March 30th, 2022
I woke to the noise of Lynn getting ready for work, but not because of the noise of Lynn getting ready for work. I realised that we had been engaged in conversation so much so that we had forgotten to take a group photo for our adventure album, so we quickly throw on our clothes and headed down the stair.
Andrew was already up and about reading through his mail, having taken the day off work to make sure we didn’t feel we had to leave too early. A group photo was taken we said our goodbyes to Lynn before she headed off to the office.
As we enjoyed breakfast with Andrew we slipped into the conversations from the night before. We could have sat there all day, catching up on too many lost years between us, but time was getting on and we still had some cycling to do before we could enjoy our last touch of luxury for a while, having booked to stay at the Hilton Hotel Gateshead for out last night in the UK for some time.
It was sad to say goodbye to Andrew, my oldest friend, we did so with the determination that we would make sure that the next meeting would be at the earliest opportunity after our adventure. It appeared to be raining when we first poked our heads through the closed curtains, however, upon stepping out into the chilled morning air the precipitation that was falling was in solid rather than liquid form. It was snowing.
With the Pino reversed out of its overnight home we loaded the panniers as quickly as we could before we completely lost the use of our fingers due to the cold. Andrew had his phone out and was all set to take a send-off video, so given the opportunity to have a video of us cycling, rather than just posing by the bike, we headed the wrong way down the street first, before cycling past at the speed of a lame tortoise to get the flyby shot.
The route to Newcastle City Centre initially followed main roads, but before long we were back on the amazing cycle network heading to the iconic Tyne Bridge, the sister bridge to the one that spans Sydney Harbour, a bridge that we will hopefully by cycling over in about eighteen months. While we both lived in the North East of England for the first twenty years of our existence nothing was familiar until to popped out at the war memorial on Shieldfield Green. From there we headed over to Pilgrim Street, my dad’s last Police Station posting before his retirement over twenty-five years ago, took a left turn and down to the bridge. The snow had been switching on and off all morning, but as we approached the north end of the bridge the snow started again.
While we would love to have taken a few pictures of us on the bridge, without saying anything, we knew what each other was thinking. We need to get to the hotel as soon as possible and get out of this slowly deteriorating weather. We took a sharp right turn at the end of the bridge and within a couple of minutes, we were standing at the reception of the Hilton Hotel Gateshead checking in.
Our Pino had a locked storeroom arranged for the night and we had an appointment with a swimming pool, so after a short wait in reception for our room to be prepared for us, we quickly said goodnight to our bike and headed to our room, panniers in hand. We had been given a first-floor river facing room, which didn’t disappoint when we walked through the open root to our room.
Within two minutes of entering our room, it looked more like the back storeroom of an outdoor activity centre as we searched for our swimming gear. An enjoyable hour was spent between the pool, steam room and jacuzzi, but time was limited before the highlight of the day.
Indirectly Jayne was the reason I first met Deborah back in 1987, with Deborah and Jayne being primary school friends from back in the mid-70s, so to have Jayne and her son Declan travel up to Newcastle to see us off was something very special. We had originally booked the hotel in the thought that family might want to come to see us one last time, but with my mother catching COVID after a short Scottish break and Deborah’s parents most likely forgetting we were even going away, the diary was empty until Jayne got in touch.
While we hadn’t seen Jayne in many years the conversation flowed as if we were never apart, the sign of a true lasting friendship. The evening with Jayne and Declan was the best send off we could have ever wished for, but it was over far too quickly. With work and school tomorrow and a one hour drive home we stretched out the evening as far as we could, but the inevitable time came for our goodbye.
Before settling down for the night we headed up to the local Tesco Extra supermarket to buy a few provisions for tomorrow. Within minutes of leaving the hotel, we found ourselves battling through a minor blizzard, crunching through newly fallen snow.
Back at the hotel, we began to wonder if we had chosen the optimum time of year to start this adventure, just as I picked up a message from Marielle, my old colleague from the late 90’s when we lived in the Netherlands, that the forecast for Amsterdam as between 4cm and 20cm on the day of our arrival.