2025 Trip - 5th October 2025

We left the house at 11am on Sunday 5th October, and drove to Deanne's where we left the Mazda, and she and the boys drove us to Albury Airport where we had coffee and were joined by Vanessa. Our flight was on time and we departed at 12.50pm and arrived at 2pm. We had received a notification from Qantas that our flight QF1 from Sydney to London would be delayed.  On arrival into Sydney, we were advised that there was a 4 1/2 hr delay, which meant it would leave until 8.39pm.  Qantas did issue a voucher for $30 each towards food & drinks. 

The flight was uneventful and the captain was very apologetic and said he would try to make up some time ! which he did.  However, the 2 hr stopover in Singapore, became nearly 4 hrs and the flight didn't depart until 3.50am.

The UK based crew was fantastic on the 13 1/2 hr flight and we were able to get a little sleep.  We arrived into London at about 11am London time.  There were no  holdups getting through customs and immigration, and we headed for the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, where we sat and enjoyed coffee and something to eat.  I went in search of the bronze statue of Paddington Bear, which I found near Platform 1

Eventually, we caught a Black Taxi to our accomodation in Prince's Square, not far from Kensington.

After check in (36 hrs after we left the house) John went for a walk to check out our options for dinner, as we were both exhausted neither of us felt like much.  He  bought some ham, cheese and salad, and some ice creams (forgetting that we didn't

have a freezer.  By 5.30pm we both just wanted to sleep, so we had the ice creams for dinner and were in bed by 6pm.