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Published: June 26th 2017
Geo: 51.463, -0.464859
0 get ups to go…
…The day has finally arrived. Hurray! Roisin pulled back the curtains to expect business as usual but to her surprise the sun was actually shining for a change.
18 hours earlier, It was very much business as usual…pissing down!!! Chris was mooching around in Smiths for some decent reading material for the journey. He was currently reading 'Shutter Island' by Denis Lehane but as Alcatraz is on the itinerary, he was worried that once on the island, they may detain him and he may never leave. A bit of a Hotel California moment!
He was looking for some light reading. Preferably something to do with travelling. The foreign travel section in Smiths did not have much of a selection. As this is the only bookstore in Widnes it would have to do. There were several titles that caught his eye
. ‘
3 ways to capsize a boat' and
‘Jumping Ships' both by authors he'd never heard of!! Both topical for the journey ahead but hardly appropriate!! Another title, ‘3 men in a Float' wasn't even nautical!! This is about a couple of blokes travelling around Britain at 15 miles per hour! He finally settled for the relatively safe, The Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. It's pretty much what this blog is about. Circumnavigating the globe, the long way round. It would have been easy to jump on a plane to Australia (as you do!) and be there in 20 hours. Where's the fun in that?! The long way round would take 42 days and span 4 continents, having a few beers on the way!!
Before the door finally closed at Chez Hodgie, Chris had one more task to do. A brand new series starring Ricky Gervais's mate, Karl Pilkington, is due on Sky 1 on 23rd September 2010 at 20:00 called ‘
An Idiot Abroad' (enough of the plug). Chris did the Virgin Media equivalent of Sky plusing it!! He just hoped the title of this brand new series wasn't going to be the theme for the next 40 odd days!! Nah!!??
Chris and Roisin had agreed not to shout from the rooftops that they'd be away from home for so long (OK, well this blog apart!) so had agreed that if the taxi driver started the conversation with, ‘Going anywhere nice?' Chris was not to give the blog address to him!! They agreed on just a plain old-fashioned lie to the taxi man that they were going away for 2 weeks.
As the cab pulled away, destination Runcorn train station, the taxi driver, after lugging two dirty great big cases into his boot, asked the inevitable question right on cue. ‘
Going anywhere nice?' Now, Chris and Roisin hadn't actually thought this through properly. Without hesitation Roisin said,
‘Italy, for a few weeks'. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say. However, almost at the same time Chris blurted out
, ‘Greece'!!! The taxi man was either being very polite or had selective hearing.
‘Ah, Italy', he said
. ‘Where about?' Gulp! Now it was time for ad lib. This wasn't part of the plan. With Roisin's quick thinking she said without hesitation,
‘Varese'. ‘
Oh! Right' said the taxi driver. ‘I've just come back from there'. ‘
Shit!' thought Chris. ‘And we haven't even left our street!!' However, the taxi driver seemed more interested in talking about a recent motor rally he'd taken part in. From Widnes to somewhere in the Italian Alps above Lake Como. He came 2nd overall and won best themed car as Thunderbird 4. His next project is Captain Scarlet. Funny! The subject of Chris and Roisin's holiday never came up again to their relief.
It was time to have a cup of coffee in the 1st class lounge at Runcorn Station (is that an oxymoron??) Chris was sitting there feeling like Phileas Fogg before he set off on his amazing adventure and the 1st class lounge was his Reform Club. He was brought back down to reality when his Passepartout told him to carry his own bloody case!!
After arriving in London, the next stage of the trip was to head over to Paddington where they would catch the Heathrow Express. As the flight is not until tomorrow, there was no hurry so after leaving their bags in left luggage, they could have a wander around London for a couple of hours.
On the way to the taxi rank in Euston, Chris and Roisin were accosted by a very nice man who offered to transport their luggage to the taxi stand in his little blue truck that had a flashing yellow ‘noddy' hat and went ‘whoop, whoop' as the vehicle meandered it's way through the on-looking commuters carrying our intrepid travellers and their ‘stuff' to the next leg of their journey. Not quite a pope-mobile…
..Speaking of which…. their next taxi driver had no interest as to where Chris and Roisin were going. He'd heard and seen it all before. He was more interested in the Popes visit to London that was also scheduled for today.
‘
S'gud job you're not going to Gatwick. All around Victoria is completely closed off'.' He also had a rant for about 5 minutes generally about religion but when he realised that Chris or Roisin weren't biting, he shut up and proceeded to speak to his wife/girlfriend/daughter (or boyfriend?) for the duration of the journey.
Change of plan. It was £8 per piece of luggage to leave it at Paddington. They decided to take the Heathrow Express to T5 where they would spend the night at the travel Lodge before their flight to San Francisco tomorrow. En route to the platform, Roisin bumped in to a famous bear that had just arrived from Darkest Peru. It was agreed to adopt him for the duration to share in their adventure and be a companion for Pooh!
They checked in to the travel Lodge at 14:30 before taking the short walk past an industrial estate and the retirement homes to the Golden Cross pub for a bite of lunch.
The pub was empty except for a couple of locals who seemed to be in heavy discussion with the landlord. Obviously, there only appears to be 1 topic of the day. More Pope talk:
‘All I'm saying is that you'd recognise Gordon Strachan before you'd recognise Pope Benedict!!' said the first punter.
‘Yes, but the Pope's got a pointy hat!', came the reply from the 2nd punter.
The next part of the conversation was inaudible but this was soon corrected when the bar maid exclaimed, ‘
What! Now you're comparing the Pope with Abu Hamza!!??' ‘All I'm saying is that the Vatican hold over 800,000 precious works of Art. Imagine all the good the church could do if they sold them all' ‘Wot, like on Ebay or summat??!! As soon as they had finished their lunch, Chris and Roisin left Hounslow's version of The Cambridge College Lectures meets the X factor just as the Landlord was comparing Desmond Tutu to His Holiness, and headed back to the sanctum of the Travel Lodge for a bit of chillaxing before another long day ahead tomorrow.
On the first day, they had already travelled by taxi; train; the whoop, whoop truck; another taxi; another train and a bus…and only completed the first 260 kms of this epic journey!! Long may it continue….
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elaine
non-member comment
hope you took your marmalade sandwiches !!!