The alarm rings and I wake up, first thoughts being "Am I kidding myself here? Are people going to pick us up? Do people even do this anymore?!" The pessimistic affirmations of my peers start to take a bit of a grip on my spirit, and the alcohol from two nights previous still rattle around in my head. Remember kids - alcohol is a depressant.
6:00 AM, our first lift arrives. This will take us all the way to the M25. From there, we're on our own. Or so we thought.
The nerves are tamed with the funny sight of a dog in the car in front of us. It's head starts to elevate at a slow pace, as if it's playing a game of "I'm on an elevator", which causes us to piss ourselves with laughter. This dog's trick never seemed to stop and, due to a right turn, we would never find out whether or not it did.
We arrive at Thurrock services, where our breakfast, a roadmap of Europe and some Crayola marker pens await for us to add to our inventory. We head over to the petrol station, where we meet another couple of hitch hikers, Dego and Del.
"Ooh Maidstone - that place is a nightmare," Dego warns us. "I once got stuck there for 15 hours."
Fuck. 15 hours!? My spirit starts to drain a little bit more... Luckily Nick avoided the mistake of drinking alcohol over the weekend so he kept the optimism alive for us both.
I decide to approach some lorry drivers, but no luck. After an hour, we find a couple that are heading down the M20 who would be more than happy to drop us off at Maidstone - aka Hell. We swap details with Dego and hit the road.
The chap driving was a train driver on the Hull to Liverpool line, and his wife, a school librarian - who enjoyed sharing stories of how she scares the shit out of the students. They drop us off and off they went on their own adventure towards Norway.
After a quick wee, we find a spot by the exit of the services and petrol station and wait with sign in hand. After 20 minutes someone stopped for us - AWESOME! we thought. However, he could only take one of us over the channel, not deux. Better luck next time...
The next guy to stop would be able to take us to Dover, however we were explicitly instructed by Dego not to hitch here as it was a nightmare and give our excuses. We figure that if we keep up this kind of stop ratio we'd find someone eventually. This isn't so hard after all!
Three hours pass... Our spirits are being tested. I've never had to keep my head up high in this way before. Thoughts of being stuck at the services forever start to invade. It would be incredibly shit if we had to spend the night here... Especially as they lock the main area after a certain time. 15 hours stuck in the same place? Ouch!
Middle finger zooming past my face, lorry driver shouting "FUCK OFF!" - what the hell am I doing here?!
Four hours pass. I decide to go on another offensive and approach some drivers "Hi there, I'm really sorry to bother you, but which direction are you going in?" "Not yours I'm afraid!"
This is the point where you really have to fight some inner demons and keep treading on. I notice a Belgian number plate pull up, staring intently. Out of the driver's seat comes a tall slim man, stretching his arms far in the air. This has to be it. I approach with my usual opener.
He's going to Calais. Will he take us? "Sure thing."
My lowered emotional state turns to that of pure unadulterated glee. He parks up after filling his car with petrol, cleans the mess and lights up a cigarette. "My name's Niko." - I'm going to name my first son after this man.
On the road it turns out he's taking the ferry at Dover, not the tunnel. This puts us at an unexpected turn as the previous couple told us they wouldn't be able to take us on the ferry, thus why we got dropped at Maidstone. He was willing to give it a try though. If we fail, we would be stuck in Dover for awhile.
P&O ferries, it turns out, don't give a shit.
They amend the passengers from 1 to 3 and we go wait around for an earlier ferry. Niko wanted to do some graphic design work that was coming to an end and wanted to be left alone. Fine by us!
On the ferry, the weather was beautiful and we could see Calais from Port of Dover. I stood on the deck outside as the ferry moved full steam ahead and felt the wind fill my lungs and swift through my hair. It was only an hour or so ago I was feeling full of despair, and now this. The road is full of unexpected twists!
Back in the car, Niko tells us he's going to Antwerp and, as we're making good time, says he'll get us as close to Brugge as possible. Fuck me! This man is an angel.
On the way he shows us an artist called Milow on his iPod. He's pretty big around Belgium, Holland and the US. The song is awesome, and it turns out Niko is his uncle (check out a song of his here - this is my favourite. He also did a cover of 50 Cent's Ayo Technology.)
