Tuesday, March 18, 2014

English Schools Cross Country Trip

Channel Islands Junior Girls Team
Alternatively planes, trains and autombiles, plus boats and buses!
Following from the previous post, just getting to the race venue proved a major challenge as a couple of days of fog left flights in disarray and our flight to East Midlands Airport was duly cancelled.  Ironically the race venue at Castle Donington was actually at the end of the runway at East Midlands Airport, so what should have been a nice relaxing journey delivering us right to the door then turned into a logistical challenge.

Firstly we booked onto the ferry to Weymouth, the hire car was cancelled and a new one re-arranged with a pickup at Weymouth.  Then the ferry was delayed with the volume of passengers and speed was reduced due to the fog.  Still we would have a long drive into the night and still get to the hotel by midnight.

Then it transpired no car hire was available in Weymouth.  Now we were really getting stuck.  We walked to the train station and caught a train, the guard was going to sell tickets on the train as the queue for tickets was long and the card payment facility was broken!

Once on the train my wife in Guernsey managed to book a hotel in Eastleigh and a hire car from Southampton the following morning.  So an early start and then a minor panic as the hire car company didn't immediately have the car we had booked.  Transpires 7 seaters are by special order with 48 hours notice - but no one told the website !  Fortunately they had a car with pop up rear seats that made a 7 seater.  Not long after we were on our way. 

The drive was un-eventful until the traffic jam at the venue.  But I got the athletes there, they raced and then i took them to Manchester and we flew home as originally planed.  A bit tired, with mixed results but with lots of smiles and enthusiasm.

Results and more photos linked from GIAAC website post

No comments:

Post a Comment