St Pauls - Struan Leslie "London Guide" on left

Trafalgar Square

Saturday morning we continued with our Struan Leslie tour of London with our first stop the Bank of England & the Royal Exchange. From there we did a walking tour of the City of London 'Square Mile' taking in such sights as the Wall of the City, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, St Pauls Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, London Bridge and the Tate Gallery of Modern Art. With tired feet we stopped for lunch at the bustling Borough Markets, where Jamie Oliver gets a lot of his fresh produce from (we didn't see him!). From there our plans to take a ferry to Greenwich were thwarted by an unusually hot and sunny Saturday which saw every pasty skinned ‘Londoner’ having the same idea, leaving no room for us on the ferries!
A quick change of plans saw us jump on a train to Trafalgar Square where the boys took lots of photos of the Nelson Monument and got a team photo on top of one of the lions. A relaxing afternoon was spent basking in the unusual April sunshine at St James Park
The day ended with our official tour dinner at a Camden restaurant where we were accompanied by the Bale family who joined us for our end of tour celebrations. An excellent evening was had by all, the boys feasted on pizza and ice cream and official speeches and presentations were made by tour captain Liam Frawley and tour leader Mr Leslie. Jarrod Cole was awarded Player’s Player by his peers and now has ‘Marge’, our tour mascot as his own! David Clancy was awarded Coach’s Player, Richard Cook Most Improved and Mitch Burling Best Team Man.
Who would have thought that the most exciting part of a Rugby trip would be shoe shopping, but a frantic group of boys hit the streets of Piccadilly Circus on Sunday morning to spend their inheritance. We cruised Regent and Oxford St before heading to Covent Garden for lunch and some interesting street performers. A smooth getaway this afternoon and a painless check in at Heathrow hopefully bodes well for a smooth return to Brisbane on Tuesday morning. We will be tired and smelly but we shall see you soon.
UPDATE
We couldn’t get the blog posted at Heathrow before our departure, so we are now in Singapore (9pm Gold Coast time). The flight was good, with most of the boys catching up on some much needed sleep. We have about 3hours here before we board the last flight on our 2008 Rugby Tour.
SEE YOU IN THE MORNING!