Traffic is easy and he drops us off at the tip of Brugge. By the time we get into the center it's around 10:00 PM and the hostel I was planning on staying in was full. Kinda figures really... Was a long shot, but as always the universe had other plans.
We make our way to Charlie Rockets, a hostel with a very busy bustling bar downstairs. We get taken care of by a Turk called Leo, who delivers the good news that a bed is available... but it's a private room and it's a double. We take it, but I warn Nick I want no spooning. For once the bar staff beat him to the idea.
After a shower, we head down and have a well earned beer. One that size of our heads in fact. We spend the night sharing tales with other Brits, Germans, Canadians, Dutch, Leo & other local Brugians (?) and a Columbian. We'll come here again tomorrow night.
The next day we find a hostel slightly out of town that has a 6 bedroom dorm available. There we meet Cesar, an Ecuadorian with long hair and a love for football, and Juan Manuel, a Uruguayan who educates us about all sorts of crazy fucking drugs we've never heard of before. We go our separate ways for the evening with plans to meet later.
"That's pretty bitching I wanna do it now"
"In the hostel? How much? Sooo impressed you got there..."
A few texts from some of my good friends help keep the mood alive. These were the same guys who were joking about being stuck in the middle of no-where and getting "bummed" by lorry drivers.
After THE BEST STEAK EVER we head over to Charlie Rockets and meet up with our new companions. We play pool, talk about the universe, the ego and consciousness. It's a conversation that's right up my street. I try to talk about this kind of thing with people from home and they don't even get it and yet I meet these two strangers and they seem to be more passionate than I am.
More beers, more travellers and the new chant "FUCKING A!" as we clank our beers together, I felt right at home. The two Germans from the night before join us as well as some girls that the South Americans got on rather well with, and before you know it we're slurping on straws that lead to a colourful alcoholic shot. Oh, and it was on fire.
We wake up the next morning and boy are we fucking hungover... I mean, this thing was bad. We check out of the hostel and then attempt to hitch out way out towards Antwerp and Amsterdam...
LESSON'S LEARNT:
Don't get wasted the weekend before your first hitch hike.
Don't get wasted the night before you go hitch hiking again.
Don't lock yourself out of a hostel and sleep outside until the doors open.
Don't ever, ever get a train if you want to keep your hitch hiking spirit.
DO make as many mistakes as you positively fucking can.
As Cesar said, life is full of ups and downs, like the wavelength of an audio. If we don't experience pain, how do we know what pleasure is? Much inner pain was experienced, but the high made it all worth it. Brugge is beautiful in summer.
Plus I know what I need to do now.
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Thursday 21 June 2012
Camping In The Lake District With The Jester & The Giant
I found myself within a small window in time - also know as paid holiday during employment - and decided I would temporarily cure my travel itch and hit the road for a few days.
I had mentally prepared myself for a good hitch hike to Amsterdam, and even got my hands on some bits and pieces to make it happen, but then the realization dawned upon me that I would need to make it there and back in five days over a Sunday or bank holiday: in time for a certain someone's birthday.
As people in Europe generally enjoy partaking in a spot of fuck all on Sunday's and I couldn't imagine the odds being in my favour of getting a ride on her majesty's wondrous occasion (two days during which the English also partake in a spot of doing fuck all as well as drinking their weight in chemicals-fused-with-alcohol) it didn't really seem like a good idea.
The other option was paying a friend of mine to take us to meet the rest of "the gang" in Newquay, but I wasn't feeling that much and I listened to fate when he called to tell me his car had broken - probably due to the embarrassment of having to carry graphical representations of his own branded sexual acts on its rear window.
So, there was only one thing for it. I called up Daniel - aka the Giant - who works in a school, and got him to book the next day off work. It was finally time to start listening to his suggestions and hit the road to rough it out somewhere. Destination of choice - the Lake District!
But we wouldn't be able to do this without our good old friend Robert the Jester! He had mentioned the idea of camping and so the phone call was made to get him in on the action. All three of us were game.
The idea was to pack the minimal essentials as well as a tent that would house all three of us, a case that the Giant was quickly on top of - excitedly describing a pop up tent he hadn't used in ages that would easily get all 3 of us in. Brilliant.
