Steel Tracks, Thames Winds, and Steaming Noodles

Day 005:  An hour and a half on an express train is all that separates the coastal docks of Southampton from the center of London. We woke at 8:00 this morning, which left plenty of time before catching the 9:30 express service north. While rail fares in Britain carry a noticeable price tag, the sheer speed and convenience make the journey an ideal way to spend an impromptu day out. Fast trains shrink vast distances. For anyone accustomed to long hours behind a steering wheel, stepping aboard a warm carriage and watching the countryside dissolve into dense city suburbs within ninety minutes feels effortless. Our train pulled smoothly beneath the vaulted iron canopy of London Waterloo Station right on time.

Stepping out along the River Thames invariably summons vivid memories of journeys undertaken decades ago. The very first time I stood along the riverbank looking across at the British Parliament was in 1981. I had just finished college and was en route to Kuwait for my first international teaching contract. A classmate and fellow newly minted teacher, Catherine Harold, joined me alongside several other school staff to explore the landmarks during a brief stopover. Those early travels felt momentous. It was not until 2005, when Jay and I went on a European vacation, that I returned to these riverfront walkways for sightseeing. Gazing across the water today brought that long timeline into crisp, meaningful focus.

Our morning walking circuit traced a scenic loop bridging some of the most celebrated vistas in the capital. We crossed Westminster Bridge with a brisk breeze reminding everyone that November has firmly arrived. The river wind was biting. We made our way up toward Trafalgar Square to view the monuments, the gallery facades, and the grand stone architecture before circling back to the south bank via the Golden Jubilee footbridges. Suspended high above the water alongside the rail lines, these twin pedestrian walkways offer unobstructed panoramic views of the entire riverside without any traffic noise. Braving the blustery weather rewarded us with an invigorating tour through the city core.

Seeking shelter from the chilly gusts, we ducked beneath Waterloo Station into the vibrant underground world of Leake Street. Known widely as the Graffiti Tunnel, this 300-metre vehicular tunnel running underneath the railway tracks serves as a rare, legally sanctioned sanctuary for street artists. The famous street artist Banksy hosted an underground art festival here in 2008, transforming a dark brick passage into London's most prominent public canvas. Spray paint drifted through the air. Intricate murals, vibrant tags, and clever stencils overlap continuously as artists repaint the brickwork daily, ensuring the scene looks completely different from one week to the next. Walking beneath those illuminated brick vaults felt like exploring a living underground art exhibit.

Emerging from the tunnel brought us directly into Lower Marsh, where honest midday cooking anchors the neighborhood. Situated right behind the station viaducts, this historic street hosts an authentic weekday market surrounded by small, independent shopfronts. We stopped into an unassuming Thai eatery serving steaming, freshly prepared dishes to warm up after our cold walk. Hot noodles hit the spot. While London dining expenses can seem steep when converted to Canadian dollars, this modest venue offered genuine, comforting value without tourist markups. Finishing a flavorful lunch restored our energy before we headed back toward the railway platforms.

Our timing inside Waterloo Station could not have worked out more smoothly for the return leg. After stepping through the busy concourse, we noticed that waiting just a short while allowed us to catch the 3:05 pm direct express straight back down to Southampton. We quickly bought one-way tickets via a machine. The carriage filled with a fascinating cross-section of students, shoppers, and daily commuters settling in for the afternoon journey. People-watching in a train carriage is just as entertaining as viewing famous monuments. That steady ride carried us comfortably back to the coast by early evening, rounding out an exceptional return to the capital.

Salisbury and Stonehenge

Day 004: We woke up knowing the day’s compass pointed toward Salisbury and the iconic monoliths of Stonehenge. The local forecasters had promised a cheerful cocktail of sun and clouds, but as the hours unfolded, their optimism about the sunny half proved entirely misplaced. Fortunately, we had packed gloves and medium jackets specifically for these five chilly days of our winter trip, and they were put to immediate work against an 8 degrees Celsius bite that felt distinctly colder once the wind took hold.

We didn't set an alarm today, simply waking up naturally at 7:45 AM and heading downstairs for the buffet breakfast. Armed with our bearings from yesterday, we easily located the proper pedestrian shortcut to Southampton Central station, an effortless line of sight from our window in room 316 at the ibis. We aimed for the South Western Railway service scheduled for 9:37 AM. The train dragged its heels slightly, but once underway, it was a smooth 38-minute glide through the Hampshire and Wiltshire countryside into Salisbury.  Much of the landscape looked like that of my youth.  The exception being many of the houses were brick.

