Sightseeing in London

Hi All. Welcome to the sightseeing section of our blog.

We have had a great couple of days, the most amzing thing has been the weather, I had these visions of cruising around London with jackets on and it being dark by 3pm. I got that a little wrong apparently I have to wait until we get to Wales for that. The weather for the last two days has been stunning (by English standards) sunglasses required and a t-shirt would suffice.

Day 1

Kazyuo has had earache for the last day or so, so she was unable to come with us today, so Rob stayed behind also to help Kazyuo out and sort out our rental car situation. The vehicle we had rented to take us plus our gear to Wales was way to small so we ended up having to order two smaller vehicles instead, we just hope we can fit all the gear plus us in to them, tomorrow will be the test. So Mark the lads and myself headed off on the adventure into Central London. We caught the tube into town then purely by accident ended up on push bikes cycling around London, it was a hoot, we got the odd stare, I am sure the kids thought they were driving out in the rural outblocks of NZ and not on the narrow overcrowded streets of London, driving three wide, up on the curve, back on the road antics were not what the locals were used to seeing. We then jumped on the open top double decker bus and tripped around seeing the sights, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, Westmister Abbey, Big Ben, Tower of London etc etc. We jumped off the bus at Harrods so we could say we had been there, spent about an hour and probably saw 1% of it, back on the bus then off at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum back on the bus then on the tube and home.

Day 2

The plan was to start at 8.30 and head for the Maritime Museum, it wasn't until I answered the phone at 9.15 hearing Leonard say where are you guys that I realised we had majorly slept in, so a bit of pressure on the day with the late start. We navigated our way around the tube and ended up in Greenwich the location of the Maritime Museum, spent a good couple of hours here before navigating our way into Central London on the tube, the next stop was Winston Churchills War Bunker, this place was amazing it was the location that Winston and team ran their war game plan from, full of history and extremely well preserved. The kids were keen to jump back on the bikes and head back to the tube, the best thing about this was the cold pint waiting for us at the pub when we got off the bikes. Then back on the tube and home. I have kept the above pretty brief because there has been plenty of photos taken so I will let them do the talking.

Tomorrow we are up early (I know this because I will be setting the alarm this time) and off to get the rental cars for what looks like a six hour drive to Wales. The following day is measurement, the next being a practice race and then the day after the start of the regatta. I think that makes it the first of August regatta start. Enjoy the photos.....