Thursday 4 March 2010 |
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 A mate of Matts had come to cheer us on at the Police Station and was driving past us as we walked into Burnham so we stopped him and his Mrs and they took us to Morrisons where we blagged 2 boxes of Haribo, the plan was to use these to bribe people along the way.
Over the road to the indoor market and we blagged a couple of ruck-sacks to carry our 'gear' and donated scooby snacks. Then headed down the road to Subway and they kindly made us some ham and cheese Subs to take with us, and gave us a packet of crisps and a bottle of fizz to boot!
Whilst Matt was in there I went into First Choice to see if there was anything last minute that could be fixed, sadly not, but they promised to pledge us some money. A top guy, we both know (Stefan) 'happened' to be driving past and agreed to take us to Bristol Airport and wait whilst we tried to get a flight.
Off to Heathrow then, we stopped at Reading Services where we bumped into a nice girl and her sister who offered to take us the rest of the way to Heathrow terminal 3. We also saw the Bath rugby team there and got them to sign the tee-shirt I was wearing, and this will be donated to the Hospice so they can auction it off.
The girls dropped us off at Heathrow about 2:45 at Terminal 3 and we immediately started trying to blag some flights. Most said a point blank ‘NO’, Virgin initially was hopeful but then ended up being a no too. BA were really helpful and we were really close to getting a flight, we had a yes from the lady at the desk, and a yes from her Supervisor and then even a yes from her Manager but needed the final ok from Head Office, and the buggers were shut!! D'oh!!!
We headed over to Terminal 1 after we thought we had exhausted all leads at Terminal 3 but were met with the same problems. National Express said they shouldn't really give seats away but asked where we wanted to go, when we said Dover they said to try Victoria as they didn't go there from Heathrow and we were dead set on getting out of the UK.
So, next step, EuroStar. We caught the Heathrow Express into central London, and then blagging our way onto each of the underground lines until we were at St Pancrass. Another No, but advised to head to Victoria, so off we went again. This time there is a frustrating signal failure when we were waiting at Hammersmith so we then walked to Sloane Square tube station in the pouring rain. Got back on the tube for free and then finally got to Victoria!
A top lad there called Usher opened up the gates and let us get on the train to Dover after the guys upstairs in St Pancrass said we couldn't ride a 'premium train' for nowt. (In fairness we came back into London on it today on the way home, and it really does shift!!!).
So, it's now 8:22pm and we're off to Dover, little did we know that the last ferry that is accessible to foot passengers is at 7pm. So, 11:00pm was when we got to the ferry terminal we started trying to thumb a lift onto the ferry where we were planning to get to the Eiffel Tower for the deadline.
No-one would pick us up and we went in for an hour around 2am and then came back out until gone 4am, but it was pouring down and there was no-one around. So, I woke the guys (Wurz and Mike the camera guy) around 5:30am and we managed to persuade Mike to buy our tickets (after realising that unless we could persuade the plastic yukka plants to buy our Haribos from us we were stuck) for the Boulogne ferry at 7ish. So, sadly we only managed to get as far as Boulogne 'centre ville' for the deadline.
9 minutes spent in France and then straight back with the deadline passing as were leaving Boulogne harbour. And so, we were faced with the journey home. We caught the bus into Dover and off to the Station and we got the 'High Speed' train to St Pancrass on the Eurostar line. This thing goes like Hot Snot and halfs the time taken back to central London.
Quick tube ride across to Paddington and then a train back to sunny Super Duper Mare.
Genuinely gutted we didn't finish any higher than 5th out of 7 but we really did try our best, but found ourselves stuck at Dover with very few options.
Looking back maybe we should have left Heathrow earlier, or even not bothered and gone to Dover or Folkstone, or maybe tried to get straight back on the road West or North when we realised the ferry wasn't going to happen. Lessons learned for next year though guys! We’ve already got a free flight to France blagged for next years event! |
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Article expires: Thursday 1 April 2010 |
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