I packed a rucksack with contents that would mirror those I would have decided to take on my hitch hiking adventure, just so I could know how doable it was in terms of weight. I tested it out around the house and it was pretty easy, but we'll let the wild be the real judge of that.
So the Giant and the Jester came for me the next morning. I took big adventurous steps out the door in some walking boots I found that fit me perfectly and was first greeted by the Jester:
"...Ahahahahaha, what the fuck are you wearing!?"
I was tempted to be quick on the mark with a retort but his nike running trainers did look shiny and so I figured karma would have my back when he fell into a stream and muddied the fucking things up a lot. This, unfortunately, didn't happen.
Before you could say "overused Anchorman references" we were on the motorway straight to the lakes, thoroughly enjoying ourselves by pulling faces at people in their cars and offering them satsumas while we were stuck in traffic. This cheered many people up a lot, whilst some not so much.
Once we made it we were gobsmacked. I'd never been any further north than Nottingham and had no idea such rolling hills and proud mountains could be found in a land I was sure had nothing to offer but flat concrete. My wanderlust was starting to turn from gloomy storms to shining god rays.
After a lot of faffing around with car parks and the like, we found a spot by the road near a campsite that sat nicely by a large, long lake. It was about 7:00 PM and we liked the idea of pitching a tent in a "proper" campsite with the potential of being surrounded by other people we could have a bit of fun with. Unfortunately they were "fully bewked!" so we turned around and walked back to the car, not before we watered the road with liquid we had saved up during the 5 hour journey getting there
It was during the walk back to the car that I caught myself and was quite glad we didn't camp with the other civilised people, and were now heading for the wilderness. To sleep the first night in a campsite would, for me, be cheating on our wilderness adventure.
We geared up our stuff and started heading in the direction we only knew at the time as "up" towards Old Man Coniston - a mountain some 2600 feet high. Not exactly Everest, but our first mountain adventure nonetheless.
I had my rucksack along with the tent attached to it. Giant had his two backpacks attached to his back and front and Jester came fully prepared with a tiny overnight backpack to carry, along with a Tesco carrier bag - which would be the butt of many jokes the next day.
We walked through fences, climbed up fields, through villages and tempted by pubs until we got to an open space of fields, walls and sheep. We took a right turn at the top of a road and walked along some of the fields that held the sheep there. They looked at us like an annoyed mother who's mischievous son just bought back an unwelcome guest for dinner when CLEARLY there isn't enough for EVERYONE.
It was when these sheep started to advance that we panicked a bit, as these sheep were in fact RAMS - so we ran to the next field at the foot of a small mountain like the cowards we then were.
It was about this time that my sense of direction was telling us to go in the other direction, so while the other two assed around I climbed the mountain to see what lied on the other side. Around half way up the acoustics started to play tricks on me, and the bah-ing of a ram from the other side of the mountain was coming from right next to me. Startling as it was, I continued.
I got to the top to see that I was right - we were going the wrong way - when I heard an "Oi, Whatley!" being shouted from the foot by a lake. I turned around to see the Giant's ass hanging out towards me, with Jester splashing around in the river a bit. It was this, along with the medieval style setting we found ourselves in, which reminded me of a scene from Shrek - donkey 'n all.
After a correction in course and more walking, we found the wilderness we had been searching for. It was around 9:30 PM at this point which seemed to be a good time to pitch our tent, and after much cursing at the tiny flies biting away at us, found a dry spot that was fly-free on a hill at the foot of the mountain.
I detached the tent from my bag, unzipped it and chucked it in the air, allowing it to unravel and pop out. What landed on the floor wasn't a 3 man tent at, it was a joke.
Silence... and then roars of laughter. The Giant's confidence in the tent had transformed into hysterics as we looked at the child-sized tent on the floor. "It looked much bigger than this 6 years ago!" he declared.
The Jester bravely volunteered to sleep outside with his full body sleeping bag. It was around 11:00 PM after we ate and settled down and the weather was mild so he felt it could be done quite comfortably. Before he got ready for bed though, he went off for a few minutes only to come back to proudly announce:
"I just dug a hole, squatted to poo, then filled the ground back in again!", also describing how he had to take his trousers and pants off for fear of filling them up, as well as the bit where he patted his foot on the newly laid turf which ejected an awful stench into his nostrils. YUM.
