So, we’re finally on our way! The Uber picked us up for the 20 minute trip to the airport. From there we took a somewhat illogical route to Inverness, Scotland. From Ottawa we headed west to Toronto, then east to Warsaw Poland, then west again to London and hopefully north to Inverness. I’ll explain “hopefully in a moment!
The reason for the chosen route was actually quite simple….. cost. Those of you that have been following our travels may be aware that we now have an unwritten rule, journeys over six hours shall be flown in the pointy end, a.k.a. Business Class. Business Class can be quite expensive, but if you are prepared to shop around and take less conventional routes, there affordable fares are out there. This flight was less than half the price that Air Canada wanted to charge!
Unfortunately, you can be too clever sometimes! Here comes the explanation of “hopefully”. I had to book a separate ticket from London to Inverness. This causes a few problems, the biggest for us is the fact that the baggage can only be checked as far as London. We then have to pick it up, clear customs and immigration check-in and clear security. Of course, this all takes time. In normal circumstances the 2 hours we have between landing and departing should work BUT, this is Heathrow which can be hit or miss with baggage delivery times AND we have to switch terminals. It’s the latter that was my downfall in planning. Initially I thought a 10 minute bus ride would be the answer, but that was not to be. We have to go into the outside world, jump (fall?) onto an underground train and head off to the other terminal. We’ll see how it works out!
For those of you who can’t stand the suspense, we made it! Actually, we made it with about 30 minutes to spare. Pretty much everything worked out in our favour. We are currently flying from London to Inverness, by the time we land, pick up the car and settle into the hotel it will be around 10PM UK time so I will publish this tomorrow.