Saturday, June 7, 2014

The journey begins - Melbourne to London

Long haul flights are never fun, in fact they are mostly torture by cramming a few hundred people into a metal tin for 14hr stints, feeding you every 3hrs some sort of chicken or beef concoction.
The A380 was pretty much like most other planes I've been on, I am glad though that we were only 3 rows back from the front, exiting from the front doors when there are 480odd people on the plane is quite a procession. It was a great transit in the end with only a 2 hr stopover in Dubai to stretch the legs.
 
Bike wrapped and ready to box
Luggage ready for our flights
London!!

 

Anxious moments, they survived
 
Anxious moments, they survived
Arriving in at heathrow airport in London we decided at the last minute that instead of stuffing around trying to jump on the underground, we would assemble the bikes at the airport and ride into the city. We found a quiet corner and realised our first problem, our carry on luggage included nothing sharp obviously, and breaking open a well taped up box is not an easy task with your bare hands.
Anxious moments, they survived
Around an hour later we had the bikes assembled, and we were ready to go.
Anxious moments, they survived

Ready to roll

 

 

Heathrow airport has a bike tunnel!
I had mapped a garmin route to our accomodation in Earlsfield, which was actually really easy to navigate, mostly backroads filled with the famous London double decker buses which we constantly overtook and got overtaken by. 30k later we found our destination with Nyree and Carlo, in Earlsfield.
Heathrow airport has a bike tunnel!
Thankfully the weather turned it on for our arrival, with a clear sunny day at around 24degrees, which after two hours on the bike at midday Rishi even got burnt!
Heathrow airport has a bike tunnel!
We spent the rest of the day sorting out a tubeless setup on the bike, which turned into a bit of a ordeal with them not knowing whether the could fit it in, after much convincing on our end that it wasn't too hard to do, we hope it will be done by the next day.
Heathrow airport has a bike tunnel!
Sunburnt I the UK!

Two nights in London now with Nyree and Carlo, we will hopefully fit in a few things around the city today. After an excellent home cooked meal/feast last night by Nyree we got a solid first nights sleep, hopefully the body clock has ticked over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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