So I just finished Race2Paris. My team came in an impressive last place, finishing a full day after the event finished. That said, at least we finished.
It started with us trying to get out of Edinburgh. We were stuck in a petrol station for three hours before a guy gave us a lift to Sterling. Not quite the right direction but at least it got us out of Edinburgh. Sterling took about an hour to get out, probably not helping that we were on the wrong side of the road, and we got a lift to Glasgow. There we got a lift from a man gave us a lift to Lancaster. He told us about his life, which included working as a missionary in Africa, running a safari and currently selling ecologically friendly oil. It was quite the story to hear. From Lancaster we got a lift towards Sheffield, where we were left in the centre of the city making us have to get out again. After being stuck for four hours with the M1 in sight, we gave up and called an Uber to the nearest service station, hoping to have better chances from there.
Spending the night in the service station was fun… I slept for 2 hours and ended up waiting until 5 to get the next lift. That whole day was full of short trips slowly making our way down the M1. Had a lift from a pilot who fought off an attempted hijacker, so that was pretty cool. The rugby world cup was that day, and probably didn’t help with us getting a lift. About midday we were stuck in the second ring road of London, again making it fun to get out. The great thing is that this time someone donated some train tickets so we were able to get out without spending too much time stuck. We ended up spending the night at my partner’s parent’s place as we were both very tired from the previous day.
Their parents ended up giving us a lift to dover, hoping that we would be able to catch a lift with someone going over the ferry. About midday, when the race finished, we decided that we’d just buy the rest of the trip. The ferry was fine, but we forgot that there was a time difference between the uk and france so we booked a train that left before the ferry arrived. Although we missed that train, we were able to exchange the tickets for a train the next day. Calais was nice enough, but definitely had the vibe of a town people pass through. That said, it was very nice to stop and sit around without worrying about where our next lift was coming from.
Finally getting to paris was great. the weather beats edinburgh any day. Actually having sun shining and warmth was a definite prize of the hitch. It was great walking around having not been to paris in a few years. We went up sacre coeur to have a look over the city. It was probably the part that really helped to make it feel like the hitch was over. After that we walked to notre dame to have a look at the repairs and trained to the eiffel tower to take the obligatory tourist photos. That was pretty much all we had time for, so we caught a train to the airport and waited around for the flight back. Getting in at midnight meant i had a good sleep coming out of the hike that i am still trying to recover from.
Some photos from paris:
