Our journey began at 10 am Sunday 2nd November, my hangover from an amazing friday night with Alex Metric and Evil 9 at Fabric still punishing my whole body. Leaving our passports at home, we decided to head North, essentially because home was North and we were sensing a few days of home comforts...It went much further than that however, we blagged our way to Kings Cross and onto a train destined for Perth. We could not believe our luck or how easy it had been. Charming train guards and tube operatives is definitly the new way to travel, money is certainly not required.
We settled for York on the first day, jumping on a train to Leeds before getting a lift home and settling for one night of home comforts. Day 1, 200 miles covered and plenty of stories, sharing a cramped carriage with a facist, nazi Scottish rock band being just one of them. Iron crosses, denim and tatoos everywhere we looked, making our trip eventful if not exactly comfortable.
Day 2 began at Darton train station, full of optimism we convinced another gurad to let us ride for free to Leeds. We decided to head North again, opting for Newcastle and the promise of a comfy night with school friends but it is here we met up with Team 1 (C.J and Leanne). After a quick pint and a BK we had been convinced to go to Scotland. From Newcastle, past Edinburgh, it was all going so well unitl we encountered a demonic train guard who refused us travel.
We were thrown out at Inverkeithing, a Scottish outpost where we felt, how can I put this, slightly intimidated. We found a pub to kill the hour between trains and hid away in the corner out of sight of the locals. The hour passed and we were back under way, heading for Iverurie. However as no-one we spoke to had ever ventured that far North we decided to settle for Aberdeen. We jumped off the train full optimism only to realise that every Hotel was fully booked...
We found a Hostel on the Queens road but back at BasecampFuller (Rich Fuller-bottled it) it was soon apparent that in his words..."it's a f*#king walk mate, get a taxi!" We began to walk, passing the world famous Frankenstein Bar before we were saved...Leanne managed to get in contact with a mutual friend of her flatmates and we were promosed a flat for the night...what a result!
With that in the bag we thought it rude not to have an Aberdeen Angus steak, while we were in town...The Filling Station provided exactly what we needed and we were soon in Tom's flat mulling over rising at 6am and getting onto a ship going to an oil rig. Lets be honest, as if that was ever going to happen! After a restless night beating off the meat sweats we left at 9.30, finding the best breakfast deal I've ever seen on our way to the station...
Picture this; starving hungry, cold, tired and 450+ miles to cover in a day, without paying for travel once again. The challenge was now over but we weren't about to start paying the £150+ it would cost for a train home. We stumbled across SIZZLERS BBQ and GRILL, where we picked up 2 rashers of bacon, 2 eggs, in a teacake and a coffee for £2, yes thats right £2! Talk about beating the credit crunch, either that or it hasn't ventured up to Aberdeen yet! As we ate our breakfast we came up with an ingenious plan: -
"We have to get back to Wycombe today and without paying, to claim the charity money."
C.J and I were particularly pleased with that lightbulb moment. The spiel got us to Edinburgh where we were turned away from our first train for "Insurance Purposes." Yeah right...However within half an hour we were back underway and got to York in excellent time. Here is where it all went Pete Tong. The first two trains we attempted to jump on both resulted in disaster with us running frantically along the platform like mad men in the vain hope that we would find a sympathetic train guard. After an hour and a half things were not looking good, but eventually with the help of a ticket office stamp we jumped on a train and were back on our journey.
At Kings Cross we paid platform 9 and 3/4's a visit, before making a last dash for the finish line. The tube was once again a walk in the park and we were soon back in High Wycombe, one of the most frantic and eventful 72 hours of my life, something I would recommend to everyone. Our journey took us: -
High Wycombe/London Marylebone/London Kings Cross/York/Leeds/Darton/Leeds/Newcastle/Inverkeithing/Aberdeen/Edinburgh/Newcastle/York/London Kings Cross/Baker Street/London Marylebone/High Wycombe.
450+ miles without leaving Britain is a pretty good effort if I may say so myself. We finished 3rd behind Tenerife, they got there thanks to Radio 1 and the eventual winners who made it to Tel Aviv on air miles! However, we uncovered the real way to travel Britain, miss out the ticket office, the online bookings, the queues, go straight to a train guard, talk to him for a few minutes, then sit back and relax with a free trip to anywhere...
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