Mission: Wales
Date: 12/08/2009
Travelers: AWOL,Ben and Jam
At 5am we rose up from our slumber, Pretty impressed really because we all just came to life, before we all left Ben made us all a cup of tea, We quickly discussed first destination, double checked the contents of our packs, and set off into cold, the four of us: AWOL, Ben, Dave and myself.
Dave had to drop his keys off at our friends so while he did that i went to the shop and brought 2 pouch's of tobacco, when Dave returned he explained that he could wake our friend up which means he couldn't leave his keys, so unfortunately Dave had to abandon mission. You were missed mate.
So after saying goodbye to Dave at Herlington Center, Orton,at 6:30am we headed towards Haddent Services on the A1, The morning was rather nice not to cold the walk was about an hour, the roads were really quiet not many people driving at all, which is not surprising really when you consider its 7am. Once we arrived at the Extra Services on the A1, we went straight to MC Donald's, were we brought some porridge with syrup and jam, its was really nice and has a good amount of energy for us which we shall need in the days ahead. After we had eaten the porridge we taped two pieces of A4 paper together and made a sign for the M25. <-- This sign will be key to our lift :)
Now equipped with a valid sign, we head out side for one final smoke together, were we discuss how shit the weather is looking and decide who is going first. We decided myself and AWOL would go first. Before we left we saw a few people from Peterborough that AWOL knew also James Holland was there and i asked how he was, he was good which is good. After chatting to the people from Peterborough myself and AWOL headed out towards A1(M) south towards London, Acquired our position next to the road, laid down our sacks and stuck out our thumbs and sign :). Hopefully we wont be here long :)
The roads were quite busy, for 8:30am we waited for about an hour in the rain, then a Romanian lorry driver picked us up and he said he could take us to the M25, we threw our packs into the back of his lorry, Hoped into the front cab and sat talking to him about his country and what he was delivering, Also the driver told us stories about things in his country. which was interesting.
Unfortunately i fell asleep in the lorry on the journey, and was woken up by the driver to inform us that we had reached the M25 and he has to let us off here. We thought yeah great awesome, until we realised he had placed us right on the slip road, up onto the M25, which is illegal for myself and AWOL to be there. The sign ahead read: (Turn Left) Dartford, (Straight On) Watford. So myself and AWOL decided to give it a shot and started walking towards the M4 with our thumbs out. Almost straight away we were pulled over by a highway maintenance officer.
At first we were expecting the officer to be a dickhead, but fortunately for us we explained ourselves to the officer and he understood our situation, explained that were we was is illegal, and we were lucky he found us not the police. He said we could go up the bank to see if its possible to hitch from the road running along side the motorway. So me an AWOL went to have a look and seriously the road was DEAD not a single car on it, which is not good new at all lol. So we went back down the bank and the officer said the only other thing to do is for him to give us a lift to somewhere safe, so at 11:30am he gave us a lift to a Total Gas station on J28 of the M25.
When we arrived at the gas station we said thank you to the officer (because to be honest he didn't have to help us he could have been a right cunt.) then we headed into the shop to look at a map. We needed to get to the M4 which was on the other-side of the M25, so brought a twirl for energy, and headed outside. The weather had cleared up which was good, so we sat outside and made signs saying 'Please' and 'M4'. We were also going to make a sign saying 'Anywhere but here' but unfortunately we didn't manage to complete it.
Currently we are feeling hopeful to get a lift but if we were to be honest we are pretty screwed, I mean were stuck at a gas station on the outskirts of London with no legal place to go other then into London, if we had been dropped off at a service station it would be allot easier to get a lift but as AWOL says "Shits and Giggles". Luckily we noticed a lorry that had just pulled in, so I went and spoke to the driver. I explained our situation and asked if he could drop us off at the next service station on the M25. He agreed but said we had to wait half hour, which wasn't a problem for us.
We waited the half hour, and spoke to the lorry driver because the lorry driver was going in the opposite direction it would be better if we just go to the slip road and hitch from there. So AWOL and myself grabbed our packs and signs and headed across the road. We found a nice little place to try and get a lift from, so we rested our bags down grabbed our signs and stuck our thumbs out. Not 10 minuets into the wait we had already received a large amount of abuse from the drivers. I just don't understand why? whats the point? oh well...
