Monday 9th June                 London

We were up early (not easy after a rather late night!) to try and get ourselves organised to move - after much comparison on internet sites, we had finally decided on moving to the Woolwich Travelodge - much cheaper than where we were, Lex liked the thought of being down by the docks and it had the advantage of a proper bathroom! Gerard and Deb called in on their way out to say farewell and we headed down for some breakfast (have to admit, the hotel has the best fresh-from-the-oven croissants I've ever tasted!) We crammed everything in again to our ports somehow ..and decided that we might as well head straight out to Woolwich and pay the early arrival fee of 10 pounds to check in as soon as we could.

So it was yet another long trip on the tube and this time we also used the DLR - Docklands Light Railway from Bank. The DLR is great - it takes half an hour but as it's almost all above the ground there's lots to look at as we go past the O2, Thames Flood Barrage, Greenwich cable car etc. We got out to Woolwich at about 12.30 and were very happy to check in. THEN we found that the room we'd been put in had no aircon...and it's currently quite warm here (mid 20s during the day). The window only opened about 10cm which didn't help! So we went down and asked at the desk and the very nice man there said they had a room with aircon free - and we very gladly switched rooms. As a bit of a bonus, our new room is also a little bit bigger than the one we had.
We went out in search of lunch (Subway) and to explore the area a bit.

View towards the O2 from Woolwich

Woolwich is a lovely suburb - very multicultural with lots of Africans here. At present there is lots of development going on in the area and it's good to see that they are saving old building facades for new builds. It has a great shopping area just up from our hotel and there are heaps of market stalls with all sorts of interesting things. There are two free ferries that go back and forth from here across the Thames moving cars, trucks and people and we watched them for a while.

 The two ferries that go back and forth all day - sometimes the trucks and cars are backed up for blocks back waiting to get on!

The Greenwich cable cars that go across the Thames. This is definitely on our "to do" list - probably next month when we'll be staying in Greenwich with Cait and Mikeal

We then realised reluctantly that we really had to do something about washing - a check on Google said there was a laundrette here in Woolwich about a km away (British hotels just don't seem to have laundry facilities) so we set off with all of our dirty clothes...to discover that it was an ex-laundry - all closed up! Not impressed! While walking to the launderette, we discovered one really horrible piece of local recent history - we walked right past the place where Trooper Lee Rigby was attacked and killed by two Islamic militants last year. There are still lots of flowers and memorials to him there. What a horrible thing to happen in the middle of a nice suburb. The barracks are right there so obviously they knew there would be soldiers around, but we haven't seen any that I've noticed.

Another Google check revealed that there was also a laundrette in the next suburb over, so we walked back to the station and set off again on the train. We found the laundrette fairly easily and put on two loads of washing (despite the dry cleaning fumes which threatened to kill us at one stage - what an environment!) While they were on, we had a cuppa from a nearby cafe and went into the library next door to read the papers. Finally our washing was done, so we put it in to dry and went off to have a look at Queen Victoria Gardens just up the road. A very nice park area, begun in the late 1800s. It was good to collect our clean clothes and head back home again. Having to use a launderette is time consuming and expensive - thankfully several of our upcoming accommodations have washer /driers.

Looking back towards Woolwich from the Queen Victoria Gardens. If you can enlarge the photo, the Travelodge is the little clock tower close to the middle of the photo.

For tea, we went to the local Wetherspoons, the "Great Harry". Great food at a really good price - I had the steak and Lex the chicken pasta, and they both came with a drink for a total of about 16 pounds. After a big day it was good to get back to our room, finally have a decent shower and relax! And download three days' photos and start trying to catch up on missed diary entries...