A foggy day in London town...: A hint of Melbourne...

The weather was promising to be sunny on Thursday 9^th so I took the chance of heading into London again to go on a bike tour of the city. The tour was great, one of the guides was Australian and there were a couple of Aussies in my group. We headed off through Kensington Gardens and past Kensington Palace (the home of Charles and Dianna, then later just Dianna. Now it is only used for when Harry has a big night on the town and can’t make it back to Clarence House). From here we headed through Hyde Park and to the Wellington Arch, named after a high ranking officer of the military who pulled himself out of poverty to become the Duke of Wellington. While we were in the middle of the archway an official motorcade came through with Police bikes and cars escorting it. We tried to look in the windows but the glass was too dark. Next to the Wellington Arch is the Australian Armed Forces Memorial displaying all the villages where British and Australian troops have fought together.

We then continued along through St James’ Park and followed the back fence to Buckingham Palace. No matter how many postcards you’ve received or TV clips it has been in, as soon as you see the Palace you get excited. It is such an awesome building! We stopped quickly to take in the view before heading off down the Mall and on to Trafalgar Square where we had our lunch break.

With the lunch break over we headed into Westminster and passed the Wellington Barracks and Guards Museum. It was here where London’s similarity with Melbourne was truly experienced. One moment the sun is shining and we are all wiping a few beads of sweat off our brow…the next minute it’s cold, windy and absolutely bucketing down. We were all soaked through in 30 seconds.

We peered out at Westminster Abbey and Parliament House from under a tree in the rain and learnt about the painful end of Guy Fawkes. The rain wasn’t easing up so we decided just to keep going and headed back into St James’ Park. As soon as we entered the gates the sun came out again! Some good photo opps (especially considering there were some ex-QUT students in my riding group and I was wearing my Business Exchange shirt and had my blue cube handy!)

We then headed back through Hyde Park and stopped off at the Albert Memorial and had an interesting chat about what Albert has been remembered for in modern day society.

By the time we made it back to the bike sheds we were all warm and dry. Typical Melbourne weather!