A couple of days before we set out on race2 Prague I started reading a book called
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which turned out to be set in Prague within the first couple of paragraphs. Not only did this make me believe we were going to get there, it also made me feel for the first time like I really, really wanted to get there. So luckily I started out on this journey with a good attitude.
As you can see, we're looking pretty bright for 5.45am. No, I do realise I look a bit lacklustre. I had a small (but jam-packed) rucksack, a water bottle, a whiteboard and a yellow bag full of snacks (and a Europe road map) in my possession. Compared to some racers I'd packed very light indeed. We had very little luggage between us, actually, which I think worked in our favour.
We were dropped off at a service station just off the motorway near Stirling at about 8.20am. At first we were a bit nervous about approaching people but standing holding a sign wasn't going to get us anywhere so, after explaining to people about our quest and being turned down for about half an hour, we found a guy who - unfortunately - was driving north for a meeting. But, he said, he'd check if we were still stuck here on his way back and take us towards Glasgow if we needed it. Luckily, ten minutes later he returned, meeting cancelled, loaded up our stuff in his car and gave us our first ride.
He brought us to a fairly busy service station just outside Glasgow heading south, where after about half an hour we found Lee, who was a bit hesitant at first but was soon persuaded and gave us a lift all the way down to Preston, chatting all the way about his offshore job (well, what I heard of it when I wasn't asleep...).
This is the M6 near Penrith, Cumbria, my home county, as we passed through it! At Preston after about another half hour we met Geoff, a lorry driver, who took us all the way down to Watford Gap, near Northampton. Katie and I sat on the sort-of bed and slept some more while Dominic took the front seat. Our first lorry! And it was like climbing a ladder to get in. Geoff was relatively quiet but we listened to a lot of local radio...
At Watford Gap for the first time we were in serious snow. There hadn't been any in St Andrews but it had been trickling down ever since. We had some chips here and then started approaching lorries, locking on to them as good for hitch-hiking. There were a few 'no's before we met a Turkish lorry driver who saw our sign - 'Dover?' and seemed to be saying we should come back at 6. We did so, and he ushered us into his carpeted lorry (we had to take off our shoes). I took the front seat this time, declined a cup of coffee and an orange but accepted a pillow and some chewing gum, and sank back to enjoy some Turkish music and some
serious heating. I ended up taking off as much clothing as possible but it was still as hot as Greece in summer.
After a couple of failed attempts at making conversation we settled into a quiet 3-hour journey down to the coast. As we got into the port we realised we weren't being dropped off outside, but that he planned to take us over to Calais with him - but we failed to realise we were supposed to check in as extra passengers, at least after we weren't asked for passports or anything at the check-in area. It was only as we were actually queueing for the ferry that a worker on the concourse asked for our tickets and told us we had to go back - but try explaining that with no common language. After a lot of chaos including losing a record of one of the driver's journeys and almost getting stuck around a corner, we thanked our lovely Turkish host and apologised profusely, and climbed out onto the concourse - where we were not supposed to be.
Another worker approached us and told us the police were coming to escort us away. We were after all
kind of over the border illegally. The police arrived, were very reasonable, and brought us to the port's arrivals hall, where we slept sort-of-rough for the first time.
It was VERY cold by the window in the hall but the only place for a decent bed, and all things considered I got about six hours of solid sleep. Katie slept like a baby but Dom decided to explore the town of Dover, being without a sleeping bag, and only got about two hours.
In the morning we got onto the first passenger ferry out of there and ended up at Calais. After an amazingly successful first day, we made our first big mistake on the ferry by not approaching any drivers looking for lifts - all we did was sleep. The people who got lifts from the ferry were able to get straight to the motorway, but we trekked through the snow into the town of Calais, out again, and then back in. A British expat offered us food at a soup kitchen but a vote decided we'd keep on the move. After three hours of failure, following in the footsteps of another group we'd spoken to, we took a train to Brussels.
After a brief stop in Lille for a few games of cards and charades we made it to Brussels train station, but once you're in a city it's hard to get out. Few people were driving out of the city from the train station and it was looking pretty worrying - until we met Relinde and Dirk, a Dutch couple living in Leuven who, concerned since we were the same age as their own children, chatted between themselves briefly in Dutch before saying 'we'll take you home with us. You can sleep, have some breakfast, and in the morning, we'll take you to the motorway. We have to take the train now but we'll buy your tickets'.
