Had another crappy nights sleep. Was too hot (even with aircon on full) and stressing over my dumb body and then the building started humming.. loud enough for at least one other person on the floor to complain about it. No idea what it was.
So got up fairly late.
Had breakfast at the local Scottish Restaurant (for £5 for the two of us instead of £30 the hotel would have charged).
Then hopped on a tube train then a regular train out to Charlton to walk up to the Thames Flood Barrier (past a half marathon in progress which closed off the road we walked up). The flood barrier stuff was pretty cool. Interesting to see how they built it and how it works. Had a toasted sandwich in the cafe there for lunch.
Security cameras at Charing Cross station
Rows of houses outside Waterloo station
Marathon runners on Woolwich Road, Charlton
Thames Flood Barrier
Thames Flood Barrier
Thames Flood Barrier
Model of the flood control system
Stu ponders the denting caused by stress-testing the scale model
Scale model of the flood control system used for testing the design
Thames Flood Barrier
Thames Flood Barrier
Thames Flood Barrier
Thames Flood Barrier
Instead of walking back to the station and training it two stops, we decided to walk for a while back along the Thames. You can actually walk all the way along it, but we cut across the Greenwich peninsula (and cut across the end of the half marathon, and even saw the exact same girl wearing an Elmo on her back that we saw the first time two hours ago!).
Thames Path National Trail tunnel
This wall showed the length and height of the Thames as it comes down from its headwaters
Thames heights near Runnymede
Looking towards London and the North Greenwich Arena
Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park
Elmo girl!
Buzz Lightyear was also running
So headed into the park at Greenwich and up to the observatory. Joined the hordes trying to get their photo taken on the prime meridian. Also had a look at the old telescope buildings. And got filled with rage at people taking photos of the telescopes when it says all over the place that photography is forbidden :(:( Epic grunt. Should have taken some myself :/ The GPS doesn't actually line up with this, as the meridian for GPS is actually about 102m east of the prime meridian. Go figure. Headed back to the station and found another marked location of the prime meridian, with (hurrah) no tourists! Win! :)
Sundial in Greenwich Park
Greenwich Observatory
National Maritime Museum
North Greenwich Arena
Greenwich Observatory
Shepherd 24-hour Gate Clock and Public Standards of Length
Greenwich Observatory
Greenwich Observatory
Stu on the Prime Meridian
Prime Meridian
Greenwich Observatory
Prime Meridian on Park Vista just north of the gardens
Prime Meridian on Park Vista just north of the gardens
Prime Meridian on Park Vista just north of the gardens
Trained it back to the hotel. Got our washing together and went and put it on, and had Thai for dinner next door. Two mains, two desserts and a bottle of wine, and suddenly we have a $100AUD bill :( This country is so expensive it's more than just a little ridiculous. Put on the drying and had a McFlurry then back to the hotel to research tomorrow..
Oh I forgot to mention.. I got THE BEST value for money deal possible in this country tonight - sixteen 500mg paracetamol caplets for 16p!! Yes, that's 1 pence per tablet!! At that rate I considered buying a whole bunch to stock us up for the next few years .. altho customs might have had something to say about that!!
Geotagging - Day 30
Photos on the Canon: 163
Photos on the Sony: 24
Photos on the iPhone: 6
Photos on the Olympus: 9
Photos on the Blackberry: 6
Photos on the Video: 21
Videos on the Video: 11
Steps walked: 18641
Pounds Spent: ?