We had been waiting for about 25 minuets when a van driver picked us up, He was delivering Humus to Nottingham he agreed to give us a lift to South Mimms, which was the service station we needed really to be at. in the van we chatted to the driver about what he does, and he just delivers things, anything.
We arrived at South Mimms at about 1:10pm, We rang Ben straight away to assess his situation. Lucky bastard had managed alright and was on his way to Bristol. We let him know what had happened and set out to get onto the M4. We went to the petrol station exit to hitch a lift, because Ben had advised us and that was were he got his lift from. So AWOL and myself stuck our thumbs out in hope for a lift. We had been waiting for 1 an a half hours, getting quite tired and agitated. I couldn't wait to set up camp and eat :) yum yum.
So after the long wait we decided to go and find the slip road onto the M25. so we crossed the roads around until we got to the slip road, we then assumed our usual stance of signs and thumbs out waiting our lift. We had been waiting for half hour which wasn't bad, I nearly fell asleep when someone who was travelling to Heathrow pulled up and offered us a lift to the exit onto the M4.
We were so grateful, it was really feeling like we were getting somewhere. so were hoped in at about 3:30, I fell asleep in the guys car, it took about half hour to get to the part of the M25 we needed. We jumped out and the sign read "The west"(M25)Gatwick - Heathrow (Terminal 5) as soon as we had arrived AWOL had already started on the next sign saying, "Near Wales". we went to the slip road onto the M4 and started waiting for a lift.
It was 5:20pm and we are still at the M25-M4 slip road...¬_¬ both myself and AWOL are getting tired and hungry (We had nothing since breakfast)so we thought 'fuck it' and set up our cooking stuffs right next to the motorway, we sat down to a delicious meal of noodles and tuna. Was very satisfying. we then proceeded to wait for a lift until 7pm when AWOL decided it would be better if we went onto the slip road to hitch a lift. This by the way is illegal and we don't recommend it as it is extremely dangerous, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
So that's what we did, we headed up the M4 slip road, with our thumbs out and about 15 minuets later the police arrive, one officer on his motorbike, he demanded us to leave HIS motorway, which we agreed because if he had arrested us he would have taken us into London, which would of been BAD! So we missioned over the fence into a field of a Holiday Inn, at this present time we are both cold, wet, hungry, tired and lost with absolutely no means of getting back. Did i mention it pissed it down LOADS so we are soaked!!!
So we roamed around the field and car park, saw a huge bush which had a grass bit behind it. So myself and AWOL decided to set up tent in the field next to the motorway in the garden of a holiday inn. once the tent was up we started on food :) soup, noodles and tuna twice over, with some coffee :) it was satisfying. We got into the sleeping bags, made two HUGE joints and just hot-boxed the tent like TO AN EXTREME ! :) had a chat, then went to sleep.
We were woken up the next morning by workers at the Holiday Inn, now i wont lie to you from the outside the hotel looked really run down. but after we had packed everything up we headed into the lobby to ask for directions to the M25 North. Once we had arrived in the lobby it became clear this was no 'run down' hotel. Is looked of a high standard and to be honest i felt a bit out of place in there. The guy behind the desk gave us a map and marked the route we had to walk.
We left the hotel and headed towards Bath road and on the journey found a shop. I asked the guy if he had any drinks for under 50p and he said we could have a can of coke. We sat out side the shop ate some tuna, and a bag of crisps the shop keeper had given to us. As-well and being given a tenner by a really nice person in the shop. After we had made our last sign, we headed towards the M25, we came across a sandwich shop which was good because we used the money to get a proper sandwich which was really tasty :).
We carried on missioning to the M25 round Heathrow Airport, we actually had plane over our heads :) it was amazing and the flow of planes that takeoff and land is also amazing. we reached the M25 were we needed to be to hitch a lift towards Cambridge or Peterborough, So we stuck our thumbs out and within 10 minuets we had got a lift from this really nice land who drove a Mercedes Benz and listened to Bob Marley :).
The lady and her children were coming from the airport because the children had just come back from a road trip around America. She gave us a lift to junction 28 of Huntingdon and Cambridge were we got a lift to Huntingdon and a lift to Peterborough. It was all in all a good trip, even tho we didn't end up at our destination. Oh well better luck next time :)
