Three days in London

Sad leaving British Columbia, but hey we're heading for London to kick off our month's tiki tour of even more British England.  Pauline and I have both been to England before, but in separate lives.  Pauline was here in 1999 on a teacher exchange scheme.  I was here in 1981 - the year Chuck and Di got married.  That's 45 years ago.  I wonder what's changed?  I hear they've got a new ferris wheel thingy in the heart of London, and a bit of broken glass called a Shard.  But perhaps we'll see them from ground level - not really in the mood to blow over £30 per ticket on them.  £120 is $276!  Bad news that the kiwi dollar is so weak - will just have to live with it.  We've seen all the tourist attractions, so will focus on those more out of the way places.

It's mid-afternoon on 3 September as we circle Heathrow waiting for our landing slot.  Not a bad flight, but the seats were uncomfortable, made much more tolerable by 90 minutes of Billy Connolly's superb stand-up comedy.  Looking down, it's clear England is having a long, hot summer.  Grass is browned off, hedges and trees are dying, and it's a brisk and drying 24 degree breeze as we land.  After a wet early June England hasn't seen any significant rain since then.  July has been the driest on record since 1836, and August was similarly parched.  Apparently El Niño is expected to bring a wetter, stormier autumn and early winter, to the extent that the Brits are expecting food shortages and are being advised to stock up.  It doesn't bode well for our Ireland leg in October either.  Hopefully September will treat us to mild autumn conditions.  Might even sneak in a game of croquet.

But where to stay in London?  Our flight touches down in the afternoon, so we want a BnB not far from Heathrow, close to the Elizabeth Line to whisk us into the central city.  Somewhere where there's a cool ethnic vibe, and relatively safe.  Something that feels homely.  An apartment at 5 Samara Drive sounds nice:

After clearing customs and immigration without issue we head to the train station.  "Sorry, the Elizabeth Line is temporarily closed - you'll have to catch the bus".  Fortunately this isn't Vancouver Island.  We get seats and are treated to some back streets of West London you'd never see from a train.  

The Airbnb accommodation is only 8 years old, but it's in one of those five-story apartment blocks which has been built down to a price, not up to a quality standard.  Ventilation and air-conditioning are non-existent - just a single opening window and a door to the deck.  It's sweltering as we arrive, and a small fan doesn't cut it.  British architecture really don't know how to handle heat - the Brits will be suffering more as climate change increasingly bites.

A quick trip to a local ethnic corner store sees us with cheese and crackers for dinner, milk, bananas, yoghurt and porridge oats.  No muesli or coffee sachets in sight.  Sometimes you have to make sacrifices when you travel and drink tea.  But even the tea is marginal.  London water is very hard with dissolved calcium and magnesium bicarbonates and they leave scum in the cup as they combine with the polyphenols in the tea.  Perfectly safe, but disconcerting all the same.  Perhaps even beneficial for those on mineral supplements.

Good news - the Elizabeth Line has reopened after engineers isolated the burst water pipe that caused a signal failure.  All go for tomorrow.  Will I find a decent coffee?

Day 1 - the V&A

There's an indifferent forecast and light drizzle as we wake, so today we'll head for an indoor attraction.  It should have been the Bayeaux Tapestry temporarily on display at the British Museum.  I tried to buy tickets a few minutes after they went on sale on 1 July.  Went to bed when I was at 20,000 in the queue.  Got bumped.  Woke to find I was now at 30,000 in the queue.  Hours passed.  By the time I could make a choice all feasible slots aligned with our itinerary were gone.  Such is life.

The Tower of London?  Tower Bridge?  Buckingham Palace?  Madame Tussauds?  Westminster Abbey? Been there, done that.  We settle on the Victoria & Albert museum.  There are a few techy things in our itinerary, so this is Pauline's chance to indulge herself with art, sculpture, materials and design.  And absolutely brilliant it is too.

No, this isn't Pauline as she steps out of the shower.

