The Longest Day

If you’ve got a social media account then you will have seen plenty of influencers glamorous travel photos. Hundreds of photos of good looking people on far away exotic beaches without a worry in the world, living their best life. When we see these photos, we start to compare our own lives to theirs. It’s important to remember that people’s social media pages are a highlight reel of their lives. We want other people to think well of us, and social media gives us a platform to transform our lives into something we want it to be.

In February 2017 I went to Wales and bike packed for 4 days through Snowdonia park. Now I have in the past and could continue to post about how great this trip was. Don’t get me wrong, I have fond memories of that trip which I will hold onto, but there are also dark times. So rather than tell you about how great the adventure was and show off a load of great photos of me looking happy, I thought I would share with you the downside to travel adventures. Here is my longest day.

It’s late February and I’ve been cycling for 3 days up never-ending hills, in never-ending rain. I’m sat at the side of the road, head to toe in waterproofs, waiting for the misty rain to stop. It felt like I had been cycling uphill all day, and yet as I stood there with my bike I was dwarf by Mount Snowdon before me. Were there any downhills in Wales? 

There was. To my left, the mist cleared enough for me to see out into the valley where, somewhere, the small village of Beddgelert lay. At this point, I was feeling pretty positive. Yes, I was soaking wet but I only had a couple of miles left to cycle for the day. Tomorrow would only be a short ride along the coast to the train station.

As I stopped to take some photos, my friend Ian was speaking with some people who had parked up to enjoy the view. When you’re going around on bikes covered in bags and have an unkempt look about you people tend to get curious and ask what you’re up to.

He was explaining our planned route for the next day when one of the people he was talking to interrupted him to explain there was a storm forecast. To be honest I didn’t pay much attention at this point. It had been wet and cold all week. How much worse could it get?

We set off on the bikes and enjoyed a nice long downhill section into the valley. The sun broke through the clouds enough to tempt me into taking off one of the two waterproof coats I was wearing.

We rolled into Beddgelert. A little picturesque village, with small stone cottages and a quaint little river trickling through the centre. One of the first buildings we came to was a pub. Always a good sign. The sunshine hadn’t lasted long and it was raining again. It didn’t take much persuading to go inside for a quick pint before heading to our campsite a mile up the road. 

It was a good decision. The pub was small and cosy, like you want from a village pub, and there was a free table right next to an open fire. It couldn’t get any better. I put some of my wet layers of clothing on the back of a chair in front of the fire and headed to the bar to order a drink. The pub was pretty quiet as it was still only 3 pm midweek so we had the bar to ourselves as the barman came over to serve me. After asking what I wanted he asked what we were up to. Probably wondering why two strangers were currently using the pub as a makeshift dry cleaner.

I explained about our trip. That we were planning to camp here for the night before cycling along the coast tomorrow, back to Barmouth to get the train. I could not make up what happened next. I could see fear glaze over his eyes as he let out a pitiful moan. Looking at him somewhat confused he followed this up by saying ‘‘There’s a storm coming’’. As if he was an extra from a Hollywood disaster movie.

‘’Yeah well its been raining nonstop for the past 3 days. It’s only about 20 miles.’’ I said to him, bemused.

‘’Yeah but it’s forecast 80 mph winds on the coast.’’

I had no context of what 80 mph winds were like, and my expression must have said so too because he carried on.

“The last time we had a storm that bad it blew the roof off the local train station.”

“Well do you know what time its forecast to start?” I asked.

He turned round to check on the laptop behind the bar.

“6 am tomorrow”.

I’ll point out at this point I thought he was exaggerating. Yet, having done an internet search a few days later, I found out that in 2014 there was a severe storm with winds recorded at 108 mph. This wrecked havoc across North Wales, including ripping off the Porthmadog train stations roof!

(BBC News, 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26164617)

I went back over to my table to tell Ian about it. Neither of us fancied having to ride in a storm (we had had to walk 6 miles a couple of nights ago because the wind was bad). The warmth from the fire was drying us out and was a godsend after the past couple of days. We decided to have a couple more pints whilst we thought it over.

We concluded the best course of action would be to head to the campsite, set the tents up, then head back to the warm pub. It didn’t take long to get to the campsite and set up. Ian’s tent was old and worn out. The last few days hadn’t been kind to it so he asked if he could sleep in my tent for the night. I wasn’t too fussed so agreed and we biked back into the village and back to the pub.

