My plane arrived back into Sydney just after 8pm. I decided to take the opportunity to use my new passport in conjunction with the new smart gates. Basically you insert your passport and let the machine take your photo. It then compares it to the digital copy stored within and if it matches the gates open and through you go. This means you don’t have to stop at immigration which can save a heap of time. I stopped off at the duty free shop and picked up some alcohol to replace what I had to give away; they actually had a bottle of Mango Malibu which I had never seen before. I thought I better do everything by the book and declared my travel medications and food (chocolate and peanuts). While waiting to pick up my bag a customs guy came around checking declaration cards. He was happy from my explanation of what food I had to mark off my card as approved so only had to see them about my travel medications. After quite a long wait watching everybody else’s bags go around and around mine finally came out and I proceeded to customs. The guy at front of the line directing everyone asked me what medication I was carrying. He was happy with my explanation and sent me through the line where you can walk straight through if the inspection person is already busy (i.e. random checks). I found Mum and Dad waiting outside for me amongst hundreds of other people; I think with some of them 20 people came with signs, flowers and everything else to greet one person. We headed outside out of the crowd before saying a proper hello. On the drive home I filled them in on all my major holiday memory’s (think I made Mum jealous). By the time we got home I was still wide awake, so while they went to bed I stayed awake until early morning.

Photos at Heathrow Airport

After saying my goodbyes I left Alana’s at 7am and headed for the airport. I had a feeling my bag was going to be overweight, but did not realise by a whole 10kg. They wanted me to pay $500AU which was more than what a lot of the stuff was worth. I found a corner with some public scales and set about getting rid of some stuff. With my hand luggage weighing in at 10kg and only supposed to be 7kg, they said they said they would let that slide as long as I didn’t add anything else. I ended up getting rid of 9kg in total out of my luggage which included throwing out of all my toiletries, putting a few small items into my hand luggage (just hoping they didn’t reweigh), putting on a few jackets while stuffing the pockets, and most regrettably giving away my alcohol. The bottle of Malibu was ok as it’s the same stuff as in Australia, however my other bottle was the champagne I took from the Moulin Rouge in Paris on my few days of my trip. I gave them to the Qantas lady behind the counter as there are no bins in the airport terminals, but whether she was actually allowed to keep them was another question. My flight home was on the new Airbus A380, with the plane also being the newest of Qantas’s fleet at only a few months old. When I booked I was able to give my seating preferences, so using the internet I worked out what the best seats were and gave them an exact seat number. This seat was a window seat 1 row back from the emergency exit, but had extra legroom because there was no seat in front of it. This seat as with all seats that don’t have another in front are slightly thinner as they have a foldout TV and tray table packed into the armrests. I knew this before and was happy to trade seat width for leg room. I did find however that a fold out TV is quite low compared to having one in the headrest in front, so after continued watching you start to get a sore neck. With the new Airbus you are also permitted to use the TV on take off and landing including watching the cameras below and on the tail of the plane, however if you have a fold out TV it must be folded away in case of an emergency. Just means I got a little cosier with the girl person sitting next to me so I could see. The airbus also has self serve snack and drink bar which is good. During take off and landing one of the air stewards was telling us the plane is the widest airliner being as wide as it is long. When it lands in Los Angeles they have to stop all airport movement as the wings overhang the runway onto the taxiway. After a brief stopover in Singapore, a chat with the girl next to me and having watched a handful of movies I arrived back into Sydney.

Photos taken at Windsor Castle

Pictures taken in Oxford

With checkout being at 11am and my walking tour at 10:30 I was getting ready to leave when the B&B owner suggested I leave my car and get the bus in as parking in Oxford can be quite difficult. After catching the bus and doing a little bit of souvenir shopping, I met the tour leader with the half a dozen or so people also doing the tour. The tour took us on a historical trip through the streets of Oxford including stops at a few university colleges and churches. It was quite interesting, and also allowed us to see inside some of the colleges where you could normally not go. Some of these places we visited were even used for scenes in the Harry Potter movies. After grabbing 20 McDonalds nuggets for lunch (they were so cheap), I jumped back on the bus and headed back to pick up the car. Today I was heading back to London and was my last day with the car, but before I headed back to London I stopped off at Windsor Castle. I arrived there about 3:30pm and with only an hour and a half until it closed they were reluctant to let me in as I would not have time to see everything. I explained I was flying home tomorrow and only wanted a quick look, so after paying my admission they let me in. Even though the castle itself closed at 5pm, some of the things within it close on a rolling schedule up until 5pm. This meant I had to hurry around looking at things before they closed. In the end though I seen everything at a reasonable pace and I don’t think I would have needed much more time anyway. It was only a 15km drive back to Heathrow airport to drop off the car, and just coming on dark proved difficult to find exactly where I was going to drop the car off. After a few laps of the car hire areas I finally found where I was going, and after driving in there were people in the driveway waiting to take the keys and send you on your way. After catching the shuttle back to the terminals I jumped on the tube and headed back to Alana’s. After some spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I did all my final bag packing for my flight home tomorrow and went to bed.