We wander under Marble Arch to the expensive end of the Monopoly board - Oxford St, Park Lane, Mayfair, and criss-cross Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.  Brown and parched, but the duck, geese, swans, magpies and crows are all surviving ok.  And the squirrels.  Less timid than the Canadian ones - one even came up to me and sniffed my finger, perhaps with the faint expectation of food.

Pauline has a thing about Mews - small, quiet, usually cobbled residential streets that were originally built in the 18th–19th centuries as service lanes of stables behind the grand homes of wealthy Londoners.  We visit half a dozen of them in Knightsbridge and Chelsea.  The stables have long since been converted into garages containing sleek black Mercs, BMWs and Range Rovers.  And the homes?  They start at £2-3m and go up from there.  Judging by the residents, there's a lot of Middle Eastern oil money here.  I suspect the English are not amewsed.  (Sorry - had to put that in for the grandkids).

A tea party going on near Paddington Station, our best stop on the Elizabeth Line.  This is new.  Obligatory pic for Sam as his monkey communes with another primate or two.

And the coffee?  A trendy cafe in Marylebone might be the answer, especially at £4.50 for a flat white.  Sadly no - it's lukewarm and bitter.  The search continues.

But I'm getting to enjoy the vibe around our accommodation.  Strangely, I feel right at home.

Day 2 - the markets

It's the weekend and we wake to blue skies and a sunny forecast.  Over breakfast I stream TVNZ1's 6pm news to see what's going to happen today.  Perhaps I'll buy a Lotto ticket.  I wait for the grandkids to expose the flaw in my reasoning.

On the agenda today is a gentle walk from Primrose Hill along the canal to the bustling Camden Markets.  It's a nice day so we'll walk through Regents Park, and find it greener than the rest of London which remains brown and parched.  They have a bore, and from there a lovely waterfall that feeds the Japanese garden.

A magic walk along the canal sees us at the markets, and I hopefully see a cafe advertising a flat white.  Then the upsell,  "Would you like our regular beans, or our special Peruvian beans?".  My mind goes back to the bitter coffee I had yesterday.  My mind also goes back to kopi luwak coffee we saw in Malaysia, where the best beans are eaten by civets and enhanced by their digestive enzymes, then sold for a fortune in London for the connoisseurs/gullible - you choose!  I take the plunge and go for the Peruvian beans at a modest price premium.  And bugger me it's the best flat white I've had in London to date.  

A Tramp Abroad also goes in search of fine cheeses.  Lunch was a selection from a conveyor belt - a Welsh brie, a Cornish gouda, and a Stilton-style Warwickshire blue made from raw milk.  All superb.  The Camden Markets are an excellent choice for the discerning epicurean.

Our return trip to the city took in Trafalgar Square (we have an appointment with Horatio tomorrow) and Buck House as they were an easy walk on the way back to Paddington, and you can't really say you've been to London without dropping by.

We arrive at Paddington Station to find all Elizabeth Line services have been cancelled due to a fire near the line.  Picture this.  You're in the middle of a huge city and need to find your way to the outer western suburbs by bus.  AI?  Useless.  Google Transit?  Useless.  A Jamaican bus driver with dreads to his waist?  A gold mine.  Note to self - switch phone to Rastafarian mode.

We make it back to Southall by the back roads - a bit later than planned, but definitely more scenic.  It's been a long day and Pauline checks the stats on her watch.  15km of walking and 27,000 steps.  We'll do an easier day tomorrow.

Day 3 - nautical London

I open my phone to dozens of messages.  Oh - of course - it's Sunday 6 September.  That means I've taken 70 trips around the sun.  What better reason to add a time component to this blog post.

After yesterday's near-half marathon effort we decide to use public transport to do the heavy lifting in getting us to Greenwich.  The trains are pretty full, but because I'm an old codger, youngsters are now a bit more inclined to offer me a seat.  An African woman with a young daughter in tow is carrying a placard, but we can't quite see the writing.  Perhaps there's a protest march on?  

We exit the train into a seething mass of humanity, most wearing running gear.  Yup, we've hit the Greenwich half-marathon, and multiple placards are showing support for their other halves who are running.  No worries, we're heading to the Royal Observatory up the hill, well away from the crowds.

