We found our Caledonian Sleeper train – it had been sitting there a short time before we even realised – being forthcoming with info doesn’t seem to be the strongest trait around here. However, once we did walk up we were warmly welcomed. And then kinda left to fend for ourselves, to find our carriage and our room. No biggie, we found it. Now I’m now saying the train corridor was small, but our suitcases were too large to roll along, I guess it was a sign of what was to come.

Just to try to be clear, I am not complaining about the size of the room, we knew it would be small. I just didn’t realise that the only way we could both get in to the room is if I went in, ducked into the toilet, so Perry could then get through the door, so we could close the door behind us. It was a bit of a routine but we figured it out, and with a bit of Tetris and few dance moved we were able to kind of squish the suitcases up one end, sit down, and fill in the little form about what to have for breakfast.

As you may well know, I am not the smallest, fittest, or most flexible person on the planet. I think all three of those attributes are pre-requisites for being able to get up to the top bunk of the sleeper car – man, it was a genuine struggle. I made sure I was very ready for bed because once I managed to get myself up there, I know that’s where I was staying, end of story. Of course I then really had to wonder how the hell was I going to get down again… but had to put that out of my mind for the time being. The train rolled out at 11:25pm, and it was time to try getting some sleep.

It was relatively quiet, as it shoogled us around, jostling and jiggling and bumping, and so much sloshing (I’m guessing the water tank for the built in shower). It took a while to get to sleep, and I woke up a number of times through the night, but overall it was pretty comfortable – despite the bed being super-narrow it was just enough.

Breakfast was at 6:45 in the ‘Club Car’ which is fine, only … where is the Club Car? It’s the one thing I really wish they’d bothered to tell us about, as we just had to flip a coin and head in one direction and hope for the best. So with our slightly sleep-deprived brains, off we toddled and luckily we chose the right direction, because after two cars of super-narrow corridors, bingo we found it. Our breakfast was ready, coffee (yay), apple juice and a beautiful porridge for me, and a ‘traditional Scottish breakfast’ for Perry, which I think was a bit of a mostly-full-English plus black pudding. In my semi-zombie state I didn’t think to take photos. Couldn’t fault the food, very nice indeed. As space is at a premium, we were seated with a pleasant gentleman who was on his way down to London for work, so had a bit of a chat while the coffee slowly turned me into something resembling a human. With space at a premium, so was time, they really need to pump the customers through the Club Car, so the moment we finished eating we were given a kind of gentle reminder to bugger off, so we went back to the room to prepare for landing, er, arrival. A member of staff knocked on the door to remind us we had 30 minutes or so and please be ready.

The train arrived at Euston, no drama, and after doing the Tetris/dance to get ourselves back out of the room, we manhandled the suitcases down the itty bitty corridor and off the train, left to fend for ourselves at Euston station. Hello London! Our last (awww) destination on this amazing holiday.

It had me thinking back to the Rocky Mountaineer trip we did in Canada years ago. They were perhaps a bit overboard in the customer service department, with a lot of theatre and silliness around first setting off and the like, but I think even a small amount of that kind of thing would have been much more welcome and made it feel like a nicer journey, even someone at the end saying thanks / welcome to London or something would have been a nice touch, rather than our final interaction with staff being a quick reminder to make sure we get out of the room on time.

Would I recommend the Caledonian Sleeper though? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Not in a bunk bed. Getting back down first thing in the morning was a mix of ow, ooh, ouch, ah crap I’m about to fall, hang on, ouch again, but I did eventually make it back down, reminding myself yet again that I really need to take up yoga or something, plus lose a shitload of weight, plus be less old. Who knew four steps on a ladder would be so much freakin’ drama.

Neither of us tried the in-room shower, that just felt like asking for trouble on a rocking train. It was very convenient having a loo there though.

