Coming to a close.

It is my last night in the UK. Mixed feelings! One part of me is looking forward to going home, conscious of an amount of travel fatigue - a lessening of wonder at new sights and cities. Another part wishes the tip wouldn't end, that it could continue perhaps indefinitely.

All parts of me are dreading the impending flights. Three flights, of between 22 and 23 hours in total, five hours kicking around in transit airports, I arrive back into Melbourne at early on Saturday morning.

I'm back in London for the last night, so as to be close to Heathrow for tomorrow. The flight departs at 17:50, so no early morning rush. Allowing for transport delays and other works of Murphy, I'll be at the airport with plenty of time to then regret my cautiousness.

This is now my fourth stay in London for the trip, and tonight I am staying in the Ruskin Hotel in Russell Square. Funnily enough it's one street behind the Penn Club where I stayed on first arrival into London.

A trip itinerary can now be listed, perhaps of little use at the end of the trip, but something I couldn't do before now. Despite initially looking at an arranged tour when planning this trip, happenstance pushed me into a completely unplanned adventure. For those who know me well, spontaneity is not really my thing. (Understatement is, however). When I left Melbourne, I had only the first three nights planned. Everything else was to be decided. This has had its ups and downs, though more up than down. I think I've only really made one planning mistake, and I'll just have to rectify that on the next trip.

The trip, completed:
3 nights London
1 night Leeds
1 night Edinburgh
3 nights Inverness
2 nights Glasgow
3 nights Bowness on Windermere
1 night London
3 nights Amsterdam
1 night London
2 nights Great Yarmouth
1 night Liverpool
1 night London

I have travelled by train, plane, car, bus, small boat and huge! Having some time in London today was great, I seem to enjoy it more each time I come back (with the exception of the third visit, which was very much arrive-sleep-leave) and today was to visit the London Eye, something I'd been wanting to do, but hadn't managed yet. I booked a ticket for the Eye online, you save about 3 pound on the walk up price, and dithered for a few seconds over paying the extra for the 'fast track' pricing. Fast track means you avoid the long lines, and go straight to the front of the queue. The cynic in me wondered if it just meant you went straight to the front of a slightly shorter queue. The price difference was 6 pounds, so $12 aus, and I figured it was probably worth it, hanging around in a queue on my last day didn't seem like the best way to spend my time.

Some more travel on the London Underground, first to Leicester Square on the Picadilly line, then a change to the Northern Line for a train to Waterloo. Leaving Waterloo (I seem to pop out a different exit every time I visit) you can catch glimpses of the London Eye between the buildings as you walk towards the South Bank of the river. However you don't really get a grip on the size of the thing until you're very close. And it is very large! It is also only 'mounted' on one side, with giant cables holding it in place. However I had more confidence in jumping on this than I would say our own Melbourne Star, this one has not been sent back for a warranty repair.

The fast track ticket allows you to skip the line for ticket collection, so I had my ticket in no time, and though I'd booked for the 16:30 slot, they are not fussy about that, and you can use your ticket whenever. So I wandered over... the normal ticket line was not horrendous (certainly not Game of Thrones exhibit nasty) but it still weaved back and forth a few times, and wasn't moving particularly fast. Yay for the fast track ticket I thought, as I took the speedy entrance to the left. There was no queue at all in the fast track line, and I walked straight through up to the security checkpoint. Here they examine your bags, and run a metal detector over you and your bag... nothing nefarious discovered on me or my bag, again it was a case of bypassing another queue, right up to the boarding platform, where I stood behind two other fast trackers.

We were then, the three of us, waved into a capsule, emptying the fast track line, and I assumed that they would then open the normal line and fill up the capsule, but no, they shut the door on the three of us, and off we went. Slowly. The couple and I looked at each other somewhat incredulous, the capsule in front of us was quite full, the one after us also filled up, but we had this one to ourselves! This certainly made the fast track ticket worth every penny! Chatting, as you do, with random strangers when thrust together on such tourist attractions, it turned out they were from Melbourne, Templestowe in particular. Small world! Having the capsule to ourselves made for excellent photo opportunities, and I was pleased I had space on the iphone to snap away, though this was another of those times I wish I had my Pentax!

The Eye goes surprisingly high. There is a building next to it that looks pretty high from ground level, but on the Eye you go past the top of it, and keep climbing. The views are spectacular. It was a grey day, but visibility was fine. I saw Battersea power station for the first time, off in the distance behind Westminster Palace. I could see St. Paul's, could see the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, a good long stretch of the Thames, and Cleopatra's Needle on its banks. Well worth going on, and worth every penny for the fast track ticket, for those who might visit London in the future!

