Timeout said:
Most people hold out for blue skies to take a spin on the London Eye, and the skyline looks spectacular!
Dave did:
A new day, and an old pair of legs! The effects of a 7km run in a gorilla costume obviously doesn't go away over night...words cannot describe how my stiff my legs felt today!
And so it was that after a few hours of recuperation we planned the days events, and headed out hoping to ride the London Duck Truck (Thing #125).
Getting to the Duck Tour HQ at 4.30pm, however, we found they were fully booked up for the day and so it was out of the question. The HQ is located right behind the London Eye and so my parents and I wandered aimlessly up towards the Southbank and the Eye.
To our surprise, the Eye was very quiet, with barely 30 people queuing up to take a ride, or should I say 'flight' on London's most iconic Ferris Wheel. Given this unusual occasion we decided to pick up some last minute tickets and take our flight in one of the pods, afterall it was replacing the disappointment of Thing #125, with the dizzying heights of Thing #414.
I have to admit that the photographer and architectural side of me was really drawn to the London Eye. As a structure it is quite a beautiful thing. The starch white pylons against the clear blue skies really fascinate me, as do the other worldly shapes of the pods against the London skyline. Such was my interest in the construction of the Eye, I found myself taking far too many shots of it whilst queuing for ride itself!
Once up in the air I have to admit I felt a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. Yes it was nice, and a bit different. But really the views weren't THAT spectacular that you'd want to write home about them (although why I'd choose to do that when my parents were standing right beside me is another altogether puzzling question!). At one point I did start wondering whether the London Eye or Primrose Hill provided the best skyline of London...and I was almost tempted to concede that the Hill won hands down!
That all said, I did get to see Westminister from a very nice elevated angle, I finally understood where 10 Downing Street was in relation to everything else in London, and after a lengthy discussion with my Dad I came to the sad conclusion that if I were to get the passengers of my pod to run from side to side, we could not eventually get the pod to roll 360 degress on its horizontal plane (damn those over-engineered gears!)
On our descent the tannoy system informed us that a photo was about to be taken of our capsule, and so if we wished to be in the shot we should all gather to the North-West corner. I'm pleased to say I appeared to be the only passenger with any sense of direction as all the tourists on board flocked to the South West corner, leaving me to pose on the capsules behalf....
43 down...957 Things to go!
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