Travelling Hopefully - Pimlico for Some Reason

I stepped out of my hotel to take in the sights of Pimlico.  My only for doing this was that it was convenient to my hotel and I’d already done Belgravia.

Pimlico is quiet (at least on a Tuesday morning) and I wandered cheerfully through streets full of old or, if you’re British, quite new houses.  Apparently Pimlico was a lower rent equivalent to Belgravia but the buildings were well designed and are now quite desirable in themselves.  Many of the buildings had plaques out the front and I stopped to read them.  Mostly what they said was “bicycles chained to these railings will be removed.”

I did have a destination in mind.  A particular cafe that promised pancakes with bacon and maple syrup.  Readers may be surprised to learn that I found it.  I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn I managed to circumnavigate virtually the entire of Pimlico first.

I managed to get down to the river (past yet another street named “Grosvenor”) but was prevented from getting to the edge by a very large puddle.  Apparently the Thames was leaking.

Down near the Thames is Churchill Gardens which despite the name is apparently a housing estate.  It looks very nice so I’m not surprised that they didn’t build many more in that style.   Turning my back on the river (although I did peer suspiciously over my shoulder a few times) I plunged back into the depths of Pimlico until I found the cafe where I did indeed have my pancakes with bacon and maple syrup.

At this point you may be struggling with the suspense and excitement of my journey.  So far all I have done is wander around Westminster in a jet lag addled haze.  Well don’t worry because I’m almost up to the Moroccan part of my trip.  But first, Chelsea!

Giddy with my Pimlico triumph I strolled down to the National Army Museum in Chelsea.  Chelsea is currently under renovation.  Either that or it’s playing host to a scaffolder’s convention.  Handsome old buildings lurked behind steel piping and planks.  At least I assume they were handsome old buildings, scaffolding can hide a multitude of sins.  Nevertheless having gone through Belgravia and Pimlico I’m going to assume the British didn’t change their building style to ten year old wattle and daub one suburb along.

The army museum did quite a decent job of compressing about four centuries of history into a handful of rooms.  I don’t want to say they skipped anything because  It’s entirely likely that I just missed it.  The museum focused much of its attention on the experiences of the soldiers themselves which seems entirely fair if a little surprising.

With a better knowledge and appreciation of the British army or at the very least a decent photo of a Bren carrier I made my way through the scaffolding of Chelsea and back to my hotel.  That afternoon I went and looked at Buckingham Palace because it was just down the road and it seemed silly not to.

Travelling Hopefully - Self Promoting Squirrel Edition

 The next day was bright and clear, unfortunately I wasn’t.  Despite more than twelve hours of sleep I was still somewhat vague and fuzzy.  Still I was in much better shape than yesterday which was good as I was due to meet work colleagues for lunch.  For the morning though I decided to go back and take a non-delirious look at Hyde Park.

I trotted back up various streets that all seemed to be named Grosvenor until I reached the park and headed for the Serpentine.  As I approached the lake I was greeted by signs forbidding off leash dogs and feeding the birds.  I pushed past a bunch of off leash dogs and made my way to where a group of people were feeding the birds.

This did allow me to take photos of swans, geese and other less easily identifiable birds that had gathered for an illicit feast.  According to the signs the rationale behind not feeding the birds was due to the danger of bird flu being transmitted if the birds all congregated together.  So presumably I may be one of the last people to see any birds at all in Hyde Park.

Have you ever seen a swan’s feet?  They are huge.  The rest of the swan is a decent size as well of course but their feet are amazing.  However there is only a certain amount of entertainment value to be gained from looking at swan feet and after a decent interval I headed on down the lake.

What I was really hoping for was the opportunity to photograph a squirrel.  I had seen a couple the previous day but my mental state had not been up to the challenge of coordinating a camera.  Along the way I paused for what could possibly be the most revolting cup of coffee I have ever drunk.