The pub was busier now and, unfortunately, our table by the fire was being used. We had to pull up the stools at the bar. The barman from earlier was still working so came over to serve us and asked a few more questions about our trip. Whilst we were chatting to him, an older gentleman who was sat in the bar asked us where we were cycling tomorrow.

“They’re going down the coast” the barman answered for us.

I watched as the old man’s eyes filled with fear as well.

“You know there’s a storm coming,” he told us.

“Yeah, but we can manage, we’ve been riding in bad weather all week” I replied.

“They only forecast them when they’re bad here”.

I changed the subject and we kept chatting to the barman and the old man. I won’t go into too much detail about the night, other than we had a great night with plenty of beer which resulted in a lock-in. We spoke with the two locals for most of the night. In particular, the older man who had lived in the village for 70 years having been born in the house he now owned. As we were finally encouraged to leave the pub in the early hours of the morning the old man approached us again.

“If I was you lads, I would get to the nearest train station as early as you can. You’ll be fine then”.

We didn’t want to lose a day of our trip but had accepted at this point that the old guy knew better than us. We would go back to the campsite and set our alarm for 5 am to try and get to the station before the storm set.

Leaving the warm pub was tough, but it became tougher when we opened the door to the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen. The roads were flooding. We could hear what had earlier been a gentle river, now thundering through the village. The old man pulled his coat over his head and ran off over the bridge into the village.

The ride back to camp was pretty grim. The drinks had gone down well so we were already slow. The weather made us slower. By the time we got back to the tent we were soaking through, both of us scrambling to get into the small two-man tent. We were wet through and shivering cold. Actual puddles had appeared in the tent. Sleep seemed impossible and as I lay there longer I got colder. It didn’t take long for me to get up and get out. There was a toilet block on the campsite so I headed there for a bit of shelter from the rain. Luckily the toilets were not locked so I made my way inside. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do… sit here until the morning? It was at least dry in here. There were a few toilet cubicles in the block and on the wall facing them there was a small radiator… which was on! In what I would describe as a moment of desperation. I lay on the floor curled into a ball next to the radiator and went to sleep on a dirty, piss covered floor.

The alarm went off about 4.30 am and in the 30 minutes I woke Ian up and put all the gear away I can’t remember too much. It was still definitely raining heavy and in the footfall of the mountains, we were in the pitch black. To be safe we had both sellotaped all our torches to our handlebars so we would be able to see where we were going. The road into Porthmadog would be downhill and winding. Neither of which offered us much enthusiasm at that moment in time. 

The riding was slow and long as the rain continued to beat down on us. No one spoke as we continued to battle through the rain towards the safety of the train home. It would take us an hour to get to Porthmadog. In perfect timing, the wind picked up to a heavy gale as we reached the train station. The station wasn’t much. A couple of platforms covered by the new roof. It offered no protection from the blowing wind chill. We opted to go to the bus shelter next to the station instead. It made from plastic panels which would keep the wind and rain off us.

We had another hour until the first train home. It wasn’t long until we realised the locals had not been joking about the storm. The howling wind was blowing the rain sideways. With each gust, we questioned the safety of our shelter as the plastic panels bent and rattled. The wind was like nothing I had seen before. It was howling as it swept through the streets, throwing litter everywhere. A bin on the other side of the road pulled out of the ground in a particularly big gust.

At some point during our miserable wait for the train, we were sat looking into space. Out of nowhere, we noticed a man cycling up the street towards us. He was in his 50’s and was riding in jeans and a jacket on a bike too small, fluorescent paper round bag over his shoulder. He almost seemed oblivious to the carnage that was being caused around him.

The train came and we were able to get the bikes on and into a carriage. The warmth from inside the train was rest bite to what we had gone through outside. I thought that we were over the worse of it and would soon be home.

Before the train left the station the conductor came up the train asking for tickets. We handed ours over as he looked on at us, still dirty and soaking wet.

“These are the wrong tickets for this train.” He said.

“What?”

“Your tickets are for a different train.” He continued to look at us as we sat staring. “But today is going to be a long one so fuck it”.

What a lifesaver. We had booked our tickets for Barmouth further down the line, but luckily, he waved it off. As the train began to move, he told us more stories about the last storm which had hit north Wales. The train line went right along the coastline. When the weather was bad, they often had to cancel the trains for safety.