To get from Euston to our hotel, I checked all the accessibility guides for the tube, but couldn’t quite get a clear picture if there was step-free access the whole way. We thought we’d try our luck, and helpfully as soon as we descended a life from Euston upstairs to Euston below, there was a sign stating that no, there was no step-free access down to the tube platforms. Did that make the journey more difficult? No, it made it much easier, as decided to spring for an Uber instead to take us straight to the hotel.

Arriving at 9am or so we had no high hopes that a room would be ready, and sure enough it wasn’t, which is fine. So what are two very tired tourists to do? You guessed it, a hop-on-hop-off bus of course! There was one near Waterloo, so we popped on to the tube at Gloucester Road, changed to the Northern Line at Embankment, and off to Waterloo, tubing like a boss. Well, catching the tube like someone who has maps open much of the time :). One thing I love about Gloucester Road station, it’s right next door to, well, Gloucester Road station. Back in the olden days where there were multiple underground companies desperate for companies, they’d practically build stations on top of each other to try and steal each others customers. Crazy. Of course for a long time now they’ve all been absorbed into the one united London Underground we know and (possibly) love.

For added interest (or just plain weirdness) there was a whole bunch of art populating one of the now-disused platforms on Gloucester Road.

We found the hop-on-hop-off at Waterloo. The bus has a few different routes, and the one we took covered a good chunk of London, and went for two and half hours. It was a perfect time-killer, we saw a lot (including driving over Tower Bridge, what is it with me and bridges? I should get over it. Hehehe. Get over a bridge. OK that’s enough…). I can’t promise I stayed awake for the whole two and a half hours, but, I think I lasted through most of it. Here are some suitably touristy pictures.

Once we’d done this very big of London, we left the bus at Waterloo, which wasn’t that far from Southbank, where there’s always something going on, especially today when it’s a public holiday (or to use the correct term, a Bank Holiday). There were people everywhere, buskers, heaps of food trucks, and a loo that cost a pound to spend a penny. Rude! For lunch I had a tasty hot-dog, Perry had fish and chips, and we followed that up with Frozen Yoghourt – Maybe this is where the 100s of FroYo shops went after they disappeared from Newtown, they’re all over in London. This one, Snog, was suitably funny/cheeky.

We Fro’d, we Yo’d, we killed enough time, so back on the tube from Waterloo to Gloucester Rd via Embankment again, and back to the hotel. We had to wait a little longer for our room as we returned before 2pm, but once it was ready, we were grateful to get the keys and check it out. It’s a good size, a nice home for the next 10 days or so. This is a bad sad but the most important feature it had for me, was a laundrette just down the road, I was down to my last few bits of clothing so today was the day. Even better, they do service washes, so a few hours and a considerable number of pounds later, we have three big bags full of lovely clean washing. Happy days.

Mid-afternoon was when I really hit the wall, trying to do the blog but just staring at the screen and falling asleep. The 6 or so hours of interrupted sleep finally caught up with me, so instead of trying to write gibberish I had a small nap at the desk. Like the Tesco ad here says, every little helps!

One interesting thing I’ve noticed about our little neighbourhood – despite all the roads being fairly busy, hardly any of them have pedestrian crossings. Most of the time you just have to watch the cars, watch the lights and hope for the best. But drivers and generally more patient, unlike Sydney where you’d become a target when crossing the road, here most people will just wait if you manage to mis-time your journey across the road. Being ‘Chelsea-adjacent’ there sure are a bunch of Chelsea Tractos around (brand new Range Rovers), plus a fair share of (let’s make assumptions) dickheads in expensive cars. Soooo impressive, when there are public transport options, like absolutely everywhere.

For dinner we didn’t go far, there was a Pizza Express nearby, I think Perry had the winning meal with a delicious tomato cheese pesto and buffalo mozzarella salad. This wasn’t going to be a high-energy evening by any means so we popped into Tesco for an ice-cream and then back to to hotel for an early night after a long day. And that’s it, after too many hours of not sleeping, it’s really, really time to address that imbalance. Goodnight 🙂