It’s Really Happening 😃

Well the day has finally arrived, 25 December 2018. We have got through the Christmas festivities and are following our usual routine, PJ O’Briens. A pint of Superhaan Dry going down a treat. After a lot of nerves and apprehension, the excitement is here and the holiday has begun. JK and Ruthies 140 day expedition!
Ruthie’s checking the flight tracker and excitedly telling me details of all the flight arrivals and departures. I nod appreciatively without absorbing the info. I’m reflecting. A day of firsts for us. Caught our first Uber. How long has this been going on! Too easy.

The excitement level has just gone down a little bit. A 14 hour flight will do that. As well as the travellers in front of us having their seats fully reclined for the full journey! We ate everything in sight including the Christmas turkey Etihad provided us at around midnight. We caught some brief zzz’s in our row 27 but the Netflix series on the iPad we watched was brilliant and helped pass the time.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi to a beautiful sunrise and found our shuttle bus to Dubai. The shopping is huge in Dubai. Mall of the Emirates is the place to go. A little later we visited the beach area. I found this to be a funny set up with all the popular eatery beach views blocked by buildings on the beach side. This is not how we’d do it in Oz. The beach was ok but nothing spectacular and filled with beautiful people from all visiting nationalities. Back to the hotel for food and a wine. Our jet lag sleep that night was sensational. Don’t think I even rolled over for 11 hours.

Feeling refreshed, Ruthie led me on a charge to find the gold souks (markets) and surprisingly, using google maps, we returned from a 6km walk successfully. Well it was successful for Ruthie as she had her gold earrings. Me on the other hand was a bit lighter in the wallet but that’s what you do for a good woman.

So for the evening festivities, we have booked a 4 wheel drive trip into the sand dunes. Ali Baba, our driver, picked us up from our hotel. He thought he could drive! One hand on the steering wheel and the other making continuous phone calls at 130 clicks down the freeway. Ruthie had kittens a couple of times in the front seat. We gave the quad bikes in the dunes a miss as that was an extra cost to the $140 we had already forked out. The 4 wheel drive up and down the dunes was a lot of fun. Lot’s of shrieks coming from Ruthie and the Japanese family we had in the same vehicle.

Next we mounted a camel for a quick lap, with a beautiful sunset in the background. Then fire eating and belly dancing entertainment while we had dinner. Thought it was the end of the night. Wrong! We had to drive out of the dunes along with 6000 other 4 wheel drive vehicles. Ali Baba was giving us our final thrills, drifting around and up and down the dunes. In the final assent in the sand to get to the bitumen, you really had to gun it. Losing momentum would mean getting bogged in the sand. And that’s what happened. Ali Baba was cut off and as soon as we lost momentum, we were gone. One of my biggest fears has always been breaking down in the middle lane of the freeway and trying to get out of the car safely. Well this was just as bad. All those 4 wheel drives gunning it up that dune, left no room for error to get out of harms way. After an eternity Ali’s brother finally reversed out of the sand bog. Pity he didn’t see the vehicle parked further down the hill. Bang! Oh well, luckily we had a big tow bar. No damage to our vehicle, not sure about the other one as we all packed back in a took off.
Dubai in a nutshell-
Large modern sprawling high rise city, very clean, with spaghetti freeways that do the job. Great shopping and can also get a beach fix if needed.

Goodbye Dubai, Hello London.

London calling!
Up before 6am to catch a bus from Dubai to Abu Dhabi airport where we had a fairly lengthy wait. A 7 hour flight to London in economy was made easier by flying in an A380 airbus. More room and great service. The passport control at Heathrow airport was bedlam. It took us 2 hours to get through! Two trains later and a short walk and bingo we were in our hotel. The hotel room was a fair downgrade on the Dubai Hilton but after being up for nearly 24 hours we slept like logs. We woke up thinking about breakfast but it was only 4am.

We were out the door by 6am. As it wasn’t daylight till 8am we stayed within the lit up areas. Hyde Park was still too dark to venture through. Ruthie started shrieking with excitement as we approached Buckingham Palace. Suddenly London started to come alive and all the land marks started to appear. Big Ben, The London Eye, Downing Street, the Tower of London etc. At Southbank where the London Eye is situated, a woman sits at the entrance of the toilets wanting to charge 50 pence with no change given to use the convenience. Ruthie was aghast! “ I’m not paying 50p for a pee!” A friend, Jen, suggested we hop on a clipper boat down the Thames. It was a great way to see things. We ended up at Greenwich Village. Well worth the visit. An underground train ride took us closer to our accommodation and bangers and mash for dinner at a quaint little English pub in Bayswater. The first full day in London was done. It gets dark at about 4pm and we had walked over 14 km.

Again we were awake around 4am. That’s ok as we had another early start. A train to Earls Court to meet the bus that was taking us to Edinburgh. The M40 drive was foggy and the temperature 8 degrees. All the trees had lost their leaves and the grass was very green. Our tour guide was a guy older than me and he kept calling McDonalds, Maccie Dee’s.
We didn’t get to see a lot of Edinburgh on the first night but at least we slept later (5:30am).
Now we’re off to find the Loch Ness monster! I was loving our journey into the central highlands of Scotland. Cold and damp as it was outside, we were warm and snuggly in the bus. The scenery was postcard picture perfect. The fast flowing rapid rivers, the serene lakes set against the hilly backdrop, the icy streams running from the top of the rugged cliff faced mountains, made all the viewing breathtaking. We even went through a village that was established in the first century by a Roman emperor! Ruthie was resting her eyes during this part and I think she was pacing herself to be awake to see in the new year.
Our first sighting of snow was on Mt Glencoe. We didn’t end up spying the Loch Ness monster but the day trip had been well worthwhile.
That night, New Year’s Eve 2018, was Hogmanay, the biggest street party in the world. It was set between a castle up one end and one of the Queen’s residences up the other end. We were among 65,000 people ready to party into 2019! It was amazing, everyone was friendly, dancing and singing along to the music. At one stage, after a bar visit, it took me an hour to find my way back to Ruthie but we ended up together at midnight. On our way home we were stepping over bodies, mountains of rubbish, around spew and whatever else.

The next day we ventured back into the city for some sightseeing. We did an underground chamber tour. These are chambers built under the South Bridge. It was fascinating. The history in this town is amazing. Ruthie found a building that was erected in 900AD! When you consider Australia wasn’t discovered until 1788, you realise how historic this is.

Our time in Scotland had come to an end and we had another full day on the bus back to London. It was minus 3 degrees when we hopped on. Very crisp. On the way we stopped at York, a town full of cobblestones and no traffic allowed in the city centre. The centrepiece was a very large minster surrounded by all the tourist shopping. This was the home of Yorkshire tea and scones and it certainly warmed the cockles when we had done the walk around town. It was a late arrival at our hotel in Earls Court. The room was comfortable but the bed was the size of a postage stamp but that didn’t stop us from sleeping like logs.
Our last day in London was full of more sightseeing and Ruthie shrieking with excitement. We ticked off Westminster Abbey, St Pauls cathedral, Leadenhall market and more.
In a nutshell, Scotland has a rugged beauty, with Edinburgh full of amazing buildings and history.

London has a population heading towards 9 million so there is a lot of apartment living. Interspersed with that is the most amazing history. Royalty, rulers of people and countries, wars. And to think some of it is still relevant today. We got our head around using the underground subway pretty quickly and the only downside was the cost of the journeys.

Tomorrow onto Norway!