“You’ve made the right decision getting on early. I don’t think there will be many more trains today.”

The train had to go slow so it took about 2 hours to get to Machynlleth. It would join together with a train from Aberystwyth before heading to Birmingham. Before the train came into the station the ticket officer came back up the train station.

“They’ve cancelled the train because a tree has come down further along the line. There’s a replacement bus service set up and I’ve rung ahead to let them know you’re coming on with your bikes. It’s all sorted for you.”

Another hurdle for us to get over, but this bloke had done us a solid.

Getting onto the bus service was straight forwards. It was only going to take us as far as Shrewsbury, where we would be able to get on another train to Birmingham. The journey to Shrewsbury took another 2 hours. By now I was drying off and was sat at the back of the bus, enjoying reading my damp book.

Shrewsbury brought us to the next leg of our journey. We got off the bus and made our way into the busy station. We thought the storm had only hit North Wales. Yet things were looking more alarming when we saw that there were no trains on the outbound board. People were standing around looking confused and no one seemed to know what was going on.

I left my bike with Ian and went to find a member of staff who I could ask. There was a man with a clipboard standing at the far end of a waiting room. I explained about our tickets and he told me there was a train on one of the platforms that was going to Birmingham. It was just waiting for clearance before it could set off.

We thought the train might be busy, but we managed to find a space for the bikes and some seats easy enough. What followed was an hour of sitting on a train, every 10 minutes the driver announced that he was expecting to leave at any time. When the platform conductor stuck his head on the train and said there was a replacement bus service outside we opted to go for that instead. Turns out we had narrowly missed the one to Birmingham, but there was another one in 30 minutes going to Wolverhampton.

It was now coming up to midday. We were hitting the hungover stage where you want to consume your body weight in greasy food. I left Ian and went on a search for some food. A Tesco was in sight but I became distracted by a chip shop which was opening. The temptations of a greasy hot kebab was too much so I went in. I was the first customer of the day and it turns out they weren’t ready to serve food yet. They pondered around whilst I waited for our food. When I did get our food I was conscious of the fact I had been gone nearly 30 minutes and quickly made my way back to the train station.

As I made my way up the street I could see Ian waving frantically at me.

“They’re leaving now”

“Great let’s get on”

We went round to the other side of the bus where they were loading bags into the storage under the bus.

“Hi mate, can we put these on please?”

“No, there’s no space on the bus for the bikes” he replied, not even looking at me.

“But we’ve got tickets!”

“There’s no space”

The bus had two sliding panels that opened up for storage space and he only had one open.

“Well what about the other bit, there must be space in there”

He started to tell me again “no” but I cut over him.

“Come on mate we are just trying to get home”

“Fine, but if they get damaged it’s on you.”

He opened the second door and there was enough space for 10 bikes! We chucked them in with little care and went to get on the bus. It was pretty full and there was only a couple of seats spread out next to other passengers. I was feeling sorry for the bloke I was about to go sit next too. I’d spent the night sleeping on a piss covered floor and I still had my kebab to eat as well.

Turns out the bloke was Polish and had come to visit one of his friends. He tried explaining over Google translate that he wasn’t sure where he was but needed to get to his friend’s house. He showed me the address and I typed onto his translate that I would tell him when to get off. It wasn’t long before the Polish man got off and Ian came down to sit next to me. What followed was another 2 hours of sitting on a bus, visiting every train station between Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton.

Arriving in Wolverhampton, all optimism of getting home soon was gone. We were expecting another long wait for the next train. We were surprised to hear there was a train arriving at the platform which was going to Birmingham. The train arrived as we reached the platform. Scanning for the bicycle sticker on the door we made our way down the train and stepped through the doors.

There were 2 slots for bikes in one of the carriages. I pushed my bike up to one of them I realised there wouldn’t be space because it was filled with about 8 people. Looking down the train I realised the train may be a little full. Every space which could fit a person in was full. People were sat at tables. Children put into the bag rack overhead. More people were pushing on behind me. I lifted my front wheel and pushed the bike up against the wall to make more space. Ian managed to squeeze in before the door shut, but he had even less room. He had lifted his bike as he got up onto the train, but it had filled so quickly he had no space to put it back down. The 2 men on either side of him laughed about it, before grabbing the bike and helping him keep it held up.

