Bish & John

Our ferry left Newcastle last night, promptly at 6:30. Things worked against us, we raced the clock to catch the ferry but would we make it? Read on to find out.

 

We were staying at my cousin’s flat yesterday and planned to leave at about midday for the ferry port. Tom had already booked our tickets and had them in his safe possession, our passage to Bergen from the South Shields. Of course everything took longer than we expected and Anna insisted on cooking spaghetti carbonara (which was lovely) so we didn’t leave until 4:30.

 

We decided to take the metro, which would be quicker and keep us off some pretty unattractive roads. But, as we got on the train, the driver jumped out his cabin to politely tell us that no vehicles were allowed on the train and no exceptions were to be made. Tom and I had a little chat and decided to wait for the next train out of sight and then jump on and hope not to be seen. But then the station guard came on over the tannoy,

“Passengers are reminded that bicycles are not permitted on any of our trains. Will any passengers with bicycles please leave the station. Please leave the station now. Leave now.”

 

The time was now 5:15, we were outside the station, about 16 miles from South Shields. Obviously a taxi was out of the question so we got on the bikes and started pedaling. We were flying down the roads, taking it in turns to draft for 5 minutes and then grimmace hard for 5 at the front, we felt like riders in the tour de France. Our normal pace has been about 10 miles an hour but for the next hour we averaged nearly 20. At 6:10 we reached the ferry terminal at South Shields, 20 minutes early and knackered. But when we looked at the pier all we could see where small ferries.

“Where’s the ferry to Bergen?” I asked.

“Over there”

“Over where?”

“Over there, on t’other side”

“Bugger.”

 

There was a ferry crossing the Tyne in 5 minutes so we got on. The skipper phoned the Bergen ferry for us to say we were on our way, Tom checked the tickets and found that he had indeed made up South Shields as our departure. We got off the ferry, back on the north side of the Tyne, ran up the ramp and pedalled even harder than before over about 2 miles. We could see smoke billowing from the funnels as we approached the ferry and pedalled harder. Finally we got to the gate, and nearly fell off our bikes with exhaustion. The port guard asked,

“What’s your names?”, we told him we were Bish and John

“Right yeah man but like you’ve missed the ferry like”.

He was not to be persuaded on the issue, the ferry was there but the ramp was up. We would have to come back on Tuesday. We were beaten this time by the clock, we missed our ferry.

 

We had now lost our bikes, fallen off and missed our first connection, we were starting to feel we might be losing credibility. To top off our day, on our way back we had to pass through Byker, or somewhere equally nice. We were cruising down a hill and there was a group of pikies (charvers up here) at the side. As we approached they started calling us all sorts of names, of which I assure you none were founded. And as we passed we heard ‘pew pew pew’ as the little critters sniped at us with bb guns (don’t worry mum, we weren’t hit). I learnt from my brother that a wave is far more effective than a finger and so as we cycled away we both gave them a friendly, slightly camp wave. They were really pissed off and we felt a whole lot better.

 

We will try to leave England again on Tuesday.