I actually felt my eyes well up. It had been looking so bleak and they seemed like such genuine people. The more we talked to them as we waited for the train the more convinced we became. They had met studying Germanic Philology in the Netherlands. How could we not trust them?!
After a short train journey on a double-decker train - another first - they drove us to their house, with a quick stop on the way at a bread machine. We couldn't get over this. A vending machine for fresh bread, on the corner of two country roads. Amazing. I also couldn't get it out of my head that Leuven was a familiar name and I soon discovered why when I saw the Stella Artois brewery, in all its glory.
Relinde and Dirk's old millhouse was amazing, with woad walls and a spiral staircase. They heated us up some onion soup which we devoured with bread and gulps of water. I felt like the hungry traveller in some Roman myth. We were shown to our rooms and offered the use of a shower - a shower! Which we didn't actually take up. It becomes very difficult to strip down once you've been sleeping and walking in the same clothes for two days. But that night's sleep was blissful. In the morning we were treated to a continental breakfast and made ourselves some packed lunches. Dirk drove us to a busy service station on the motorway heading towards Koln and we bade him a grateful farewell.
The Belgians were all very friendly when turning us down but it was a couple of hours before we managed to find a lift, though one guy gave us a box of jelly sweets. A parked lorry from Prague looked like it was sent from heaven, but another driver informed us they'd all be parked throughout the day - Sunday. No one would move until Monday. We were gutted - it had seemed like our best chance. Fortunately, a girl heading out to the Netherlands to ski with her younger brother picked us up and offered to take us east for about an hour. We climbed into the back with her skis. The snow was falling thick and fast now.
Melina dropped us off just inside the Netherlands, unable to find a service station but at a petrol station just off the motorway. After about twenty minutes a guy agreed to give us a lift. It turned out as he was driving us that he had only popped out to buy some cigarettes, but had decided to drive us over the German border anyway (we must have looked pretty pathetic in the snow). 'I come for a smoke, now I drive you to Deutschland.'
He planned to drop us off at a bigger petrol station but for some reason took us to an even more remote one, but at least we were in Germany now - Aachen, to be exact. After a little while it became apparent we weren't going to get picked up from the petrol station so we planted ourselves by a signpost between the roads with our sign saying 'EAST'. No one picked us up. The snow got heavier. Still no one picked us up.
It was about -8'C. We stood there for two hours or more. No one even thought about it. We walked into Aachen, searching for a petrol station. Ice had actually formed on our coats and in our hair, and in our drinks. My spirits began to drop along with my body temperature. We now had 48 hours before we had to fly back to the UK from Prague. I got onto the phone to my mum and she found the train times for us to get to Prague from Aachen. I wanted to be able to see Prague, the bridge and the clock and whatnot, before flying home, so I convinced my teammates it was time to throw in the towel.
At 2:10pm we got the train out of Aachen and began our crossing of Germany. We changed a couple of times in different cities - so we did see a bit of Koln and Nurnberg - and after having our passports checked by two plain-clothes police officers who we were not convinced weren't trying to rob us until they gave us back our passports, we crossed the border into the Czech Republic, and alighted in the town of Cheb.
We had a six-hour stopover here and my mum (thank God for my mum) had found us a hostel near the train station. It was full. We found another. It was full. We began to notice a lot of young men wearing hoodies and trackies standing on street corners alone, watching us. We found a hotel. It was closed. Finally, after a very brief panic, we found an open hotel. They didn't speak English. We didn't speak Czech. Fortunately, they did speak German, and Dominic talked us in. We got a room, each had a shower and settled down to sleep for four hours. At 3.45am we got up, packed up our stuff and headed back to the train station.
With out own compartment on the train we managed to fit in a couple more hours of sleep, and at 7.44am we rolled into Prague. We'd made it. Perhaps we'd cheated in the race but we were a day and a half too late to win anyway, and fuck it, we made it from Stirling to Prague overland and off our own backs. We did an amazing thing. I am so proud of us.
After breakfast in the hostel we went straight into the city to spend the day wandering the streets of the Old Town, drinking beer, buying souvenirs, drinking beer, eating local food and drinking beer. It was a good day. A very good end to a very long journey. And now I feel as tired as though I've lived it all again, so goodnight.