In this day and age we think nothing of glancing at our phones to note the time to the nearest second and a little blue dot shows our position on the planet to within a metre.  Not so 400 years ago as ships were setting off to discover new worlds.  Determining latitude wasn't too hard, but out of sight of land longitude was a challenge, and mistakes deadly.  You've got to admire the scientists and engineers of the time in devising methods as complex as measuring Jupiter's moons to sophisticated chronometers set to Greenwich time.

Reminiscent of today's flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, there were a few less scientific ideas put forward too.

And the time we're here?

The gnomon indicates the correct time.  But hang on - we're on British Summer Time (BST), an hour ahead of UTC.  Ah - the Observatory uses two different base plates, and they swap them over when daylight savings finishes.  Clever!

Pauline's indecision to the fore - should choose the eastern hemisphere or the western?  Or have a foot in both camps?

It's my turn to straddle the meridian, and I check my location.

Not exactly zero degrees longitude?  What gives?  AI to the rescue:

Your phone uses GPS, which defines longitude using a modern global reference frame.

The historic Prime Meridian at Greenwich was defined in 1884 using a telescope — and that old line is about 102 metres west of the modern 0° longitude.

So your phone is correct for GPS, and the painted line is correct for history.

Down the hill to the Maritime Museum to learn more about Lord Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte, KB.  Quite simply, he was the nation's saviour, destroying the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and ensuring Britain’s command of the sea for a century. No wonder he's so revered.

There's a Pacific section at the Maritime Museum too, so what was there to learn about our European discoverer, James Cook?  Mostly good, but one image caught my eye - a copy of a 2013 work hanging in Sydney's Maritime Museum.

Something tells me this won't be hanging in our new Cook Straight ferries.

A visit to the Cutty Sark will finish off our trip to Greenwich nicely.  We fight our way through crowds of runners and supporters trying to find the entrance.  It's barricaded off.  After a fruitless half hour we discover it's closed due to the event.  Bummer!

At least the Elizabeth Line is open, and we're home in plenty of time to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday.  Pauline's chosen Madhu's just up the road - one of Southall's finest Punjabi restaurants.  My ambition of having a curry in Southall has been realised.  We choose the banquet because it gives you a little bit of everything.  It also gives you twice as much as you can possibly eat.  Fortunately they do doggy bags on special request.

Some inspired gifts from Pauline too - a T-shirt from the Camden Markets, and a book of Bletchley Park cryptographic brainteasers.  More on Bletchley later.  For the sake of modesty, some fine woollen underpants to get me through Ireland aren't on display.

Well - that wraps up my birthday.  A Southall having his 70th in Southall is going to be memorable for more reasons than one.  It's been a great stay in London.

Tomorrow we pick up our hire car and head north for three weeks of driving around England. Stay tuned!

Four days in Vancouver and environs

How can you possibly do this great part of the world justice in just four days?  Basically by picking the eye teeth out of the attractions.  Here’s how we did it.

Day 1 – Grouse Mountain and Capilano

Joy – it’s not raining.  Just a bit of cloud.  We hop on the bus north to Grouse Mountain, renowned for hiking, mountain biking and of course in winter, skiing and snowboarding.

I was last there in December 2005 hoping to do the Grouse Grind, a 2.5 km trail climbing 800m straight up the mountain.  Sadly I was confronted by a large sign:

 

Here it is summer of 2026 and I’m good to go, taking Pauline (and Sam’s pet monkey) with me.

Just a few little problems.  Back then I was super-fit.  Advance 21 years and I’m an unfit pensioner with a steel plate in my ankle.  Pauline looks a bit dubious too, but monkey was keen to go.

Perhaps we’ll take the gondola to the top instead for the views.  I look up to see the gondola cables ascending into swirling gloom, and we agree to not spend $200 to see the inside of a cloud.

