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Off to the UK from Türkiye

26.1.24

There was only one remarkable thing about the flight from Dalaman to Manchester, which was that due to strong head winds the flight time was a whopping 4 hours 50 minutes. Anywhere between 3 and a half and four hours is usual.

Other than that it was all fine and we spent our day mostly sitting and eating very unhealthily.

We had enough time at the airport to consume coffee and shop at Greggs. Ahhh, beans, cheese and sausage bake. Yum.

Our Megabus to Newcastle should have been at 6.55pm.

It finally arrived at 7.30pm. The online ‘track my coach’ didn’t work, no phone number, just email, which comes back with an automated reply advising you that you can track your coach, or in an emergency use social media to ask questions between 9am and 6pm. We were just researching plan B’s as it pulled in.

The highlight of the cold waiting time was watching Selwyns bus reverse into the National Express to Leeds bus.

It’s not as if he didn’t have enormous enough mirrors.

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Clonk.

Those poor passengers were still waiting for their replacement Leeds bus when we finally set off at almost 8pm.

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Brrrrrrr

There was a conflab about our driver only having 30 minutes of driving time left. Finally he took us to the next Manchester bus station and we got a new driver.

North of Watford is always a mystery to us Southerners. I had no idea Manchester is so huge! My nephew is at the Uni, but sadly no time to see him.

The tour of Northern bus stations continued with Huddersfield, Leeds, Middlesborough, Sunderland and we finally arrived at 12.10am. From being an hour late leaving we were only 15 minutes after our original eta.

We waited at the taxi rank, spoke with one driver but he was waiting for his customer.

The world has changed since I last got a taxi in the uk, over 15 years or so ago. You have to be down with the kids and prebook online.

The other guys customers didn’t show and he told us to jump in!

It was only an 11 minute ride away, he was friendly and chatty. I’m loving the accents.

I did go to Crewe a couple of times years ago, to Liverpool for work and a brief visit to York.

Newcastle will be the furthest north ever for me. I’m really looking forward to having a day there to explore after sitting around for so long today.

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Neck ache tomorrow?

Just want to get to Newcastle now, its been a long day.

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