planes | Here Comes The Planet

We left Belfast around midday and flew to Luton, the only London airport I had yet to pass through. Our flight was the bumpiest I’ve had in years. I won’t blame EasyJet… but should I?

The trip from Luton into the city was straightforward and we had booked a nice-ish hotel, the NYX London for the final night of our trip.

It was very centrally located in Holborn, close the the British Museum and Seven Dials, where I was hoping to get in a final visit to the Gudrun Sjoden store.

The hotel foyer looking a bit like a Vegas casino.

We dropped off our bags in our room on the ninth floor. It wasn’t high enough to escape the traffic noises but it wasn’t too bad.

We had booked the hotel because it had a pool and I wanted one more holiday swim, but by the time we got there I couldn’t be bothered. We went out for a walk instead.

On our walk we had one of the more disturbing experiences of our trip. We were by the Thames and it was rush hour, with hundreds of cyclists going by every minute. We saw a man on a bike, who was probably in his late 50s and without a helmet, go sailing off his bike. He looked like he’d just fainted while in motion and he just sort of flew onto the road head first.

It was so shocking, we were about 20 metres away and a number of other cyclists immediately stopped to help him. We stood for a couple of moments to see if he’d wake up, which he did, and one of the cyclists called an ambulance. The whole sight was quite distressing and even now, two weeks later, I wonder how he is recovering.

I didn’t even know Twinings had a store. I meant to send this photo to Jess but forgot so here it is for you!

For dinner I did a search of local pubs and booked us a table at The Ship Tavern.

It turned out to be a great way to spend our last evening. We ordered a steak and ale pie for two and sat in a cosy booth drinking wine. Lovely!

Despite being in a tiny room the pub restaurant was full of character. The staff were lovely too.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to spend some of last £20 notes. We had a couple of fancy cocktails but then discovered they don’t take cash, which I hate – if it’s legal tender it should be accepted in businesses. We tried to spend it at the airport the next day and came across the same problem. So if anyone wants to buy £80 off me let me know!

Our flight the next day wasn’t until after 8pm, so we had a whole day to fill.

First up was the hotel’s buffet breakfast, which was quite nice. I forgot to take photos, which Mum will be happy about as she told me there were too many food photos in the blog.

We went for a walk around Seven Dials and Holborn.

There’s a public art space in the area that is a huge screen that wraps around 3 sides of a large undercover area and also covers the high ceiling. Anyone can walk in and it shows a range of artworks.

This is all screens, it was very entertaining.

I went back to my favourite store to find that there were lots of things on sale (yay!) but also lots of things sold out (boo!). I bought a bunch of patterned tops and bits and pieces and the lady gave me a discount if I promised to join the store club online, which took me two weeks but I eventually got around to it. She even remembered me from my previous visit! I don’t think they’d ever had anyone so excited to be there.

After that we went to see the new Wes Anderson movie.

We both agreed that it was the most Wes Anderson that Wes Anderson had ever Wes Andersoned.

Before and after the movie we spent some time in Foyles, a five storey book store with a fairly small sci-fi and fantasy section. I didn’t find anything I wanted but I thought this cover was funny.

Last stop was a drink and some food at a pub not far from the hotel. Unfortunately it was full of day office workers but we were happy to be indoors watching the rain come down.

Some extremely unhealthy snacks for our late lunch.

Eventually we went back to the hotel to collect our bags from storage and headed for Heathrow.

We decided to catch the new Elizabeth Line. The sign at Tottenham Court Road said all trains stopped at Heathrow, but once we got on I noticed it said it was going to Reading (pronounced Redding, just to be difficult). As I anticipated, the train did not stop at Heathrow.

We were very early, which was lucky as I might’ve had an aneurism if we had come near to missing our flight. It was also absolutely pouring with rain when we got off at the next stop. A rail worker on the platform told us there would be a bus nearby but we followed his directions and found no bus stop, nothing.

We ended up catching an Uber to Heathrow and the driver was very happy to have an airport fare, so I guess that was something!

At Heathrow we found a table at one of the bars and ordered some drinks to fortify us for our plane, which had been delayed past 9pm.

The flights weren’t too bad. We slept through most of the first flight, which was the longest (14 hours) and I slept through about half of the second flight.

The changeover in Korea was tiresome as we had to go through security again, despite not leaving that wing of the terminal. After sitting for so long a bit of standing was fine.

In line for security was a woman with a small white poodle. I’d never seen a pet in an airport before, it was kind of weird.

Apologies in advance – from now on there’s hardly any photos as I was too tired and not thinking. Plus there wasn’t much of interest to photograph!

The food on the flights was good and we had an empty seat next to us on the first leg. Luke was convinced we’d have the same on the second but ended up with a fellow next to us.

We arrived in Sydney around 7am to discover my bag was still in Seoul. Sigh. I filled out the paperwork and they estimated I’d have my bag within two days. It actually ended up taking six, rather annoyingly. I did have an AirTag on my bag though so I could, frustratingly, see it sitting at the terminal in Sydney for five of those days.

From Mascot we caught the airport train to central station then a train to Bankstown, following signs directing us to change there for trains to Lithgow. My brother was supposed to be meeting us there, which was very kind of him!

Sydney was a balmy 20 degrees Celsius, lovely! But as we got into the Blue Mountains things cooled down. We also discovered that this train, which a station attendant in Blacktown assured us went to Lithgow, actually stopped two stops earlier at Mount Victoria. You’d think we’d have learned not to trust rail employees by this stage!