By now my journey down the Serpentine had reached the boundary with Kensington Gardens and I abandoned the water briefly to get past a bridge.  On my way back to the waterside a squirrel obligingly stepped out from some bushes and posed for photos.  It did this so blatantly that I couldn’t help suspecting it was paid a retainer by the park authorities for doing this in front of keen but lazy tourists.

I took many photos of the obliging squirrel and then headed back to my hotel.  The clear day of an hour or so ago had degenerated into grey skies and drizzle.

I walked through Kensington on my way back, at least I did if all of the signs saying Kensington were anything to go by.  Having gained a, probably unwarranted, measure of confidence I didn’t just retrace my steps but wandered through Belgravia checking out the embassies.  The Turkish embassy had armed police at the door and the Italian embassy looked a little shabby (insofar as a large elegant building in Belgravia can look shabby).  I took a photo of the Luxembourg embassy but didn’t push my luck by trying the same with the Turkish one.  By the time I got back to my hotel there was barely time to come down from my squirrel induced high and prepare for lunch.

My employers have their London offices in a modest but elegant building in Monument.  By a brilliant piece of organisation my hotel sat on the same tube line and I caught a train virtually door to door.

I got off at Monument station and the first thing I saw was the eponymous monument.  It is huge.  In fact it is so huge that the best vantage point to see it from would probably be about a quarter of a mile away if it wasn’t for the fact that you’d have to demolish a decent chunk of London to do so.

The monument commemorates the Great Fire of London (presumably the victims and not the fire itself) and was apparently designed with input from Sir Christopher Wren.  Having almost dislocated my neck trying to see the top I wandered about thirty seconds down the street and met my London colleagues.

A pleasant pub lunch was had marred only by the fact that my brain was disintegrating almost visibly.  By the time it came to say goodbye I was in a similar zombified state as the previous day.  Conner, one of my colleagues, suggested I walk back to my hotel along the river bank as getting sunshine is a good way to deal with jet lag.  I wasn’t sure at this point if I could make it back to the tube station so I thanked him for the suggestion and declined.

And then I did it anyway.  At least I wound up wandering alongside the Thames and I presume that was the reason.  I didn’t make it back to my hotel.  I got as far as the Temple and turned inland through the grounds.  The buildings were impressive, the gardens well tended but my overwhelming impression was “what the hell is this place?”  I think it has something to do with lawyers.

The sunshine that was supposed to be curing my jet lag was obscured by all the clouds and rain so I fled to my room for the remainder of the day.

Travelling Hopefully - London Daze

 I arrived in London as invigorated as all hell and taut as a bowstring a state that lasted for a good sixty seconds after which my mental and physical state took a bit of nose dive.  

I say I arrived in London, actually I arrived at Heathrow.  At this point the airline told me I was on my own.  I changed money, bought coffee and procured a train ticket to Paddington.  This was not because I wanted to go to Paddington, that’s just where the train stopped.  My hotel was actually close to Victoria station which a quick glance at a map on my phone seemed to be within reasonable walking distance.

It is an indication of my mental state that I actually thought this was a good idea.  I shouldered my kitbag and set off through the mean streets of Paddington.  A couple of minutes later I turned around and started walking in the right direction. 

“This could be worse,” I thought.  “It could be raining.”

It started to rain.

“Fuck” I thought.  But I was committed now and on I trudged.  I entered Kensington Gardens which was in my way and stumbled through meadows and trees.  My morale was raised when I saw a squirrel (I am pathetically easy to please).  At some point Kensington Gardens became Hyde Park but I don’t recall going through passport control.

Large swans stopped me from walking straight into the Serpentine.  I stopped off at a lakeside cafe where I swapped purchasing a cup of hot chocolate for the opportunity to use their toilet.  I didn’t quite put it like that at the counter of course.

Recharged with hot chocolate I continued on my way.  Eventually I ran out of Hyde Park and wound up on one of several streets in the vicinity called Grosvenor.  I followed it hopefully and to my delight (and no little surprise) I wound up at Victoria station with my hotel lurking modestly next door.

