"On Sunday I was packing very quickly to make the flight and spending most of the rest of the day consoling my partner Jane, who was tearful about me going."
Shaw received a text message from Bath scrum-half Martyn Wood, who was flown out to Perth early in the tournament when England had a problem at No9 but only stayed in the country for 60 hours before heading back.
"Woody told me to enjoy my world trip but it wasn't all it was cracked up to be," said Shaw. "But then again, he travelled economy and I was up in business."
The Brisbane city streets already contain hundreds of England and Wales supporters and tens of thousands more are heading towards the Queensland capital for Sunday's match.
Woodward, who today sent his men out to experience that atmosphere first hand, has
learned his lesson from the failed 2001 Grand Slam bid against Ireland, when England based themselves on the coast outside Dublin and only arrived in the city just before kick off.
This time, the squad is staying right in the heart of the city. Woodward said: "By the time we arrived on match day, our minds weren't on the game, we didn't pick up the vibe, and we lost.
"This is a serious tournament that we are in but you can also be too serious about it and become a recluse and we don't want that. "It is good that we are in the centre of Brisbane. For me, that way of doing things has always worked extremely well."
Woodward's main worry ahead of the Wales match is the fitness of Richard Hill, who damaged a hamstring in the opening pool match with Georgia. "The biggest concern is Hill," Woodward said. "This niggling hamstring doesn't seem to go away."
Meanwhile, Pat Lam, Scotland's assistant coach, revealed that Scotland had gone back to their hotel to finish their training today in order to try out key moves because they were worried Australians were spying at their Brisbane training ground.
Scotland play the Wallabies in their quarter-final on Saturday and Lam said: "I am sure there are cameras around, trying to get information on us before the match and that's why we opted to do some things back at the hotel.
"Everyone has to take precautions because you want to keep one or two things secret."
Australia coach Eddie Jones insists he will not experiment with the starting line-up against Scotland and will pick under-fire captain George Gregan.
Jones said: "George is captain and he's the leader of the team. He's very important to us."