Clambering in the tent, the Giant and I realized there was a flaw in our location of choice - we were in fact right on the hill and kept sliding towards the exit of the tent. After more laughter, we made do and went to bed, lulled by the surrounding sheep bah-ing their goodnight's before joining us in sleep.
We woke at 4:00 AM to the Jester huddling between us, and with good reason to - the mild air had turned bitterly cold, and the wind hovering across the mountain caused a bottle-top like effect. Very eerie indeed. When daylight broke the Giant was first to be up, followed by the Jester who ran to the lake to wash his bot-bot.
We played around with the impressive echo effects of the mountain then set off through the quarry. We saw some awesome waterfalls that would have provided us with a nice shower further down but decided to keep going, not without several complaints - the amount of luggage we had bought was quite a challenge for some, but luckily everyone got used to it. We felt like fucking adventurers in no time.
We carved our names in the stone plates and climbed into caves - Jester finding the most impressive of all half way up the climb. Train tracks led in to an open space that offered glowing minerals on the wall, and while it was pretty awesome, my fear of closed spaces kicked in and had to bail. I'll get over it one day but today the thought of the passage caving in and being trapped stayed firmly in my mind.
We climbed up the side of the mountain some more, saying hello to the many rams on the way up - much more used to them now than we were the day before. We were getting tired, but we could see the top wasn't far, and the clouds soaring across them inspired us to keep going. We were walking the last leg when we stumbled upon a footpath...
Wait a minute... a footpath?!
Curses! We could have strolled up here much easier instead of climbing over rubble, across rocky marshes and the like! How stupid of us! Ever heard of research you idiots!?
But, wait, hang about... if we had not taken this route, would we have missed out on some great views? The solitude of being away from the other trekkers? Not to mention the caves! Yes, we were tired, but this was all worth it.
We finally reached the top, and our overheating bodies and the sweat from our skin was quickly cooled by strong winds and the damp clouds passing through us. We made it.
After the initial achievement wore off, we decided to tackle the neighboring mountain. It looked like a breeze as it was practically parallel with us and didn't require much downward-upward walking distance.
Nope, we were wrong. That last climb annihilated us. The oasis we spotted earlier wasn't even enough to keep us going, not to mention that some wrong turns meant that more climbing would be involved to actually reach it.
Eight hours of climbing was tough, and after the twelfth "I didn't know they built a Tesco up here now!" from clearly better prepared trekkers, we called it a day and walked back to the car aching and sweating.
A quick stop off at a lake to wash our particulars was the highlight of our trip down the road now and a good chance for Jester to dig into the tin of Stagg Chili Con Carne he had been raving on about.
It was sitting within this lake that the feeling of apathy washed away again, and a oneness with the winds, mountains and lakes came back. I was the sheep, the water and the rocks that we just climbed. All of it! I realized that the backpack I was carrying wasn't too hard a burden and I could easily take it all with me on the road with my thumb leading the way.
I love the wild, I love being wild.
After a spot of driving, we found civilisation again. First call to action - Wetherspoons! Picking at apples and carrots was fun and all, but nothing beats a beer and a burger.
Lessons learnt: 8 hours of climbing leads to an appetite, and walking downhill is a lot harder than up - especially when trying to get back to the car.
We drove back to the Jester's home in Cambridge, went to the pub, gulped down some beers and played Jenga until 1:00 AM. Sleep that night was very welcome indeed.
I had mentally prepared myself for a good hitch hike to Amsterdam, and even got my hands on some bits and pieces to make it happen, but then the realization dawned upon me that I would need to make it there and back in five days over a Sunday or bank holiday: in time for a certain someone's birthday.
As people in Europe generally enjoy partaking in a spot of fuck all on Sunday's and I couldn't imagine the odds being in my favour of getting a ride on her majesty's wondrous occasion (two days during which the English also partake in a spot of doing fuck all as well as drinking their weight in chemicals-fused-with-alcohol) it didn't really seem like a good idea.
The other option was paying a friend of mine to take us to meet the rest of "the gang" in Newquay, but I wasn't feeling that much and I listened to fate when he called to tell me his car had broken - probably due to the embarrassment of having to carry graphical representations of his own branded sexual acts on its rear window.
