Bendigo man travels from Australia to UK to mourn the Queen

Bendigo Health worker Darren Martin, 43, had always planned to make the flight to the UK when the day came to say goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II, but it still came as a shock.

"So many of my friends and work colleagues contacted me when they heard that she had passed away, they said the first thing they thought about was me," Mr Martin said.

"I was actually bloody devastated, I was bawling my eyes out."

Having accrued 'bucket loads' of annual leave, Mr Martin was ready to book his flight when he heard the news.

He initially bought tickets with stopovers in Bangkok and Singapore, but then his travel agent highlighted a problem.

With just under six months left on his passport, some airlines would potentially not let him board if stopovers were taking place in Asia, so at the last minute he had to advocate to the authorities in Melbourne.

When that was unsuccessful on Wednesday, the committed royalist bought another set of tickets bypassing those stopovers, and as of Thursday morning is London-bound.

"All I really want to do is get a bunch of flowers with a card and put it on the gates of Buckingham Palace," he said.

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"That for me, to pay my respects, I believe will satisfy this urge I have inside me that I can't explain.

"I would love to head up to Windsor Castle, again just because I know the Queen loves Windsor Castle as well, and I do want to view the Queen's body lying in state and for that I'm prepared to queue up for however long that will take.

"I would love nothing more than a front row outside of Westminster Abbey for the funeral but I can appreciate I'm going to be up against hundreds of thousands of people and that may not happen so I've got to be realistic."

Mr Martin grew up spending a lot of time with his grandparents watching British TV and always knew his late grandmother Peggy was a fan of the Queen.

"She actually reminded me of the Queen in looks and mannerisms so I think to me [the fascination] stems from a very early age and I guess it sort of turned into a bit of an obsession," he said.

Mr Martin took Peggy and his now 94-year-old grandfather Peter to the UK in 2013 to visit the royal residences including Balmoral, Sandringham and Holyrood Palace in his grandparents' first overseas trip.

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"Knowing that the Queen loved Balmoral made me love it," he said.

"And I guess having those memories for me that I went there with my grandparents is quite emotional for me.

"We had a very funny moment at Balmoral because we were walking around the outdoor stables area and my grandfather stopped me and my grandmother [after reading a plaque] and said to us, 'Guess what the name of the Queen's first horse was?'"

Peggy was a bit miffed to hear that the then young princess first learned to ride on a Shetland pony also named Peggy, but it remained a cherished memory for Mr Martin.

"She said, 'Why on earth would they call it that?'"

"And my grandfather turned around and said, 'Must have been stubborn'."

"It probably sounds silly but for me that was such a memory that I will never forget.

"It is a beautiful place, I don't know it's hard to describe, I just feel such a connection even though obviously I'm not related to the royal family."

After hearing the heartbreaking news this week and deciding to take the trip he had always planned, Mr Martin asked his grandfather Peter if he would like to make the flight but the 94-year-old will be watching from Australia as his grandson witnesses the pageantry first-hand.

In an eerie premonition Mr Martin had paid tribute to the Queen on social media the morning of Thursday, September 8, posting a picture of her Majesty's last engagement with her 15^th Prime Minister Liz Truss.

"Then hours later, I saw that they had posted that she was unwell and she was under medical supervision and I tell you what my whole body just dropped," he said.

"I was living in a bit of hope that she would pull through but I could not sleep.

"I stayed up all night and I tried to sleep and then I'd wake up every half an hour, every hour just to see if there were any updates.

"And when it came through that she had passed away, it was like losing a family member."

For Mr Martin, he is fascinated by the whole ritual and culture and routine of the monarchy, saying "there's nothing else like it in the world".

But he also loved the individual that took up that monumental role.

"She's such a unique person that we've all admired and she's the only person we've ever really known as the Queen, certainly in my lifetime," he said.

"It really broke my heart to hear that some family members didn't get there in time [to say goodbye].

"I was there when my grandmother died, and I wouldn't have had it any other way."

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