Breakfast this morning was a buffet in a conference room overlooking the bay, I thought this was fancy but this was actually their temporary arrangements while the restaurant was being renovated. I took a morning walk around the bay to take some photos before heading off. My mission this morning was to find some duct tape so I could tape up the broken plastic engine protector underneath the car. I didn’t think it would be so difficult, but at the 3rd place ended up finding some reflective silver tape which would completely stand out if anyone was to look. Being a little desperate I bought it anyway and continued on only to find a hardware store where I also picked up some in black. After trying to actually tape it up though I am glad I had the silver, the black stuff was useless and wouldn’t stick. Driving back through Cardiff I came across Cardiff Castle so decided to stop and have a look. Trying to park in the public car park across the road I rubbed the left and front wheel on a gutter, there was now 2 gauges on the alloy rim and I am sure there was only 1 when I picked up the car. The castle was reasonable but nothing too special. With nothing else to do in Cardiff I started my drive to Oxford. I was even ready to pay my £5.50 toll on the bridge only to find out you only pay in 1 direction. I arrived into oxford about 4:30pm and headed straight for the tourist information for some accommodation help. I have to say they were very unhelpful simply giving me a book with lots of places and telling me to pick one. They could have provided an opinion including advice on its location but I think they were more worried about closing up to go home at 5. The first woman wasn’t even going to book it for me as it was almost closing time, so I went to someone else who said she would quickly do it for me. In the end they didn’t even book the one I asked for but another with a similar name. Rather than having to deal with them again tomorrow I also booked now a walking tour of Oxford. I drove to find my B&B which was a few km outside of Oxford, a bit too far to walk back in. It was getting dark and the traffic was very heavy (both cars and bicycles), so I instead walked to the local shops. I had a drink and dinner in the local pub and surprise surprise I had another burger; pub burgers are just so good.

Photos taken in Cardiff and Cardiff Bay

I had another nice cooked breakfast this morning, but nothing like a full menu of choices like the day before. I had a chat with the owner of the B&B for about half an hour before wandering into town to go on the free walking tour. The walking tours are conducted by the locals and won’t allow any type of payment to be made. They guide walked us around the town pointing out where everything was while giving a bit of history. After a few hours the tour finished up in the middle of town outside the Roman Baths, so I bought a ticket and went inside for a look. After having a look and battling the crowds inside I tried to find the burger place from the night before for lunch, but after getting lost I headed back to the car to continue on my journey. After driving on the highway for a while I noticed a scraping noise coming from underneath, and after pulling over to investigate I found the plastic engine protector underneath the car was cracked and hanging down making contact with the road. It seems when I bottomed the car out the day before I did more damage than I thought. I continued on and found that it only seemed to make contact when I exceeded around 60 mph, however to travel with the traffic on the highways I needed to be going faster than this. I decided I better see what I could do about it, so I found the nearest hire car office which happened to be in Bristol which I had only just passed. After turning around and heading into Bristol I found that it was closed being a Sunday. I did a lap of the town looking for any other shop which may be able to help, but with little in sight and all of those closed anyway there was not much I could do other than continue towards Cardiff taking it easy. Reaching the border between England and Wales was the Severn Bridge, a very large bridge at 1600m long and attracting a £5.50 toll (lucky I had some loose coin, wasn’t expecting to have to pay a toll). After a short drive down the highway through Wales I turned off and drove into Cardiff. I drove around looking for either some accommodation or a tourist information, but now being 4:30pm on a Sunday the tourist information would be closed anyway. After doing several laps of Cardiff looking for somewhere to stay, which to me didn’t look like it had much to offer, and also now getting frustrated as it is starting to get dark, I followed the signs towards Cardiff Bay (the name makes it sound like a better place). At this point not having the best of days, I decided that if I found somewhere a bit fancier I would treat myself (assuming I could find something for under £100). Cardiff Bay looked much nicer with nice open areas and a large marina with a handful of restaurants. I parked the car and went for a walk to see what I could find. A few hundred metres down the road was a large hotel right on the water, David’s Hotel and Spa. It actually looked out of my range, but I enquired anyway. At only £89 with breakfast I went for it. I did have to pay an extra £9 to use the carpark, but that was only minor. Also being a spa they also tried to up sell me a massage or beauty treatment to which I declined. Maybe they thought I needed it? . After going back to get my car I headed to my room. I was on the 5th floor with what they called a city/harbour view room which was cheaper than an ocean room. I was quite happy with this though with night setting in as I could see all the lights; you can’t see much on the ocean at night. The room was a good size and very fancy. After dropping off my stuff I headed down to the marina for a browse. Other than restaurants there wasn’t really much else around so I started walking towards Cardiff city centre for another look. After walking 20 minutes and it still being a sight in the distance I decided to turn back, I didn’t think it was that far when I started. Back at the marina I looked at a few of the restaurants but didn’t want to eat somewhere fancy, so I ended up settling for the American diner where I bought another burger (been eating a few of these lately). After dinner I went for a bit more of a wander and came across a bar so went and had a drink, but with only 3 people in there after 1 drink I headed back to the hotel (mainly went in as they had free WiFi internet). Back at the hotel I found out that the toilet in my room was broken and would not flush, so after reporting it to reception and being told the maintenance workers have already gone home they moved me the same room on the 3rd floor (5th floor was better). I spent the rest of the night getting stuck into my left over chocolate watching the large LCD TV on my king size bed.