Travellers always have favourite cities; one of ours is London. This is not our first visit and probably will not be our last. We have visited many of the popular tourist attractions so decided to be a little different this time round.

Arrival at Heathrow was 7:30 am but by the time we collected luggage and cleared customs it was almost 9:00 am before we left the airport. We travelled into London on the Underground using Oyster Cards (thanks Vicki and Michael). Our hotel is The Premier Inn, about 200m from Kings Cross Station. We were very lucky to be able to check in at 11am, 3 hours early, so headed to our room for a much needed shower after about 30 hours on the go.

Determined not to go to sleep till it was dark, we headed off to do some shopping. Greg has been checking out reviews of waterproof riding gear on YouTube and had found a couple of suppliers not far from our hotel. Firstly, we got Greg organised with a sim card for calls and data on his phone and then headed off to Infinity Motorcycle Accessories. Greg found the jacket he was planning to buy and quickly made his purchase but there was no pants for him and no jacket for Kerrie so we headed off to the next shop, also an Infinity outlet. Greg found his pants and Kerrie bought a Gore-Tex jacket. Hopefully the new gear will keep us dry without having to put on wet weather gear - that is the plan anyway!

The rest of the afternoon was spent having a look around King Cross and St Pancras Stations. They are both massive and are way more than railway stations; Kings Cross you might even say is quite magical! Of course, Kings Cross Station is the location of the now famous Platform 9 3/4 where Harry Potter and his friends, Ron and Hermoine, would push their luggage trolleys through a brick wall on their way to Hogwarts School of Wizardry. There was a queue of families waiting to have their photo taken attempting to get through the wall and also a queue to get in to the Harry Potter shop next to the wall!

St Pancras Station is massive and is the departure point for Eurostar trains to France via the Chunnel and also to many other destinations in the UK. Massive statues adorn the concourse of the building along with numerous restaurants and even a Champagne Bar. Absolutely exhausted by 5pm we headed back to our hotel for dinner and an early night.

On Wednesday morning we decided to walk to Camden Markets and Lock, only about an mile and a half from our hotel. The markets were crowded with people and I'm sure you would be hard pressed not to find a bargain at the jam-packed stalls.

Next on the agenda was trip on the Underground to the edge of the Thames River. As the weather was a bit overcast and rainy we decided to spend the middle of our day taking a river cruise out to the Thames Barriers. As we cruised along the river, the commentary pointed our points of interest such as The London Eye, St Paul's Cathedral, The Shard, HMS Belfast, The Tower of London, Tower Bridge and Shakespears's Globe Theatre (check out the photos). The trip out to the Barriers took about an hour. The Thames Barrier is London's defence against the increasingly high flood tides that affect the river. The barrier became operational in 1982 and was used to stop high tides just 12 weeks later.

The boat then turned around and returned to Greenwich where we got off for a look around. Greenwich is where the astronomical clock is situated and where world time is measured from, the Prime Meridian of Longitude 0 degrees was fixed here in 1884. It is also the home of the Cutty Sark which is 130 years old and used to be a tea clipper. The visitor centre for the ship was closed due to a private function. The function we discovered, was to celebrate the naming of a new fishing trawler called the Kirkella which had been named by Princess Anne earlier in the day. This trawler will supply 13 million portions of fish and chips a year. To celebrate the occassion there was free fish and chips for all visitors to Greenwich - and they were delicious! Greenwich was also home to the old Royal Naval College with the new College now located in Dartmouth.

Back on our boat we headed back to town for a wander around Westminster - rather dissappointing as both Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament are covered in scaffolding for restoration. There was also a huge Police presence in the area as groups of protestors were making their views heard on everything from abortion, gay rights and peace to all.

Our ANZAC Day this year seemed a little wrong. Usually we attend a dawn service but this year that was not to be. So we pinned our poppy badges to our lapels and we decided to spend our day doing some military associated activities. First up we visited the RAF Museum at Hendon about a 30 minute train ride from our hotel. This museum was recommended to us by our friend Craig d*** on - thanks heaps. The museum has exhibits from both World Wars as well as more modern aircraft. We even got to extend our Dam Busters experience from our trip in 2018 by completing a virtual reality experience where we got to feel like we were actually flying in the Lancaster Bomber with Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his crew - amazing!

On returning to the city we tried to visit Kate, William and the kids at Kensington Palace but they didn't appear to be home, maybe next time. We wandered through Kensington gardens on our way to the Australian War Memorial near Hyde Park Corner; this was our chance to pay our ANZAC Day respects to the fallen. There were several wreaths at the memorial that were placed there this morning during the London Dawn Service.

Our next two days will be spent visiting family at Eastbourne and Southampton before driving to Felixstowe to collect our bike on Monday.

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