We checked out of the Lakeview Guest House for the last
time, and braved the crazy Oxford traffic to get once more to our little hidden
car park supplied by Brasenose College for a brief time.
Thom was waiting for us at the end of the
street as we turned in, and used his magic clicker to open the ancient gate in
the arch for us again.
We walked in to Brasenose College with Thom and Laura to
have breakfast in the huge dining hall once again (after helping ourselves,
cafeteria style, to our cooked breakfast selections).
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| The nose on the gate at Frewin Annexe- just like the one on the Brasenose door. |
Since we had a couple of hours up our sleeve before we
absolutely had to be out of Oxford and on our way, Thom and Laura considered
the options and decided on a last walk experience.
We started out by following the way that
Laura would often start to ride when she goes to her lab in the Hospital area
of Oxford (Headington), and then turned in the opposite direction to the one
she would take, to access a narrow lane, which leads to the running and bike
path which travels alongside the Cherwell River. This was a really lovely path
on a still and mild day, with a bit of blue sky and the autumn colours all
around. As a mild breeze wafted the leaves
were “snowing” to the ground. What a
lovely way to finish our holiday together.
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| Cricket pavilion just like the one at Lords- even the same distance to the pitch. |
They showed us the ugly engineering building “it has the
best view in Oxford because you can’t see the engineering building from it”, the amazing multi-coloured brick Keeble
college buildings (it used to be a rite of passage to steal a Keeble brick
during your student years- even better if it was a blue brick)
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| Keeble College |
and the
incredible Museum of natural history, with cathedral-like structure, and glass
roof instead of dark one.
The one last cuppa, a bit of a cry, big big hugs and another
drive with just the two of us again. Since
we were flying out the next morning we had booked a hotel very close to
Heathrow hoping to get some sleep in a real bed before the “overnight” trip to
Singapore, where we knew we would not sleep and we would arrive effectively the
next morning. We would need to survive till at least 3pm, when we would be able
to check in at our hotel in Singapore.
Once more the car GPS was a great asset and brought us
effectively to the hotel (where we dropped off our bags for holding) and then
to the hire car office (where we dropped off the car).
Since we were staying so close to Heathrow we
had figured we could probably just walk back to the hotel. The girl at the hire care place suggested
that we take their free bus to terminal 5 and have a look around. We did this,
and had a cup of tea and bought sandwiches there, while Trevor accessed the
free wifi and we tried to figure out how to get back to the other terminals.
After a bit of consideration we found the correct bus stop to catch a free bus to take us to the main bus station (which
services terminals 1, 2 and 3).
Tomorrow we needed to leave from terminal 2, so it might be
useful to be familiar with that area tomorrow morning when we were trying to
get checked in and catch a plane.
Signage was not overly helpful here, but we managed to find somewhere to
get a refund on our Oyster cards (public transport swipe cards used on metro
and buses) and also to find the Singapore Airlines check in counter. Now all we had to do was get home.
Easier said than done. After a false start or two we eventually
resorted to asking the information people.
Apparently Terminal 2 is a “pedestrian free terminal”- which meant we
could not walk home from here!!. We caught
yet another free bus back to our hotel after some frustration, reclaimed our
bags from the crowded bag room and checked in.
We stayed in the hotel that night, availing ourselves of a
glass of Aussie red (a bit hard to say any more than that) and a meal, before
crashing into bed, knowing that we would have to be up early to get to the free
bus stop in plenty of time in the morning.
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