So, there was only one thing for it. I called up Daniel - aka the Giant - who works in a school, and got him to book the next day off work. It was finally time to start listening to his suggestions and hit the road to rough it out somewhere. Destination of choice - the Lake District!
But we wouldn't be able to do this without our good old friend Robert the Jester! He had mentioned the idea of camping and so the phone call was made to get him in on the action. All three of us were game.
The idea was to pack the minimal essentials as well as a tent that would house all three of us, a case that the Giant was quickly on top of - excitedly describing a pop up tent he hadn't used in ages that would easily get all 3 of us in. Brilliant.
I packed a rucksack with contents that would mirror those I would have decided to take on my hitch hiking adventure, just so I could know how doable it was in terms of weight. I tested it out around the house and it was pretty easy, but we'll let the wild be the real judge of that.
So the Giant and the Jester came for me the next morning. I took big adventurous steps out the door in some walking boots I found that fit me perfectly and was first greeted by the Jester:
"...Ahahahahaha, what the fuck are you wearing!?"
I was tempted to be quick on the mark with a retort but his nike running trainers did look shiny and so I figured karma would have my back when he fell into a stream and muddied the fucking things up a lot. This, unfortunately, didn't happen.
Before you could say "overused Anchorman references" we were on the motorway straight to the lakes, thoroughly enjoying ourselves by pulling faces at people in their cars and offering them satsumas while we were stuck in traffic. This cheered many people up a lot, whilst some not so much.
Once we made it we were gobsmacked. I'd never been any further north than Nottingham and had no idea such rolling hills and proud mountains could be found in a land I was sure had nothing to offer but flat concrete. My wanderlust was starting to turn from gloomy storms to shining god rays.
After a lot of faffing around with car parks and the like, we found a spot by the road near a campsite that sat nicely by a large, long lake. It was about 7:00 PM and we liked the idea of pitching a tent in a "proper" campsite with the potential of being surrounded by other people we could have a bit of fun with. Unfortunately they were "fully bewked!" so we turned around and walked back to the car, not before we watered the road with liquid we had saved up during the 5 hour journey getting there
It was during the walk back to the car that I caught myself and was quite glad we didn't camp with the other civilised people, and were now heading for the wilderness. To sleep the first night in a campsite would, for me, be cheating on our wilderness adventure.
We geared up our stuff and started heading in the direction we only knew at the time as "up" towards Old Man Coniston - a mountain some 2600 feet high. Not exactly Everest, but our first mountain adventure nonetheless.
I had my rucksack along with the tent attached to it. Giant had his two backpacks attached to his back and front and Jester came fully prepared with a tiny overnight backpack to carry, along with a Tesco carrier bag - which would be the butt of many jokes the next day.
We walked through fences, climbed up fields, through villages and tempted by pubs until we got to an open space of fields, walls and sheep. We took a right turn at the top of a road and walked along some of the fields that held the sheep there. They looked at us like an annoyed mother who's mischievous son just bought back an unwelcome guest for dinner when CLEARLY there isn't enough for EVERYONE.
It was when these sheep started to advance that we panicked a bit, as these sheep were in fact RAMS - so we ran to the next field at the foot of a small mountain like the cowards we then were.
It was about this time that my sense of direction was telling us to go in the other direction, so while the other two assed around I climbed the mountain to see what lied on the other side. Around half way up the acoustics started to play tricks on me, and the bah-ing of a ram from the other side of the mountain was coming from right next to me. Startling as it was, I continued.
I got to the top to see that I was right - we were going the wrong way - when I heard an "Oi, Whatley!" being shouted from the foot by a lake. I turned around to see the Giant's ass hanging out towards me, with Jester splashing around in the river a bit. It was this, along with the medieval style setting we found ourselves in, which reminded me of a scene from Shrek - donkey 'n all.
After a correction in course and more walking, we found the wilderness we had been searching for. It was around 9:30 PM at this point which seemed to be a good time to pitch our tent, and after much cursing at the tiny flies biting away at us, found a dry spot that was fly-free on a hill at the foot of the mountain.