Now I was faced with another problem.  Despite blundering around various parts of inner London wilderness I had managed to turn up at my hotel more than four hours before I could check in.  I repaired to the station where I spent a productive hour or two trying to stay awake while a vast number of people milled around me.  

Many of these people were football fans decked out in the blue and white colours of Brighton.  The fans ran the full gamut from a respectably dressed man with a modest dab of blue and white on his cheek to others who looked like they had looted a bunting shop on the way in.  Their singing helped keep me awake and for that I thank them (Brighton lost btw).

Finally I could stand no more.  With two hours still to go until I could check in I presented myself at the hotel and threw myself weeping at the receptionist’s feet.  Possibly to get this bedraggled, hysterical man out of their reception area they kindly let my into my room.  

A shower and a change of clothes transformed me from an exhausted, physical wreck into a clean exhausted physical wreck in different clothes.  I popped out for pasta (as you do) and tried to wait for darkness.  I went to bed at five pm and slept for thirteen hours.

Travelling Hopefully - Invigorating and Toned Edition

 How many blog entries can I do before my holiday actually starts?  Hopefully by the time you read this I will have arrived in London and started to knock some of the fog out of my brain.  So far the closest I’ve come to London is San Francisco and brain fog abounds.

Changing planes in San Francisco was surprisingly trouble free.  Yes I needed to get off the plane, go through passport control, collect my luggage, drop my luggage off, walk around a corner and go through passport control again all to essentially wind up about three hundred yards from where I started.  On the other hand this all took quite a refreshingly short period of time.  Incidentally I said yards rather than metres in deference to the fact that the Americans still cling to the imperial measurements of their erstwhile colonial overlords despite the fact that said overlords ditched it themselves more than half a century ago.

My swift passage through America’s layers of border security did leave me with an embarrassingly large amount of time on my hands.  My head was drooping and my eyes were hanging out so I repaired to the lounge for food and shelter and thus pseudo refreshed I stumbled towards another aircraft that promised to take me to Britain.

Fortunately when it came to pseudo refreshment my aircraft had the last word.  In the toilet was a bottle of something calling itself “face mist”.  According to the bottle it “invigorates and tones”.  You know as opposed to just getting your face mildly damp.  I sprayed some on every time I went to the bathroom and by the end of the flight I was hopping about the plane like a baboon while the stewards tried to catch me with nets.  As for taut, the skin of my face looked like it had been stretched over a skull a size too big.  Which was unfortunate as the rest of my skin, unaffected by the face only mist, still looked like it had been flung haphazardly over a skeleton a couple of sizes too small.

Travelling Hopefully - Air Travel Edition

 And so it begins.  I arrived at Sydney’s Temple of Gloom about fifteen hours before my flight.  This might seem like a bit of overkill even in this not quite post-Covid era but I had my reasons.  Specifically I had booked myself into a convenient hotel so that I could sleep in on the day of my departure (I woke up early) and so when I forgot something I would have time to go back and get it.  As it so happened I forgot nothing (well nothing I’ve noticed so far).  After a brief reconnaissance mission I settled down in the aforementioned convenient hotel to wait for morning.

When I say “convenient” I mean if I opened a window I would have been able to pat the planes as they came in to land.  I ate an overpriced hamburger and then at the hotel’s less than discreet urging I headed up to the rooftop bar to enjoy a drink and look at aeroplanes.  It’s amazing how grown up an essentially childish pursuit can seem if you just add alcohol.  Next up play-doh and vodka shots.

I didn’t actually order alcohol, I wanted coffee.  The harassed peon behind the bar informed me my coffee would take twenty minutes as he was all alone with a batch of cocktails to make.

By the time my coffee arrived I had quite got over the view and was chatting to (and possibly up) a Fijian guy named Jade who was waiting for the airline that employed him to fly him home.  He had spent the last three days working in Orange.  His opinion of Australia?

