We both felt that, on arrival, our jetlag has been far less than last time we came, due to the Dubai hotel room and our Cabeaux.

We are staying in Farringdon, a Central London area, a stone's throw from the Tube station, in a sixth floor apartment. It is very comfortable and gets us right into the centre of things here. Farringdon itself, is the jewellery centre of London, and, on the new Elizabth line, it affords us easy access to any part of the city.

We settled into our aprartment nicely and set out for a walk around the neighbourhood, ending up tired and thirsty at the pub across the street from us, the Sir John Oldcastle. My first meal in the UK ended up being a basic burger and a few chips washed down with a Camden lager. Nothing fancy, but oh yes, after aeorplane food, it was truly yum. We slept well, waking at 3am briefly and going straight back to sleep. Out attempts at sleeping the first leg of our journey paid off.

So, we're here. We're tired. We're safe. And we're ready to discover more of this amazing city.Read more