Outside the station, we spotted the designated bus stop for the Stonehenge Tour with some time to spare before the next run. We wandered down the road to explore the historic Fisherton Mill, treating ourselves to a pair of Americanos that set us back $7.50 CAD each. We looped back with time to board the 11:05 AM departure, plugged into the audio commentary through our earphones, and enjoyed the narrated roll out through town.

The bus journey took about half an hour, depositing us at the windswept expanse of Salisbury Plain. With the wind cutting across the open landscape, we bypassed the optional two-kilometre trek on foot and hopped the passenger shuttle directly to the stones.

Stonehenge remains the ultimate prehistoric enigma. Erected in multiple phases between 3000 BC and 2000 BC, this monumental Neolithic circle aligns with the solstices, built from massive 25-ton sarsen stones dragged from twenty miles away and smaller bluestones hauled over one hundred and forty miles from Wales. Standing before them, pondering how ancient Britons engineered the jointed lintels without modern tools or heavy machinery makes the goosebumps worthwhile. We spent well over an hour taking in the monument and browsing the exhibits inside the visitor centre.

The return coach swept past Old Sarum, the desolate iron age hill fort that originally served as the ancient precursor to Salisbury. Old Sarum held the original Norman settlement and the first cathedral, until bitter winds, water shortages, and friction between church clergy and military garrisons prompted everyone to abandon the hill in the 1200s and rebuild down in the river valley.

Our destination was that successor: Salisbury Cathedral. An Early English Gothic triumph, it boasts the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom at 123 metres. More impressively, the Chapter House safeguards the finest and best preserved of the four surviving original 1215 copies of the Magna Carta. Sealed by King John under duress from rebel barons at Runnymede, this parchment stands as the foundational bedrock of constitutional law and global democracy, establishing the radical premise that nobody, not even the Crown, is above the law.  The juxtaposition of having US midterm election results show up today did not go unnoticed. 

Having stayed on the bus until its final terminus at the railway station rather than hopping off downtown, we ended up putting in some extra footwork backtracking into town. It was well past normal lunch hours by the time we found an inviting bistro by the river. Sitting alongside the water, it is easy to imagine how vibrant and lively Salisbury must be in the height of summer.

We strolled back to the station and boarded the 3:36 PM Great Western Railway service, pulling into Southampton Central right on time at 4:05 PM. Standard time is notorious for an abrupt curtain drop, and the light faded swiftly as we walked back to the hotel. After dropping off some stuff at the room, we made an evening run to the nearby Lidl to secure provisions for another relaxed dinner in room 316. Our trackers logged about 9 kilometers for the day, a modest reduction from yesterday’s tally, but a thoroughly satisfying trek through five thousand years of history.

We're on Greenwich Mean Time

Day 003:  Waking up at 8:45 AM is hardly sleeping the day away under normal circumstances, but after spending more than twelve continuous hours catching up on transatlantic sleep debt, the morning felt deceptively late.

 

Breakfast was included downstairs at the ibis. Fresh, local fruit is understandably hard to come by in the UK in November, but the buffet served its purpose. For those committed to the traditional British artery-clogger, there were plenty of greasy sausages and warm baked beans on hand. I took a more practical route, assembling my own breakfast sandwiches using toast, eggs, ham, and cheese. It proved such a successful formula that I engineered a second one and ate that too.

By the time we sorted ourselves out, the clock was pushing 10:00 AM, so we agreed to keep our explorations close to home base. We set out on foot to explore Southampton. Being in the ceremonial county of Hampshire naturally carries an immediate, built-in familiarity, and the old city centre is pleasantly compact and walkable. The weather cooperated with a decent mix of broken clouds and bright blue skies. At around 10 degrees Celsius, the coastal air stayed brisk, but the walk felt genuinely great whenever the sun made an appearance.

Southampton is the departure point for two wildly contrasting milestones of maritime lore, so you can pick your favourite history class. In August 1620, the Mayflower cast off from the West Quay alongside the Speedwell, carrying the Pilgrims toward the New World. Nearly three centuries later, on April 10, 1912, RMS Titanic slipped out of Berth 44 on her fateful maiden voyage to New York. One journey founded a colonial legend, while the other shattered Edwardian optimism, devastating Southampton by claiming the lives of over five hundred local crewmen. Walking these streets, you feel both chapters lingering at the water's edge.