“Cold”

One day I will book a flight that leaves from a gate convenient to the security screening.  Today was not that day.  Instead having subjected myself and my possessions to electronic violation (the second best kind of violation) I then set out on the long gruelling journey to the departure gate.  Desperate families begged for food as I passed and jackals slunk away from the bodies of those who hadn’t made it.  The only thing preventing me from committing my body to God is a lingering suspicion as to what he might do with it.  I have definitely got to find a better class of deity to worship.  Actually my god is fine, just sacrifice when you’ve got a moment (and a victim) and don’t worry about any tedious moral strictures.  It’s just if you commit your body to him you’d better be sure you’ve finished using it.

After a long and arduous journey I made it to the departure gate and rested in preparation for the long and arduous journey to San Francisco which in turn would only be a prelude to the long and arduous journey to London.  Once in London I can see about getting to Morocco.  Seriously we have got to move Australia closer to the rest of the world.

Travelling Hopefully - Giddy Anticipation Edition

 Finally after more time than I care to remember I am going to shake the dust of this country from my boots and cover them in the dust of another country.  In a few days time all things being equal I shall mount a metal steed and thunder over oceans towards a distant customs post.  Sadly that customs post will be in America.

"Ah, Neil is going to America," you say.

Wrong, Neil is going to Morocco via Britain.  Unfortunately the plane I have entrusted this journey pauses in San Francisco.  Which is sufficient excuse for the American government to hit me up for a little cash and subject me to its border control procedures.  Assuming I survive I will get on another plane aimed at London where the UK equivalent of Homeland Security will hopefully let me in.

London seems like an odd place to start a holiday in Morocco but its nowhere near as odd as trying to start it in Sydney.  After a couple of days of jetlag recovery I mount the pride of Portugal who have contracted to deliver me to Casablanca (via Lisbon) in time to meet my tour of the ancient, history steeped land of Morocco.  I know nothing about the ancient, history steeped land of Morocco but hopefully the gaps in my knowledge will be filled by the time I leave.  Then Portuguese pilots will whisk me back to London from where I will mount another plane to take me to Gibraltar.

Given Gibraltar's geographic location you might think it would be simpler to just fly straight from Morocco to Gibraltar.  You would be wrong.  You can't fly straight from Morocco to Gibraltar without going through London first.  There used to be a ferry but it got cancelled during covid and apparently hasn't started up again yet.  It would actually be quicker to swim from Morocco to Gibraltar than fly but that would require a level of either fitness or desperation that I am unable to produce so a London stop off is required.  Having soaked up everything that Gibraltar can offer I fly back to London to catch a train to Penzance.

"Ah, Neil is going to Cornwall," you say.

Wrong, Neil is going to the Scilly Isles (which technically are part of Cornwall so congratulations, what do you want, a medal or a chest to pin it on?).  The Scilly Isles are off the coast of Cornwall (and each other) and some relaxing time will be had in what is supposed to be quite a quiet and charming patch of the world.  Penzance is just where the helicopter to the Scilly Isles leaves from.  On the way back to London I'm stopping off in Dartmoor because, well you do don't you.

If by this stage you are suspecting that I select my travel destinations largely at random you wouldn't be entirely wrong.  In fact you would be entirely right.  Which is why I have managed to visit Zanzibar, St Pierre, Luxembourg and Newfoundland along with somewhat better known geographic locations.  I'm still annoyed at missing out on Liechtenstein.

The real reason for the Morocco trip is because I had bold plans for a significant West African holiday (Gabon has a railway I would like to ride on) but after my health issues last year I decided to ease myself back into the foreign travel game with destinations that aren't guaranteed to kill you on the spot.  If things go well (ie I don't collapse physically) I may try something a little more strenuous next time.  Or possibly I'll go to Liechtenstein.  I don't entirely know why Gibraltar or the Scilly Isles, they were just semi convenient to Morocco or rather they were semi convenient to London which is semi convenient to Morocco.  Besides I've always had a fondness for small remote jurisdictions.  I have this tendency to travel to places that most people only register their company for tax (and in the case of Gibraltar money laundering) purposes.  Hanging out at the rock after a semi strenuous few weeks in Morocco will be just the recharge I need to face the grueling challenge of the Scilly Isles.

