Eye on London

London is addictive I reckon. I loved it, and would have loved it even more if I hadn't been staring at most of it through a lens! The number of times I was scowled at by security guards, tehe. Still amazing to be somewhere with so much history though, and so much grandeur...

We arrived on a blue blue day, and after 35 hours of travel it felt like we could do no better. We stayed in an amazing hotel just behind this monstrosity, which is the London Eye. Went up in it too (it rotates super slowly and you get an idea of how massive the city is, as well as doing the touristy thing and getting photos of all the sights!) so this isn't just a random pic. Walked up and down the Thames lots, but I haven't been on it yet (doing that on Friday - we're taking a boat to Greenwich!). It looks pretty here, and it is if you're looking at it from a distance, but it was pretty disconcerting to know that London's drinking water is distilled from the brown murk!

View from the Jubilee Bridge up the Thames (or is it down?!)

Visited the British Museum of Natural History which was amazing, and HUGE. For the botanists out there, I had the fantastic luck to go behind the scenes with one of the curators of the botanical collection, and check out the specimens from the Banks collection (the plants that were taken from NZ on Cook's first voyage). The rest of you would probably have been more impressed by the dinosaurs, or the massive blue whale skeleton. Or even the building itself - it is huge, and so beautiful!

Banks collection 'Day Book'


Entrance Hall and dinosaur!

We had a tour of the Houses of Parliament (building in front) and checked out Westminster Abbey (white building behind). Wasn't allowed to film there, which was nice, so I got a break! There's so much ceremony and things wrapped up in places like that - apparently MPs still vote on every bill by passing down one of two corridors and having themselves counted. If you don't show cause you're too slow (a bell goes off and you have 8 minutes to get there), tough for your party!

Houses of Parliament (front) and Westminster Abbey (behind)

Strolled through Hyde Park (complete with deck chairs - it's hilarious, you pay a couple of pounds to use one, or you can by a 'season ticket'!) and watched tennis, cricket and horses. Apparently they feed geese here, not ducks, and it's the pigeons not the seagulls that are the bain of the gardners life. Also got a tour of Buckingham Palace, which is on the edge of the gardens, but I was so busy filming no pics of that sorry. Lovely place though. Bumped into Will and we're getting hitched next Autumn.

Hyde Park

Jonothan Hunt, former Speaker and current High Commissioner to Britain and Ambassador to Ireland, took us out to dinner, in this quaint wee English pub. I ordered steak and ale pie and it was super good, if quite large! This was the first of our 'official engagements', and it came as a shock to me just how much the food miles issue is preventing NZ representatives from really addressing the climate change issue in any progressive way. I actually cried on the way back to the hotel, that's how much it shocked me.

The pub the High Commissioner took us to dinner at.

Tour of the BBC! Nowhere near as good as NHNZ of course, tehe. Well, no comparison really, cause the BBC Nat Hist office is in Bristol. But cool, nevertheless. Also went out to Camden Markets, which were so busy and crazy they reminded me of India. I keep getting tempted by loads of cheap summer dresses and stuff. It's the worst and the best time to come to London as a poor NZland girl, haha. Wandered through Soho and Chinatown, visited the Tower Bridge at night etc etc so on and so forth. Didn't sleep much, haha but the super all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at the hotel kept me going!

Self explanatory I would hope!

Visited Cambrige too which was a-mazing. Not sure where I've put my pics of this though so you'll just have to imagine a stunning pedestianised town with narrow winding alleys, cute wee shops, cobbled pavements and about a thousand bikestands. It was great - I've never seen a better example of what I reckon central Dunedin should do! For that reason I think I have about 40 minutes of tape showing nothing but bikes in Cambridge, which some may argue is a little over the top for a 24 minute doco, haha. I now have a nagging desire to do more postgrad! We went punting on the river, and explored what must be one of the most picturesque towns in Britain, but the highlights of the day were meeting two amazing people. We went into the Institute of Astronomy with Gerry Gilmore, who is an amazing Kiwi astonomer who's done some groundbreaking work on dark matter. He's a fantastic speaker too, and kept us totally enthralled as he gave us a tour of the complex, showing us rooms which people like Eienstein had sat and yarned in. Then we went to Trinity College, which is one of the halls, to visit the Master, Martin Lord Reese. He's also a superhero cosmologist, Astronomer Royal, and the President of the London Branch of the Royal Society, and he's outspoken on a lot of climate change issues. We interviewed him in the third conservatory we passed through (it's a stunningly beautiful house), and 'took tea' with him which was served on the tinkling of a bell by the housekeeper (who was also lovely). He is an inspiring man - modest, charming, and with a brilliant mind. I felt so honoured to have met him. In terms of climate change, he said nothing stunning that he hasn't said before, but reaffirmed for us all what a huge issue it is for the whole world.

Right. I'm exhausted. Next installment tomorrow night maybe!