It took the train less than 20 minutes to arrive in Birmingham before we all spilt out on the platform. In a moment of a lucky coincidence for Ian, a train pulled in right behind ours. It was going to Nottingham, where he lived.

“I’m going mate, good luck!” And he was gone.

I was alone in Birmingham station and would need to find 1 more train to get back to Nuneaton. I was so close to being able to get into bed! I pushed the bike along to the lift and made my way up into the main area of the station. It was utter carnage up there. Thousands of people were milling around stuck because their trains were cancelled. The station was busier than during any rush hour I had seen before.

I could see a station worker, so I went over and asked if there was a train to Nuneaton.

“All trains are up on the outbound board,” he said, pointing to an empty board.

“So there’s no trains?” I asked.

He shook his head and walked off.

I walked around for a little bit trying to think about what to do. It was around 6 pm now, 12 hours after I had arrived in Porthmadog. I sat down on the floor where I could still see the outbound board, hopeful something would come up soon. I was aware that I didn’t have a bike lock so wouldn’t be able to leave my bike to get food or go the toilet.

I got my phone out and text my mum. I was only a 30-minute drive away from home. If she could drive over in my car I would be able to remove both the wheels from my bike and fit it in. Her reply came back a couple of minutes later.

Mum: I don’t like driving on the motorway and don’t want to drive into Birmingham as I won’t know where I’m going. 

Me: There’s Satnav in the car!

Mum: I’m not driving into Birmingham. Is there not any trains? 

Me: No they’ve all been cancelled! I really need you to come get me, I’m stuck.

Mum: Let me ring your Grandad. He might be able to come get you…

Mum: He’s busy at work. I’ll try next door. 

How much worse could today get? Even my own Mum wouldn’t come and save me. She doesn’t like driving far, but I was stuck here. I waited for a while longer reading my book, trying to keep myself from worrying about being stuck. I could in theory ride home from here. It would be about 26 miles, but after the day I’d gone through that would have to be a last resort.

About half-hour later my phone buzzed to another text from Mum.

Mum: Your cousins’ boyfriend, used to live in Birmingham. He’s going to come and get you. 

Brilliant… Having to be saved by a stranger. It would be another hour sat on my little area of the station floor before I received any further updates.

Mum: He’s on his way, but the traffic is bad because of all the trains. 

It was now 8 pm. I was hungry, tired and growing desperate for the toilet. In a particularly low moment, I heard the tannoy startup.

“There will be a train leaving Platform 8 for London Euston, stopping off at Nuneaton…”

NUNEATON?! I sprang up and grabbed my bike, swinging it towards the escalators down to platform 8. My delight lasted a mere second as I watched thousands of people run as fast as they could in the same direction. People were tripping over each other and falling to the ground. Others were climbing over the railing and dropping down onto the escalator to avoid the pile-up at the top. I looked at my big bulky bike and knew I had no chance.

Tim was on his way here, it wasn’t worth fighting my way to the platform. I sat back down and waited. 30 minutes later my phone would go off again. It was Tim telling me he was here, sharing his GPS location so I could go and find him. Despite the GPS, I got lost. This was actually the first time I had been to the station since it had been reopened. I found his car parked up in a tunnel and we managed to get my bike into the boot.

Tim explained how the storm had hit all over England. In a lot of places, it had caused stuff to blow onto the line and block the train. Outside Nuneaton, someone’s shed had blown up out of their garden and landed on the track.

My phone buzzed again to another text from my Mum.

Mum: There’s some leftover casserole you can warm up when you get in. 

Me: You left me in Birmingham for 3 hours! Don’t you think you owe me more than a leftover casserole! Get me a curry and some beers ready for when I get back!

When I did get back it was past 9 pm. Over 15 hours after I had set off from the campsite that morning. Travelling back from a holiday is never nice. But when a 2-hour train journey turned into the longest day of my life you had to take stock.

You don’t want to tell people about the dark times like this. You’re already considered a bit of a weirdo. You choose to spend your holiday cycling round rainy Wales instead of being on a sunny beach in Tenerife. The last thing you want is to give people a stick to beat you with whilst telling you, “I told you so!”

I’m lucky that I can reflect on this and laugh about it now. Would I want to do it again? Absolutely not! It makes me wonder though. How many of these adventure influencers have their own longest day which we never hear or see of?

Perhaps our own lives are not much different from their ‘best’ ones?