Our train arrived at London's Kings Cross Station, and although it just seemed a very familiar arrival back into a familiar city for us, this was our last arrival into London during our time in Europe. We stayed with our friend Nat once again out in Canary Wharf, which by now was almost a second London home for us and we knew most of the flatmates and they knew us! We only had a couple of days in London, enough time to do some of the last things we wanted to do and also get what we needed for our next stage of the adventures.
We departed Edinburgh by train, heading for London. For me, we were completing a bit of a gap with the train trip as all this time I'd never done the full trip between Edinburgh and London along the East Coast line, the former stomping ground of the steam loco "Flying Scotsman" and where the train The Flying Scotsman which my great-grandfather drove used to run and actually still does. This was the former line of the London & North Eastern Railway, or LNER which built Flying Scotsman's successors the A4 class and one of which, Mallard, became the fastest steam locomotive in the world. Our Virgin East Coast electric train was taking us faster to London than the A4 ever could, but in a matter of days it would be branded LNER itself - the UK Government was taking over Virgin East Coast due to franchise problems and reviving the famous old name. We didn't choose to travel by train to London specifically, though it was the preferred option over flying or bus - but we'd managed to book tickets early and it was by far the cheapest option, as well as being one of the fastest! Our train arrived at London's Kings Cross Station, and although it just seemed a very familiar arrival back into a familiar city for us, this was our last arrival into London during our time in Europe. We stayed with our friend Nat once again out in Canary Wharf, which by now was almost a second London home for us and we knew most of the flatmates and they knew us! We only had a couple of days in London, enough time to do some of the last things we wanted to do and also get what we needed for our next stage of the adventures. One thing I wanted to do in London was the Mail Rail, the tour and ride of the former dedicated Mail railway underneath London which only opened when we were in Berlin and the last time we'd been over to London, the tickets had been sold out a long time in advance. We'd gotten tickets this time, and visited the Mail Rail exhibition as well as took a ride through some of the former system aboard a converted Mail Rail train. The Mail Rail was built because London's streets were clogged and they needed to efficiently get mail across the city in a fast manner, so the Royal Mail - the UK Post Service - built their own form of the tube under London. Opened in 1927, it closed only in 2003 when Royal Mail decided it was too costly to keep using. Partly in an effort to stop Urban Explorers from breaking in and exploring the Mail Rail, its become a museum now and very well done. Included in our Mail Rail ticket was entry to The Postal Museum, across the road from the Mail Rail so we went and had a look at that too. It was far more interesting than I had thought - the museum was well done, and had some interesting things.- did you know that the iconic red Post Box pillar was originally green? or that they have the initials of the reigning Monarch of the time on them when they are made, meaning that ones produced under the reign of Edward VIII are the rarest - same with stamps! The postage stamp was also invented in Britain, and the most famous stamp is the first ever one - the Penny Black, and each Penny Black stamp is now worth a fortune. They had a whole sheet of original Penny Black stamps on display! There were other things about how stamps are created, their designs selected, and how that iconic portrait of the Queen used on stamps and coins was made, and even have a crack at making our own stamps featuring our own faces. We had a bit of fun sending messages to each other through the Lamson Vacuum tube system also - there was a delay where the canister you sent got put in holding and the previous one came out. This meant that you could fire messages off, and a while later random strangers would push the buttons and get a message someone else wrote. The man who got my message of "Go Home, You're Drunk" read it out aloud but didn't seem impressed! I never did hear someone else get the other message I sent saying "Help, I'm trapped in the pipes". We managed to swing the opportunity to catch up with my former London colleague Tom for lunch, as well as briefly meet up with some of my former workmates. We also managed to successfully go shopping for masquerade masks, finding exactly what we were after in the first well-stocked shop we attempted to go to. Otherwise, we generally spent time with Nat and a few other close friends, even getting to have an impromptu picnic in St James' Park with them one sunny afternoon - when the weather is nice in London, you have to take advantage of it so everyone showed up after work, drinks in hand and we had a nice time. I even managed to feed a squirrel one of our biscuits and it ate it out of my hand! There was no big finale for us for London - we didn't go out with a bang, this is a city we love but it is a city we said our goodbyes to 2 years prior when we moved to Berlin. The only difference now was we were leaving the city, and would no longer have the option of easily popping back for a weekend. I think all things considered though, we've done London pretty well over the years - making the most of it while we were living there, and managing to clear up all the little remaining things while still being in arms-length proximity to the city living in Europe. Normally too, London would be the logical departure point for travel onwards to USA from either Heathrow or Gatwick, but we had a boat to catch instead and they don't leave from London. So although this was farewell to London, it was not yet farewell to the UK - there was a little bit more to be had.
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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