Yesterday, I did some rather slow travel by train. Waking in Great Yarmouth, with my stay there at an end (not altogether disappointed to leave), I had no firm plans. I thought I might try for Oxford again (alas, not to be), but decided to give into a whimsical plan to visit Widnes, that station at which Paul Simon wrote the song Homeward Bound in 1964 (or 1965, accounts vary). The story goes that Simon was touring the folk clubs of England (on a tour of one night stands) and had been in the Liverpool area, and aiming for Hull, when he spent some time in Widnes waiting for an early morning train. The likelihood is that the whole song wasn't written there, however it certainly has its origins in a lonely wait in a fairly drab place. Possibly if the trains ran as frequently as they do now, the song might never have taken shape!

However, to achieve this plan of whimsy, I was starting from a location quite some way away, and it took five hours on a slow two-car train, that didn't have a kiosk. If I'd been suitably prepared, I could have equipped with picnic supplies. The train by East Midlands, is an hourly service from Norwich to Liverpool, though it looked like I was in the distinct minority in taking it the whole way. People got on and got off at various junction stations along the way, even the crew changed, I think twice. I can see why. 5 hours on a train not really designed for long distance wasn't hugely fun. I may have been more comfortable, if not quicker, returning to London on the East Coast line, and coming back up on the West Coast. No doubt the app would have suggested that if I'd said I was going to Liverpool, but in fact I picked some tiny station in the middle of nowhere called Widnes, and this train did happen to run direct from Norwich to Widnes. However it changed direction three times as it pulled into stations where the driver had to change ends to drive out again. This was not a high speed express by any stretch of the imagination.

I arrived in Widnes, took in all the sights, sounds, and beauty of the station area (did not take long) and then rather happily boarded the next train to Liverpool. There was meant to be a plaque at Widnes commemorating the fact that Simon wrote the song here, but I couldn't find it. The lady in the station shop gave me a very puzzled look when I asked, thought I was rather daft I dare say, and had no information on the subject. So I took some photos anyway, and moved on.

Liverpool was a surprise. I decided to stay there as after five hours on a train, and having travelled from the east coast to the west, I was not keen on facing another three hours of train travel to get to Oxford. I don't know why but I had pictured Liverpool as rather dull, not something worth travelling to. Perhaps because of vague understandings of its industrial history, and as a dock. So it was quite surprising to discover a bustling city with architecture as awesome as London's, a large pedestrian plaza inviting a walk from the centre down to the side of the Mersey river, with a range of buskers from accordion to bagpipes! The architecture along the river bank was a mix of old and new, and I was sad to have missed the opening hours of the Liverpool museum, set in a shiny new building next to the ornate Port of Liverpool building. I did a very long walk from my hotel down through the city centre to the river, then back up through the city, through St James garden, at the foot of a huge building flanked with columns on all sides (I have no idea what that building was, should really check it on google), the gardens were manicured, and filled with statues and memorials, but sadly the light was fading making it hard to read their inscriptions.

Declining the offer of weed from a local youf in a hoodie, I was making my way back towards the Lime St station. Disconcertingly, said youf was following, walking along side, and appeared to be followed by some friendly other youfs on bikes. Deciding on a direction change, I crossed the road and was relieved they did not do likewise. This was one of two times on this trip where I've felt somewhat discombobulated, and worried about the potential outcome of the situation.

The first was in Amsterdam, when a melee or fight broke out while I was on the tram heading out of the city towards Slotermeer. Slotermeer is known as a 'Turkish quarter' and there's a cultural shift in inhabitants from the central city. On the plus side, this meant awesome middle eastern food during my stay, on the downside, there appeared to be some sort of clash happening as I rode the tram back to Slotermeer one afternoon. I first noticed something was up when I saw someone running, then another, then many. An altercation broke out on the roadside, which spread to the tram, and there were people running towards the fracas from many directions. With people running towards and onto the tram, there was a lot of shouting and shoving. Not being able to understand what was being said or what it was about made it more disturbing, however after watching it for minute or so, the tram driver closed the doors, splitting the group, and drove on.

A postscript to Amsterdam is I'm now looking the wrong way when crossing the roads in London. It is quite surprising I haven't ended my trip as the ornament on the front of a black cab.

Great Yarmouth there isn't much worth writing about. As described, it's a seaside holiday town with the life slowing oozing out of it in the shoulder season. I'm not sure I'd like the place even in the height of Summer, and it wasn't anything to write songs about in the rain soaked time I spent in the town. The one good thing was an excellent English pub, where I had some excellent food and made significant headway through my book. I have now finished Game of Thrones, and hoping I can buy the second volume in an airport bookshop tomorrow. I may need to abandon this copy if my luggage is over the limit, but as a paperback it has had a short but hard life, copping a soaking in a wet backpack.