Transfer from LHR to Shepperton: Large taxi van, friendly and talkative driver with four kids, wife is a yoga and mindfulness teacher.
Bike Route: Shepperton to Walton-on-Thames and back, 5 miles
Accommodation: The New Barn (Airbnb), host Jason. A small barn converted to a studio apartment. Basic but comfortable, just what we needed for our first night in England.
We landed exactly on time in London, at 7:15 a.m., after a really smooth and easy flight. Because of the early arrival, we had set ourselves a little challenge.
Plan A (the challenge) was to assemble the bikes at the airport and ride them the 9 miles to our Airbnb in Shepperton. We had planned a route that took us out of the airport through a tunnel, and onto a dedicated cycle path. Simple. We collected the boxes from Oversized Luggage, found a quiet corner near the Exit door, and had just pulled out the bikes and started putting them together when a security guard interrupted us and asked it we knew we could not ride the bikes out of the airport. The tunnel is strictly for motorized vehicles--no pedestrians or cycles. The only way to get assembled bikes out was to take them through the Underground.
We had not done any research on taking the Underground out of the airport, and maneuvering loaded bikes through the Underground sounded way too complicated. Our Plan B was to take the bikes in their boxes outside and hail a big taxi. We stuffed the bikes back in their boxes and headed out to the taxi stand, and I found an ATM and got some British pounds sterling. We had to wait just a bit for a taxi large enough, but by 8:30, we were on the road, and by 9:00, we were at our Airbnb. Just four hours too early to check in.
Plan B, part 2, was to assemble the bikes in a grassy area just outside the gates to our Airbnb, saddle them up, and ride to Walton-on-Thames, about 2.5 miles away, to get prepaid UK phone cards and groceries, and then find a quiet place where we could secure the bikes, drink coffee, and wait until our apartment opened up. We had just opened the boxes when a van pulled up and our host, Jason, invited us into the courtyard. We got the bikes together, Jason stored our bags and drew us a map to the Vodafone store in Walton, and we were on our way. How easy was that!
On our way back to our apartment, we passed a pub advertising a curry lunch special that smelled amazing. After a quick clean-up at the apartment, we walked back to the pub and enjoyed our first meal of this trip in England. Back at the apartment, we took a shower, laid down for a nap, got up for a snack, and went back to bed for a full night's sleep.
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| Really? We can't go through the tunnel? Oh, darn. |
