Windsor Castle before flying home
Our flight home from the UK wasn't until 10pm, so we had decided it was a good chance to go down to London and visit Windsor Castle for the afternoon as it's very close to Heathrow, where we'll be dropping the Hire Car off before we leave.
Traffic is always pretty awful on the M25 and today was no exception despite being a Sunday. Considering it was still busy at 1 am in the morning when we returned from Budapest, we shouldn't have been surprised.
We managed to find Windsor okay.....finding a parking space was another matter. We drove round in circles for some time before taking our chances at the shopping centre just across the road from the castle. We managed to find a very tight park on the fifth level and made our way out to the shopping precinct.
Barb was delighted to see the Queen's rail carriage at Windor Station train stop. Then we went for lunch at one of the nearby restaurants before joining the very long queue to get into to see the castle grounds.
When we finally joined the queue, it snaked all the way back to the shopping centre. One of the security guards advised us that it would be 90 minutes to wait. Oh great!
It was quite interesting people-watching in the queue. Some of the younger children got bored while waiting and entertained themselves by rolling down the grassy slopes from the castle walls. Eventually we got to the ticket office and were able to purchase our tickets to go in.
Barb was disappointed that Queen Mary's DollsHouse was closed for re-furbishment. But we did walk around and see the Chapel where Prince Harry recently married Megan Markle and also say the extensive castle gardens.
We even managed to see the ceremony of the changing of the Guards. Barb couldn't resist buying Austen a soft toy of a corgi wearing a crown and cape. So cute!
We found our way back to the car after having some afternoon tea at one of the restaurants at the shopping centre. The handover process went well, even though it was a little awkward finding somewhere to fill the tank beforehand in the mess of Heathrow Airport precinct.
We had quite a wait after check-in, but that allowed time to do some Duty Free shopping and have a leisurely dinner.
The flight home was long, but at least leaving so late in the evening we did mange to get some sleep on the 14 hour first leg of the journey.
We only had a couple of hours to wait in Singapore Airport before our next flight to Brisbane, and this time we managed to find the butterfly house.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. It was a very busy flight, so no spare room to stretch out, but we both watched several movies, so it wasn't too bad.
We caught the Airtrain to Eagle junction and changed trains to Landsborough and then caught the bus up to Maleny. John walked from the bus-stop in Maple Street home to get the car while Barb minded the bags. It was a pretty easy and very inexpensive way to get home from the airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment