We were coming from Nice, France and going to Epping, on the outskirts of London, in the UK. When we originally were looking at going from Nice to London, way way back, there were direct flights from Nice to the UK for quite cheap, with Easyjet - these would have gone to either Gatwick or Luton. By the time we were in a position to book, all the flights had gone up considerably and all the direct flights were extremely pricey. Indirect flights were cheaper, but also a fair amount. Some had considerable layovers which didn't appeal when we would have a lot of luggage, and even looking at doing two separate flights like we'd done in the past didn't bring up anything cheaper overall and would only add
more hassle and potential worry. Flying out of other airports in the region did not work out any cheaper overall. In the end I think we narrowed it down to two sets of flights, one through-ticketed with Brussels Airways to Heathrow during the afternoon and the other I think a through-ticketed Air France/FlyBe combination which would have landed us at Stansted really late at night. We decided to go with the Brussels Airways option.
So leaving Nice had us trudging our bags the few blocks to the railway station, finding the bus stop that would have the Airport bus (easy to spot - there was a crowd of people there) and then a wait for the bus, before crowding onto the bus with everyone else and with our large luggage. Its not the first time that we had to do this, but it stood out as it seemed like not everyone waiting would be able to fit on the bus and we didn't much feel like waiting for the next one in half an hour! We made it on, only for the bus to get stuck in traffic just past the bus stop. We got there eventually, and checked in for our flight to Brussels.
I don't really remember much about Nice Airport - after a while a lot of the airports we've been through blend together and so Nice for me becomes indistinct. I can't even say I remember much about boarding the plane, except I do recall examining the sick bag before departure and finding it labelled with various funny suggestions of what to use it for - wrapping paper was one of them! I think mostly I was ready to leave France behind, we had a long day ahead of us and I was keen to get to the UK for a break. So my mind was not so much focused on the now, as it was the near future. The flight was fairly nice, if straightforward - I had a window seat and we circled around Nice as we took off, but landing at Brussels Zavantem airport it was a bit cloudy and non-descript - certainly there was not much to take photos of!
Zavantem Airport is interesting because this was the 2nd time I've been to Brussel's very plush airport, but I'd only ever been here in transit - both times I'd visited Belgium itself I arrived and left by Eurostar. The first time we'd been here was going to Malta from Berlin, and we chose to transit in Brussels because not only were the flights the cheapest but Brussels airport was set up for transit - we didn't have to exit the airport and re-enter in order to catch our next flight. We'd spent a very pleasant 5 hours in Brussels that time, having waffles and Belgian beer during our transit so having 2 hours this time seemed a bit short by comparison. There wasn't enough time to squeeze in a 2nd beer before we had to head to our gate for our flight to Heathrow, so we walked past the big Rocket statue of the rocket from Tintin for the last time and winged our way to Heathrow.
Heathrow is not my favourite airport, in fact a bit far from it. The immigration line was long, and when we finally got to the front the guy at the front saw our passports and said "You are from Australia, and you are from NZ. How are you together?" to which we replied "We met in the UK". Aside from that first fairly abrupt seeming question, we were not asked any further questions - nothing about how long we wanted to stay in the UK, when or how we were leaving (which we thought might be a bit tricky to explain, going by boat) and we were through with little issue. Then it was a matter of collecting bags, making our way to the Underground, and topping up our Oyster cards before boarding a Tube bound for Central London.
The wisdom, or lack thereof of arriving at Heathrow, and then having to cross the entirety of London from Southwest to Northeast by public transport at peak time on a Friday suddenly came into sharp focus for us. Particularly when we saw on our apps that there were issues at Holborn Station, where we had intended to change from the Piccadilly Line to the Central Line. Any alternative swapping points would involve an extra change, in packed city stations and doing that all with our luggage seemed thoroughly unappealing. We had an option though - change at Acton to the District Line, travel to Richmond and board a Central line train there to Epping, where the Central line started - this would mean that we could guarantee a spot for a seat and somewhere to put our bags. So we did this, only to discover at Richmond that none of the Central line trains that were there were going to go all the way to Epping - as there was a fault on the Central line. The only thing to do was to catch a Central Line train, and try to change to an Epping train later on. Due to the operational problems on the Central line, we got held up at Notting Hill Gate station for about 15 minutes. We waited for an onslaught of passengers as we got into central London and at Holborn - the onslaught never came!
We rode our tube train until its final destination, Leytonstone which is not the end of the Central Line - that's Epping, which was where we were going. We hopped off at Leytonstone, knowing the next Epping-bound train was less than 5 minutes away. What we didn't count on was a combination of the driver who was supposed to take over the train we'd just arrived on not showing up on time, with our driver having already left so the empty train sat there and jammed up the works while other trains waited for the platforms to finally become clear; and when they did, the signalling system crashed meaning that trains became further delayed and all their destinations changed. This meant that the Epping train that had been 5 minutes away, became a train for somewhere else; it was a full 20 minutes before we managed to board a train for Epping, with a few others going to the other part of the Central Line going past in the process. By the time we got to Epping, we were tired, a bit exasperated, hot and sweaty (the Tube at that time of year is not a pleasant place to be) and to be honest, quite over it!
I was quite glad to get to Paul's house in Epping and shed our bags. Our arrival there wasn't just the end of a long day - for us it also marked a "halfway" point in our travels, although it wasn't the "true" halfway. We'd always talked about the trip in 4 Parts - Part 1 was Europe, Part 2 was the UK, Part 3 was our boat trip across the Atlantic and Part 4 was the US. Part 1 was by far the biggest part, at 2 whole months which was half of our overall journey - it had been a long, action packed and also very enjoyable 2 months, but now it was over. It hadn't been too short, but equally it it hadn't been too long. It felt like the right amount of time, and as much as I enjoyed our journeying around Europe I was looking forward to the next stage!