Principally the grueling challenge of the Scilly Isles was getting there.  There is a ferry which refused to take my booking.  There are flights which contrived to be fully booked on the days I wanted to travel.  Finally in exchange for my handing over sufficient money to keep a small country afloat a helicopter pilot agreed to at least get me within shouting distance of the place.  After the effort of getting there came the equally grueling challenge of finding somewhere to stay.  I'm staying a week and will be using three different hotels.  I don't know if I will enjoy the holiday but my luggage is going to have a hell of a time.  I'm hoping to sleep on the train from London to Penzance.

Finally back in London I get to relax (sleep) for a couple more days before flying back home supposedly rested and refreshed.  I'll settle for alive.

Ute Stripping in Tasmania

"I have news," announced my Tasmanian correspondent breathlessly.

"Oh good," I said vaguely looking around desperately to see where the voice was coming from.  It was true that my tech support had enabled internet connectivity on a wide variety of devices in my home but they hadn't bothered to tell me what they were.  I cooked some toast the other day and accidentally irradiated parts of Greenland.  It wasn't very good toast either.

Eventually I found my correspondent's features peering out of a small screen that had been inserted into my electric toothbrush.  I mustered up what I hoped could pass as a look of interest.

"What's your news?" I asked.

"I was contacted by the police the other day."

I nodded understandingly, it really was only a matter of time.

"Do you need me to post bail?"

"They weren't arresting me you idiot.  If they ever did that I'd rat you out so fast your head would spin.  No they found my father's ute."

"Was it missing?"

"It was stolen a bit ago.  The police spotted it from a helicopter."

"They certainly pull out all the stops for car theft in Tasmania."

My correspondent informed me that the police hadn't actually been looking for her father's car.  They had been doing something else entirely when they looked out of the window of the helicopter and saw a whole bunch of cars in a chunk of bushland not overly serviced by roads.  As to what they were actually doing the police kept a discreet silence.  However possessing a "two birds, one stone" philosophy they sent an officer to look over the cars and in due course invited my correspondent out to the scene of, well not the crime exactly but the crime's aftermath.

Apparently what the car thieves had been doing is taking the cars out to this spot in the bush which involved driving up a rather steep escarpment.  They stripped the top side of the car and then, utilising the steep angle, tipped the thing onto its roof so they could strip the underside.  They were apparently only partway through the ute belonging to my correspondent's father and as the only person under eighty in her family who could drive a manual she was invited to come out and collect it.

There was no mention of arrests or suspects, basically what the police had was a bunch of cars that were now cluttering up a portion of Tasmania's otherwise pristine bush.  Contacting relatives of the owner was as much a responsibility shifting tactic as a service to the community.  Given that getting to this particular piece of bush involved driving through a rather dodgy section of inhabited Tasmania (and likely the home of the car thieves in question) my correspondent grabbed the fittest ex soldier she could find at short notice and set out on a vehicle retrieval mission.

I must admit I was excited to hear what happened next.  In my minds eye I envisioned something like a cross between a bush rally and a scene from Mad Max as my correspondent drove maniacally through the wilderness while her soldier companion manned a machine gun hastily welded to the roof of the ute to drive of ravening gangs of car thieves.  The reality was a sad anticlimax but having got this far I can't really finish the blog entry without telling you about it.

My correspondent turned up on the scene waving a set of keys to be informed by the police that the ute had been partially stripped but she was free to take what was left home.  Or to put it another way the police were inviting her to drive a partially dismantled car along a rough bush track down a steep escarpment where the slightest mistake (or mechanical failure) would likely lead to a messy death.  She politely declined.  The police seemed a little disappointed.

However the disappointment of the police was as nothing to the disappointment of me.

"Do you mean to tell me you bottled out of driving the ute back?" I demanded in outrage.  "Think what a blog entry that would have made.  As it is I've got to make do with this rubbish."

My correspondent indicated that my gruesome murder would make a suitably exciting blog entry and that furthermore she would be happy to write it herself.  I told her I'd get back to her.