Our route eventually carried us over to Oxford Street, a historic strip lined with brick terraces, restaurants, and centuries-old watering holes. The standout landmark here is The Grapes, a legendary pub forever etched into the folklore of the Titanic. On the morning of departure, several crewmen were busy downing pints inside, lingered just a few minutes too long over their ale, and dashed to the quay only to discover the gangplank had already been raised. The gate officer refused to let them board. It stands as one of history's ultimate instances of lifesaving tardiness, where a final round of British beer proved the difference between surviving and disappearing into the icy North Atlantic.

Darkness arrives in a hurry here in November, with sunset dropping the curtain at 4:32 PM. The clear evening sky allowed the chill to settle in fast, pulling the temperature down toward an overnight low near 4 degrees Celsius, a crisp autumn bite not all that different from Vancouver at this time of year. For our evening trek, we strolled over to the local Lidl. The German discount powerhouse has quietly conquered the continent with over twelve thousand stores, mastering a no-nonsense retail formula that cuts away excess marketing in favor of quality private-label value. Stepping through the automatic sliding doors felt instantly familiar, offering the identical, well-organized layout we have navigated in France or across Eastern Europe. We stocked up for a relaxed in-room feast, grabbing cheese, fresh baked rolls, olives, green tea, and cookies. 

We will likely manage to stay awake a bit past yesterday's early bedtime, resting up for tomorrow before deciding which direction the compass will point.

A Hiccup on the Second Half

Day 002:  We were initially pleased when our Air Transat flight pushed back from the gate at Toronto Pearson a solid ten minutes ahead of its scheduled 9:35 PM departure yesterday. Once off the blocks, however, forward progress ground to a halt. We sat stranded on the apron while the minutes steadily accumulated.

Eventually, the captain came over the intercom with the sort of news every passenger dreads: an engine monitoring parameter had flagged an error that refused to clear. Technicians were summoned, the aircraft doors swung back open, and maintenance crews filed into the cockpit to run diagnostics. With an entirely full cabin and overhead bins crammed to capacity, the prospect of an outright deplaning felt agonizing. For a while, a wholesale evacuation seemed imminent. Relief finally came when the captain announced that the fault had cleared and fresh flight plans were being filed. By the time the engines spun up and we finally took off for England, we had spent over an hour and a half pinned to our seats.

The seven-hour transatlantic crossing proved largely unremarkable, aside from our row companion. Jay and I were seated next to a gentleman with mental disabilities. He was a bit erratic, and he did offer some initial resistance when we first tried to squeeze past him to get into our seats.  Just free entertainment, I guess.

 

We touched down at London Gatwick an hour and a half behind schedule. Despite the lost time, a quick check confirmed we could catch a direct rail connection down to Hampshire and pull up to the ibis Southampton Centre right around standard check-in.

The Gatwick station staff directed us to the coastal run requiring a single transfer in a town called Havant. The transit could not have been smoother. An initial leg of about an hour and a half brought us to Havant, where we had roughly twenty minutes to wait on the platform without needing to drag bags up and over any footbridges. The connecting train arrived on the same track and carried us the remaining half hour into Southampton Central. Both carriages were clean, spacious, and delightfully uncrowded. The tickets came to about $42 Canadian, with the British pound currently trading at roughly two of our dollars.

From the station, the hotel was a mere 200 metres away, though spotting the direct walkway was not immediately obvious and we wound up hauling our luggage the long way round. Still, we reached the desk and checked into the ibis at 3:35 PM. With a five-night stay ahead before boarding our cruise, we were able to unpack our suitcases completely and pull out our proper cold-weather layers.

The wind off the water carries a vicious edge, making a mockery of the official 10 degrees Celsius reading on the thermometer. Darkness falls swiftly by 5:00 PM at these latitudes, so we stepped out into the night to track down food. We settled on the nearest venue, a TGI Fridays. The menu prices deliver a brisk shock once mentally converted to Canadian currency, but the meal hit the spot.

Bed will be around 8:30 PM as terminal fatigue is about to win out.

Getting a Little Less Than Halfway There

Day 001:  Rising at 3:30 AM is a sharp, early start to any day, but departure mornings run on their own clock. By 4:40 AM, our Uber was quietly whisking us through the darkness toward YVR.