A gentle walk along the BMC trail instead, taking in the Western Hemlock, Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedars as we step over the rocks and roots.  There’s a certain sameness to North American cedars, and the deep shade and toxic soil they create means there’s very little undergrowth.  A strong contrast to the variety we see in kiwi bush.

Back down the hill to the Capilano Suspension Bridge – another revisit for me.  The bridge and treetop walk are as spectacular as ever,

and now they’ve added a Clifftop walk as well. 

I’m still puzzling why Pauline posed me here.

 

In case you’re wondering about the suspension bridge, it was constructed in 1889 by George Grant Mackay, a Scottish civil engineer.  Just like the chicken crossing the road, he wanted to get to the other side.

There’s a gift shop (of course) on the way out.  Noting I don’t have a Canada sticker on my suitcase I pop in to get one, even if it means blowing a couple of dollars.  No stickers.  However Pauline did spot a collection of fine hand-crafted buffalo leather handbags.  “This old army surplus bag I bought in Wellington years ago has had its day”, she says with a gleam in her eye.  We exit the shop $220 lighter, and Pauline is delighted.

On our way back to the BnB we note how Vancouver is very much like Auckland, a port city but on a grander scale.  The commercial heart is on the south side, with residential on the North Shore (where unlike Auckland you can actually cycle across the bridges).  Our area seems a bit scruffy though – many lawns are unkempt, weeds grow in the gutters, and the houses are looking a bit tired.  “A bit like Glenfield”, I remark, and get a swift slapping from Pauline.

But apart from the obvious of the traffic driving on the wrong side of the road, there are a few other things that set Vancouver apart from Auckland:

• Metre-high fire hydrants.  Perfect for dogs to mark their patch
• Squirrels darting up trees, and crows cawing from the power lines
• Bear-proof rubbish bins
• Heaps of Teslas but no Chinese EVs
• An efficient ferry and metro system
• Electric jugs that take an eternity to boil.  At 110V in North America you can only push 14A down a domestic wire, so jugs are 1500W vs our 2400W.  Pauline can get grumpy if her cup of tea is delayed, so this one’s important.  I think of the economic cost.  Half a billion people waiting an extra minute for the jug to boil four times a day.  That’s 3,800 man-years of lost productivity every day.  Or more to the point, 3,800 grumpy woman years.

 

Day 2 – Victoria and Vancouver Island

Why Victoria?  I’ll let AI answer this one:

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, and it blends historic architecture, coastal scenery, gardens, and a compact, walkable downtown. It’s consistently described as one of Canada’s most beautiful and visitor‑friendly small cities.

Indeed it is.  What the blurb doesn’t tell you is that it’s a real mission to get there.  Hop on a ferry in Vancouver harbour and disembark in Victoria?  You have to be kidding!  It’s a train – bus – ferry – bus sequence to get there.  Each leg takes a significant amount of time, and Vancouver’s amazingly efficient Compass transit card doesn’t work on Vancouver Island.

We’d initially planned to combine the Butchart Gardens with Victoria, but quickly realised we’d run out of time with only a day at our disposal, so the gardens got the chop.  After an early start we arrive at lunchtime after an hour-long bus trip from the ferry terminal.  Standing pretty much the entire way as the bus was so full.  No scenery to speak of on the way either.

The ferry trip was better – we could actually sit down, and enjoy the islands as we approached.  I was a little concerned we were sailing over a very small triangle of USA territory, and had visions of the ferry being boarded by US Marines, passengers interrogated, and me locked in a Texas cell due to some of my social media followings.  This at a time of heightened Canada/USA tensions with Canada walking away from an unfair trade deal, and the Americans ramping up tariffs.  The disdain, bordering on contempt that normally mild-mannered Canadians have for the Trump administration is palpable.

But Victoria is a gem, and well worth the visit.

And of course no visit to Victoria is complete without seeing Fan Tan Alley in Chinatown, famous for being the narrowest street in Canada.