I detached the tent from my bag, unzipped it and chucked it in the air, allowing it to unravel and pop out. What landed on the floor wasn't a 3 man tent at, it was a joke.
Silence... and then roars of laughter. The Giant's confidence in the tent had transformed into hysterics as we looked at the child-sized tent on the floor. "It looked much bigger than this 6 years ago!" he declared.
The Jester bravely volunteered to sleep outside with his full body sleeping bag. It was around 11:00 PM after we ate and settled down and the weather was mild so he felt it could be done quite comfortably. Before he got ready for bed though, he went off for a few minutes only to come back to proudly announce:
"I just dug a hole, squatted to poo, then filled the ground back in again!", also describing how he had to take his trousers and pants off for fear of filling them up, as well as the bit where he patted his foot on the newly laid turf which ejected an awful stench into his nostrils. YUM.
Clambering in the tent, the Giant and I realized there was a flaw in our location of choice - we were in fact right on the hill and kept sliding towards the exit of the tent. After more laughter, we made do and went to bed, lulled by the surrounding sheep bah-ing their goodnight's before joining us in sleep.
We woke at 4:00 AM to the Jester huddling between us, and with good reason to - the mild air had turned bitterly cold, and the wind hovering across the mountain caused a bottle-top like effect. Very eerie indeed. When daylight broke the Giant was first to be up, followed by the Jester who ran to the lake to wash his bot-bot.
We played around with the impressive echo effects of the mountain then set off through the quarry. We saw some awesome waterfalls that would have provided us with a nice shower further down but decided to keep going, not without several complaints - the amount of luggage we had bought was quite a challenge for some, but luckily everyone got used to it. We felt like fucking adventurers in no time.
We carved our names in the stone plates and climbed into caves - Jester finding the most impressive of all half way up the climb. Train tracks led in to an open space that offered glowing minerals on the wall, and while it was pretty awesome, my fear of closed spaces kicked in and had to bail. I'll get over it one day but today the thought of the passage caving in and being trapped stayed firmly in my mind.
We climbed up the side of the mountain some more, saying hello to the many rams on the way up - much more used to them now than we were the day before. We were getting tired, but we could see the top wasn't far, and the clouds soaring across them inspired us to keep going. We were walking the last leg when we stumbled upon a footpath...
Wait a minute... a footpath?!
Curses! We could have strolled up here much easier instead of climbing over rubble, across rocky marshes and the like! How stupid of us! Ever heard of research you idiots!?
But, wait, hang about... if we had not taken this route, would we have missed out on some great views? The solitude of being away from the other trekkers? Not to mention the caves! Yes, we were tired, but this was all worth it.
We finally reached the top, and our overheating bodies and the sweat from our skin was quickly cooled by strong winds and the damp clouds passing through us. We made it.
After the initial achievement wore off, we decided to tackle the neighboring mountain. It looked like a breeze as it was practically parallel with us and didn't require much downward-upward walking distance.
Nope, we were wrong. That last climb annihilated us. The oasis we spotted earlier wasn't even enough to keep us going, not to mention that some wrong turns meant that more climbing would be involved to actually reach it.
Eight hours of climbing was tough, and after the twelfth "I didn't know they built a Tesco up here now!" from clearly better prepared trekkers, we called it a day and walked back to the car aching and sweating.
A quick stop off at a lake to wash our particulars was the highlight of our trip down the road now and a good chance for Jester to dig into the tin of Stagg Chili Con Carne he had been raving on about.
It was sitting within this lake that the feeling of apathy washed away again, and a oneness with the winds, mountains and lakes came back. I was the sheep, the water and the rocks that we just climbed. All of it! I realized that the backpack I was carrying wasn't too hard a burden and I could easily take it all with me on the road with my thumb leading the way.
I love the wild, I love being wild.
After a spot of driving, we found civilisation again. First call to action - Wetherspoons! Picking at apples and carrots was fun and all, but nothing beats a beer and a burger.
Lessons learnt: 8 hours of climbing leads to an appetite, and walking downhill is a lot harder than up - especially when trying to get back to the car.
We drove back to the Jester's home in Cambridge, went to the pub, gulped down some beers and played Jenga until 1:00 AM. Sleep that night was very welcome indeed.
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