 

Security and boarding moved along effortlessly, allowing our Porter Airlines flight to push back slightly ahead of its scheduled 7:00 AM departure. The flight itself was smooth and uneventful, but the aircraft earned high marks. Porter flies the Brazilian-built Embraer E195-E2, a long, stretched narrow-body twinjet engineered with a civilised 2-by-2 seating configuration throughout the entire cabin. With no middle seat anywhere on the aircraft, the extra shoulder room and quiet cabin make the four-hour transcontinental run feel far less confined than standard domestic hops.

We touched down at Toronto Pearson just past 1:00 PM Eastern time. With our connecting flight to London Gatwick not scheduled to depart until 9:45 PM, an eight-hour terminal vigil was off the table. We had planned ahead and purchased online passes for the Plaza Premium Lounge, securing our base camp for the entire afternoon.

The lounge bustled with the steady churn of arriving and departing passenger groups, but it provided all the necessary comforts: generous spreads of complimentary food, cold beer, and room to stretch out. Around 5:30 PM, we booked into the private shower suites. Stepping out thoroughly refreshed, fed, and clean takes the dread out of boarding an overnight transatlantic crossing.

Odds and Ends: Last Day at Home in 2026!

I saved an image from the balcony cam this morning.  Tomorrow, we will be in the air by the time the sun rises over the Fraser River.

A strange day to run into an unexpected internet snag, especially right after securing our flight seats and confirming travel details early this morning. Routine checks had me flipping breaker switches, but our connection stubbornly refused to come back up once the power returned. We have had flawless service from Novus for years, which made the sudden silence even more frustrating. Reaching support was a chore, and the agent quickly assumed the equipment had failed completely. That would have caused real headaches today, not to mention next March when our standard return routine relies on flipping the switches and having everything instantly live. The technician took my mobile number since our landline is VoIP, then phoned back to arrange a service visit between 3:00 and 4:00. Naturally, hardware keeps its own hours. Out of nowhere, the entire link restored itself at 1:30 without any help. The dispatched technician arrived as scheduled, though he never needed to come up to the apartment, and I am glad to be posting this over our regular home connection after all. 

I backed Kimchi up pretty close to the wall of our parking stall.  It beeped to complain about getting too close.  We threw the cover over the EV, ensured the battery had 82% and wished it a good four and a half month sleep in the coolness downstairs.

With most things packed and my fancy new Google Keep Note called Packing Checklist, mostly completed, I looked for useful things to do.  When leaving, the coffee maker always needs a bit of cleaning so I descaled it.  I always run to AI help to remember how to do it.  The water around here is mostly run off water and very soft.  I probably needn't have bothered but now Kevin is sparkling.  Oh, on my home network the Coffee Maker is named Kevin.

We will try to rest really early tonight.  I'm not even sure there are Ubers running around at 4:30 am but that is when we'll try heading to the airport tomorrow.  We have just a domestic flight to Toronto and then time in an airport lounge.  The time between flights is longer than either of the ones we're on.  If all goes as planned, we should be at London Gatwick on Monday morning at 9:45 am local time.

Clean Electrons Before the Frost

Preparing my Hyundai Kona EV for an eighteen-week hibernation formed the primary mechanical errand on this morning's departure checklist. Electric vehicles require no fuel stabilizer, oil changes, or exhaust checks, trading greasy maintenance for simple battery math and tire management. I drove up to Queen's Park to complete the seasonal preparations amidst the autumn foliage. High on the mountains near Golden Ears Park, a fresh dusting of snow stood out brilliantly against the clear, crisp morning air.

 

Managing the main driving battery for a long rest is remarkably simple. I plugged into the Flo station at the park to take in clean electrons and set the target charge to 82%. That number holds effortlessly in our subterranean parkade at Carnarvon Place. That parking stall remains a steady 10°C throughout the darkest months, sparing the cells from freezing sluggishness. The car maintains the twelve-volt auxiliary battery automatically. The main pack will read the exact same 82% when the elevator doors open in March. 

Tire pressure required a dedicated detour to the local Chevron. Low-rolling-resistance tires feature stiff compounds that develop flat spots when heavy battery mass presses down on stationary rubber for months. I intentionally pumped them up past their normal baseline to build extra structural stiffness. That added pressure keeps the casing true against the cold parkade floor.

 

With electrons stored and tires braced, the vehicle is safely decommissioned for the season. Well, after we cloak it under a car cover, that is. Tomorrow should be rather low-key with any remaining packing and apartment preparations before we leave early Sunday morning. The mechanical loose ends are tied up, leaving only our passports and packed luggage for the meandering path to South America.