Fortunately Michael was happy to drive a bit further to get us and we waited in a cafe to avoid the arctic winds. Luckily I’d put a cardigan in Luke’s bag!

We stopped for lunch in Bathurst then made it back to Michael’s place, where we both fell into bed. Luke was particularly exhausted, having been up for almost 24 hours at that stage.

We waited an extra night in Orange (hoping for my bag to be delivered – it wasn’t), and I had a catch up evening with friends, which was lovely, and spent some time with mum and dad.

Next stop was Albury. I think I was so pleased to be driving a car for the first time in three months that I got carried away and did the whole six hours. We stopped for lunch in Gundagai and I, rather pointlessly, took Luke to a lookout that was shrouded in mist.

We only ended up spending one night in Albury but it was lovely to see Luke’s family and on the following morning we stopped by Kath’s (Luke’s grandmother) to pick up some gigantic orchid pots to take back to Melbourne.

This turned out to be the most harrowing part of the whole cross-planet journey, as I had not really considered what would happen to all the cockroaches and beetles and various other bugs during the four hour drive.

It didn’t take long for them to start exploring the car and thank god Luke was driving or I’d probably have caused an accident. Eventually we made it home and, after giving the house a hug, we pulled the pots of the car and I emptied a can of fly spray into it to fumigate.

Bug drama aside (and what more Australian way could there be to arrive home, really?) we were very glad to be home. The only things left to do were pick up Bonnie, which we did the following morning, and wait for my bag.

Bonnie was predictably unenthused to see us.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we’d trained her to greet us calmly you’d think she didn’t want to leave Amanda and Matt and their three dogs. that’s what we told ourselves, anyhow.

My bag eventually arrived, only six days late.

Now life is almost back to normal. Luke has gone back to work on The Hundred with Andy Lee and I’m enjoying pottering around the house and having lunch with friends. Melbourne winter doesn’t seem so bad after staying in Orange for a few days and it’s mostly been sunny. Basically, if you can manage to be away from home long enough to enjoy getting back then I think you’ve hit the jackpot, travel-wise.

So that’s it for the blog until next time! to finish here’s some food photos of dishes I’ve made since I’ve got home that were inspired by my travels.

Are you looking for somewhere to eat in Greater London? Click here to try looking through recommendations on Restaurantji.co.uk.

I made the mistake of packing my bags about six hours early for my flight from Orange to Sydney, so I spent most of the day doing nothing but worrying about how the trip was going to go and deliberating over removing stuff from my bag to make it lighter.

Mum was driving me to the airport so we left in plenty of time and had a cup of coffee while we waited. I love small airports. In Orange the whole thing is one big room with one baggage carousel and two gates which are about 20 metres apart. The distance between where Mum parked and the plane was about 50 metres. Much nicer than the kilometre you have to drag your bag at city airports.

When the flight was announced no one stood up. Not being in a hurry is a sign you’re in a rural area. Rushing for a plane? That’s for those galahs in the big smoke! I followed a group of unaccompanied teenagers out the door and across the tarmac, where they looked very hesitant about boarding and looked back at me and said ‘You go first!’ So they could see me go up the little stairs. They looked so unsure I think it must’ve been their first flight, which was kind of a delightful thing to experience vicariously.

Despite the size of the plane the flight was pretty smooth. I enjoyed looking down over the national parks that cover the Great Dividing Range.

I teach Australian history every second year and the view made me think about how it took a very long time for the Europeans who landed on the coast to make their way across the mountain range. It’s hard to make out in this photo, but those line pale lines are sandstone cliff faces. The whole thing is like a maze but when the explorers finally got to the open plains on the far side they found herds of cattle that had escaped on the coastal side, bred and then just wandered around until they got through. A little trivia gem for you there ;-).

The domestic terminal in Sydney is as crappy as the international terminal is glitzy. A lot of scuffed paint, narrow hallways and poor signage. Still, after a quick exit and short wander I found the shuttle bus stop and there was a bus waiting.

I was the only passenger and the bus driver gave me a half price fare ($5) since I paid cash. The other half of the fare normally goes to the hotel I get dropped at, so he dropped me round the back where they couldn’t see😂. He was a nice older guy from Portugal and we had a good chat on the way. He pointed out the walkway from the hotels to the airport and said I could save myself the fare back in the morning if I gave myself an extra 30 minute to walk.

I was staying at the CKS Airport hotel. There’s only one hotel actually on the bit of land where the airport is, all the rest are over a short bridge. The CKS wasn’t fancy but it was clean, the room was spacious and since Charmaine couldn’t come due to a broken ankle, they changed my booking from twin beds to a king. I did what I always do and slept right up against the side, not taking advantage of the space at all.

For dinner I walked the short way to the Rowers, a very RSL-style venue that was on the water. I ordered from the QR code on the table and then waited for dinner. And waited, and waited. I wasn’t in a rush but after a while I went up to the counter and asked about the meal. Apparently, despite charging me, the QR code system wasn’t working properly so they asked what I’d ordered and then gave me a free drink. I was doing pretty well for bargains today!

The food was good, I sat there reading my book for a while then went back to the room. The bed was comfy, I had a quick video chat with Luke and set my alarm for 5am, plenty of of time to prep for the 9:30 flight the next morning!