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London on Foot and by Tube by a BackpackerOne semi raining overcast Saturday I decided to head out and get some snaps on a black and white film. The following selection is what I came up with. I started my travels on the tube, and headed towards London Tower Bridge, I thought I would make it there on time before it was dark. I took the tour of the bridge itself, it was only £4.25. We went up a small lift to the top section. We watched a short video on the how it was decided it was going to be constructed. It went through several different designs before a local council could decide on what they wanted. According to the video they where scared it would kill all trading on the might Thames. Now days all trade ships unload and dock in Tilbury, with road and track bringing goods into London City. The Bridge itself does open up and I was told by the bridge operators to back at 6pm to get a good view it opening up, it was going to open 4 times that night. The told me they do around 6000+ openings a year and they need 24hours notice before they can allow it to be opened. The Tower Castle also looked rather interesting, but with the line as long as it was I didn't bother going in, it was quite expensive around £15.00, perhaps next time, because the London dungeon is also down that way, again the line was to long. I decided to walk over Tower Bridge as you do, and follow the track down into the engine rooms and check them out. Again another video and a very interesting insight into how it all works, on hydraulics now but it use to run on belts coal and steam. I then carried on walking along the Thames down past the HMS Belfast and onto ST Paul's Cathedral. I got down into the crypt and a light lunch, which was a total rip off but I think you are just paying for the novelty of eating there. The tour of the church itself was closed because they are doing major renovations, I mean heck is there no where in the world where anything isn't under repair. It was said this Cathedral was one of the few things to survive world war two, according to the people there it was used by the Germans as a guide to work out where else to bomb. Next stop was off to Farringdon and the Barbican. Here can be found the national museum. I went inside and well it was as good as what I was would be. It was rather small, it had things from as early as the Roman's rule of London city, bits and piece of all the past kings and queens. It also had a rather interesting section on the Crystal Palace and how the London Underground railway started back in the early 1860's. It was first a steam system then diesel and then finally switched to electric system. Which brings me to the underground, it all connects bloody well with the overland rail and the buses, not like in New Zealand where you have to wait for ages to catch a connecting bus for a train. There are so many lines to travel on , just about every place you need to get is covered, some are even so close when you come up from one you can see the other. Most of them a buried a good 3-4 stories under the ground. Most rattle along at well over 100km/ph. The one I most often use is the Metro line, because it's quick and doesn't have a lot of stops all the way out to Wembley. London is zoned from 1-6. All stops are in a zone and you pay a different fair for each zone. Wembley is zone 4 so a weekly travel card for zone 1 to 4 is £29.20. Quite cheap really when you check out a map and see how far you can really travel, which I have done on my days off, just jumping on and off to check out the area then get back on and go to the next one. The Docklands light rail which was constructed during the late 1990's early 2000 and runs without any drivers. It is an automatic system, riding this system is like being on a rollercoaster. You can sit up the front and watch where you are going. It's brand new so most of the stops are all covered from the weather, unlike any Auckland city stops. This system runs a massive loop through the whole of Docklands area. The Dockland's Area is the new CBD of London, all the massive companies have a head office in this area. Greenwich and Cutty are also on this Docklands line. Greenwich is where the official date line is. I went up and checked it all out on this weekend. It has an Observatory and a house which you can a tour of. Sadly the day we went it was closed, so I'll have to go back and check it out. It was rather interesting in the Observatory, checking out all the equipment these used between the 1700's - 1900's. Cutty Sark is the famous place for clipper ships, I don't really know that much about the area there but there is one of the very last giant clipper ships there being restored. Dockland is also host to the millennium dome, basically a big white elephant. It got used in 99-00 for a massive slinky world wide dance party, since then it has been used for the odd massive function and other super club dance parties, it can host up to 50,000 people at any one time. It's a in a very boring area and really just a big waste of money and space. Another one of these millennium features is the walking suspension bridge across the Thames. I have walked over this a few times and can't wait till the winter to get a really neat shot of it in the snow. Yea it does snow all the way down to the river, so woohoo for that. There are many interesting places you can walk around in the city centre, there isn't any really way of getting lost with that many buses and trains around the place. That's transport for you, and even on a bad in London it still works, although peak hour isn't that great. Yes they do pack um in like sardines and it is very hot and sweaty. Once you get out into zone 3-4 it's not so bad. Some lines are worse than others. I find that the central line and the circle line to be the most packed. Some Stations are really shitty as well, Wembley Park station is over 100 years old, and along with the new Stadium is getting a massive overhaul. Some of the stations on the Jubilee line are also very flash. Each of these newer stations have the platforms enclosed in probably 6 inch thick blast proof glasses, guessing these were all constructed after Sept 11 th . So when the train hits the platform there doors open then you have to also wait for the platform door to open. The underground trains themselves are all pretty old, the circle and district line trains seem to be the oldest. Each carriage can probably hold around 20 people sitting and another 20 people standing, if you pack it in probably 50. Each Tube train probably carries 10-20 carriages, so yea quite a few people at the station waiting for them. Most stations have trains running in each direction every 2-5 minutes. Tubes finish at 12:30am in the morning and start again at 5am, weekends its 6am Saturday and 6:30am on Sundays. Changing at certain stations can be a nightmare, some stations are almost a ten minute walk to another line, stations likes Kings Cross, Paddington, Victoria and Waterloo have up to 5 tube lines coming in and probably anywhere between 10-15 overland train lines pulling in. Waterloo is where the Eurostar starts is Journey, Kings Cross plays host to the Virgin Fat trains from all over England, Wales and Scotland. Victoria has the Biggest Coach and Bus Station in London. There is also a direct line out to Heathrow Airport (Piccadilly Line). There are 4 Airports in the greater London area, Luton, Gatwick, Heathrow and London City. London city will soon also have a underground system running to it, there is a new one getting constructed at the moment but I'm not to sure when its going to be completed or how much has already been done. There always seems to be certain areas of the track under reconstruction, new lifts and escalators are always on the mend, and most tracks are now also being replaced, probably because they are chasing to the Olympics in 2012.
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