Once we stepped foot from the controlled area, bags in tow, we had the joys of trying to work out where we catch the A10 bus from. I decided to ask the helpful man that we bought two overpriced sim cards from who manned the small sim card shop in terminal five. This interaction also demonstrated how though we speak English in NZ, as obviously they do in England – our strong Kiwi accent was going to be a bit of an issue.
“Can you please tell me where we catch the A10 bus from?” I asked, ever hopeful the reply was going to be a simple verbal direction and a pointing gesture.
“I’m sorry, what bus?” He replied, looking quite confused.
“The A10.”
“The 18?” he said, looking more confused.
“No, the A10.”
“18?”
“No, A … 10.”
I did consider at this point writing it down, but that seemed a bit over the top, so instead I tried to elaborate.
“The letter A, the number 10, A10.” I said, as slow and clear as I could without sounding like I was treating him like he was stupid.
But alas, he still didn’t seem to understand me. He appeared to be considering one of two options, run away while screaming about incomprehensible Kiwis harassing him with the repeated utterance of the number 18, and leave us standing in the shop alone, or give us instructions to the central bus station and hope like heck that a bus with the slightly odd designation of number “18” actually existed. Luckily for us he decided to give us directions to the central bus station located at terminal two, and yes this involved another train trip to get from terminal five to terminal two. You can catch this train for free and it only takes a few minutes to get there. Once you arrive at the terminal two train station there is a little bit of working out to do around how to get to the bus station, but with patience and keeping in mind signage is not a strong trait of English city / airport planners, you will find it within just a few minutes walk.
The next challenge once at the bus station was which bus stop to actually wait at. Yet again the signage explaining this was very poor, bordering on non-existent but after asking a bus station staff member we found it. Disappointingly, despite numerous double decker buses coming and going from other stops, our A10 (not 18!) was just your run of the mill standard one level bus, though we were bemused if not slightly surprised to find the bus driver like all bus drivers in the UK was sitting securely and completely behind floor to ceiling perspex screens to protect him from robbery and assault, or maybe from Kiwi’s with ridiculously hard to understand accents.
Our first steps into England
The bus trip itself was uneventful, maybe because we didn’t take a huge amount of notice of the trip as we were both very tired, very sweaty and very grumpy after our 24 hours+ of flights, airport shenanigans, and for myself – fighting the urge to make sarcastic remarks to border patrol police and risk being locked up. The interesting thing about having two long haul flights in a row is they have the habit of making you want to turn around and just go home – because you are physically and mentally exhausted, and despite leaving home happily married you are now planning the final wording of your divorce documents. However, when you realise returning home now would require another two long hauls, and you remember that life isn’t worth living without your loved partner by your side, you settle down after an hour or two of disembarking from your flight.
Our instructions from the hotel in regard to finding it via our bus trip were: “get off at the church bus stop, and we are just across the side road”. It sounded very simple, just get off at the church bus stop and we will find it without issue. We had mentioned to the bus driver as we got on the disappointingly single level bus that this was where we needed to get off, at the church bus stop, he smiled and nodded. I took this as meaning “Oh yes, the church bus stop – I will make a point of stopping there as you won’t know exactly where it is.” So 20 minutes later as we whizzed past a church, with a bus stop outside it – and then the Red Lion Hotel, I realised that the smile and nod didn’t mean that at all, instead it meant he was thinking to himself ‘another couple of dopey foreigners with a strange accent muttering something about going to church, just smile and nod and they will sit down and we can move off’.
Eventually getting the bus to stop at the next bus stop, about 500 metres down the road, we disembarked, and dragged our bags and ourselves up the slight hill, mumbling unpleasant words about English bus drivers, and made our way to the very picturesque Red Lion Hotel, Hillingdon, Uxbridge.
The Red Lion hotel in Hillingdon (Uxbridge) dates back to the 16th century and has several rooms ranging in size and features from cozy to more luxurious. It also has a bar and small to medium size restaurant. We found the room, the hotel ambience and restaurant to be above standard. In particular the staff in the accommodation wing of the hotel were very good, they went out of their way to assist us, even agreeing to store our bags for a few days while we were in Europe. The location of the Red Lion is also very handy to a regular bus service, routes to and from Heathrow, Uxbridge town centre, etc. But it is also close enough to the main shopping area of Uxbridge to walk down to, taking around 20 minutes or so. There is lots of memorabilia in the hotel, from a very old mechanical shoe cleaning machine near the main entrance, through to vintage crockery on display and numerous pieces of artwork highlighting its history.
We rate the Red Lion Hotel Hillingdon 9 out of 10 Kiwis
St John The Baptist Church sits just across the
other side of Royal lane, the road coming off of Hillingdon Rd and creating the corner the Red Lion hotel sits on.
The original parts of the church were built back in the 14th century. It is open for you to enter and have a look, and has a small cemetery outside which runs alongside a sports ground.