 

I wasn’t looking forward to the return trip to Vancouver, and was sorely tempted to blow $200 on a float plane.  Common sense prevailed, and we queue up at the bus stop.  Canadians are so polite they apologise when bumping into furniture, and queue along with the rest of us.  Not so an aggressive group of Chinese tourists who push in in front of us as we’re about to board.  Pauline signals them to the end of the queue.  “Oh we have friend on bus” as they march on.  Standing room for me as we head back to the ferry terminal.  Should have taken the plane!

Day 3 – seeing Vancouver city

Having explored the city environs, it was time to focus on the city itself.  It’s too big to walk, so the obvious solution is to bike it.  Despite being a heavily motorised city, Vancouver is blessed with an excellent network of protected cycle lanes, cycle-friendly crossings, and off-road paths.  From the heart of town we hire an e-bike for Pauline and conventional pedal power for me.  A good combination – while Pauline blitzes me on the uphills I catch up on the downhills.

First up, the totems at Stanley Park.

While the geese remind us which country we’re in.

Lunch and plenty of attractions on Granville Island, but the highlight for me was a country singer/harpist, with a Gordon Lightfoot song peculiarly poignant.

A backtrack to Kitsilano was barely worth it, but if you go to Vancouver you have to say you’ve been to Kits Beach.  By kiwi standards it’s nothing to write home about, so we continued our trek around the False Creek harbourside to return to Stanley Park.

By now we’ve covered just under 40km, and Pauline’s bum is starting to protest.  My suggestion to cycle over the Lion’s Gate Bridge isn’t well-received, so we head back to the bike shop with an hour to spare.

That means we can squeeze in a quick excursion to Gastown to see the clock, but more on that tomorrow.  We head back on the ferry for a slap-up meal at a well-regarded seafood restaurant close to Lonsdale Quay.  We always try and eat and drink local, so I choose a Sockeye salmon washed down with a pinot noir, while Pauline has the Halibut and a pinot gris.  Both wines perfectly acceptable, but lacking the depth and complexity of their kiwi equivalents.  The halibut is fine, and the salmon not as oily or flavoursome as the kiwi variety, but perfectly acceptable.  The standout is the octopus though, which we share for an entrée.

Day 4 – flying out

Our run of cloudy/fine weather has come to an end, and we wake to grey skies and light rain.  We don’t need to be at the airport until 6pm so have a leisurely checkout and head into town.

There are no baggage lockers at the terminal, so seek out a couple of options.  BagsAway in Howe St is close.  Expecting to see a large bank of lockable lockers, we find ourselves in a small convenience store at the base of the PWC building.  “Yes yes – this is BagsAway”.  We dubiously check in our bags, noting a bunch of others in the storeroom behind the counter.  It worked perfectly.

First stop the Gastown steam clock.  Built in 1977 to prevent vagrants from hanging around a steam vent, the clock is an engineering marvel.

It “chimes” just like a grandfather clock every 15 minutes, but the chimes are actually steam whistles.  Midday sees it at its most spectacular as it goes on to produce 12 steam blasts that echo around the neighbourhood.

But the best place to spend time is the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.  An oasis of calm in the bustling heart of Vancouver, with just the odd siren or train rattle intruding to break the serenity.

 

Can Canadians now do a flat white?

As we sit in the departure lounge at YVR we can reflect on a fantastic four days in British Columbia, and respond to a 21 year old question.  When I was last here the local cafes had no idea what a flat white was.  The closest I could get was to ask for a 12oz double-shot latte, easy on the foam.

The situation has improved, but not markedly.

 

Espresso machines still aren’t common, but occasionally you’ll find a café with one, and even more occasionally a signboard offering a flat white.

But don’t get your hopes up.  Kiwi baristas have mastered the art of stretching quality milk into an ultra-fine, velvety microfoam.  Combined with a double shot of espresso from quality beans the result is flat white perfection.  While some Canadian efforts come close, most fall well short.  Let’s see what the London baristas can do.  Stay tuned!

Postscript: for the best NZ flat whites look no further than Jim and Jenny’s Kotare Mara Rural Coffee Stop in rural Waihou near Te Aroha.  Just round the corner from where Pauline and I live.  We certainly lucked out there!