Of course the day we leave Halifax it happens to be the nicest day we have had here. Not a cloud in the sky and a brisk 10c
Blue Sky in Halifax
Coffee this morning wasn’t fantastic, just a machine made one from the beefeater restaurant attached to the hotel. After breakfast Sharon’s great aunt picked us up in her little fiat 500 and we went back to her place for a cup of tea to say goodbye before we caught our train to Leeds, then Hull.
We had ordered a taxi to take us from the hotel to the station, not that far, but far enough I wasn’t keen on hauling luggage that distance. We ordered a larger car, and sure enough a tiny one appeared, he called and sent for a bigger one.
Taxi company sent this when I asked for a big saloon to take all our luggage.
We ended up getting a slightly earlier train to Leeds. Unlike the one we took to York this had plenty of space and it was a relaxed 40 minute ride. We had a while to wait in Leeds so got some late lunch waiting for the platform to be announced. It’s announced, then we notice it flashed up as delayed. 10 minutes later it flashed up as cancelled. Ok, that’s a bit of an issue as we need to get the ferry.
The national rail guys tell us there is one an hour later we can just get on, but that would make the ferry connection less than an hour. Totally doable but a bit tight for my liking considering we really have to be on that ship or it seriously screws our plans around.
Leeds Station
So I start looking at Uber options just in case. It’s less than 100km, so it’s possible via Uber, and just as I’m looking the dynamic Uber pricing kicks in and the estimate goes from £150 to over £200. That’s going to sting. So we are debating do we just risk waiting for the next train or drop more than the cost of the ferry on an Uber just to make it. Luckily I look up at the board again and the train is “un-cancelled”. We can’t quite believe our luck so we rush down to the platform and 5 minutes later our original train does actually arrive and we are then zipping our way over to hull, and I’ve saved $400 phew.
Train to Hull is roomy with luggage storage
Just out of Hull we were thinking the train was somehow cursed and we were doomed not to make the ship as the doors on the train refused to close at one stop. Thankfully they just locked them manually and we didn’t get booted off the train like I thought would happen. Next issue was traffic in Hull, to go the small distance from the station to the ferry took 30 minutes in the cab.
Getting onto the Ferry was a breeze, no queues, showed passport and walked straight on. The ferry has a mini cruise feel about it, bars, duty free shops, restaurants, cinema etc and plenty of football supporters on a trip to watch Manchester United tomorrow in The Hague to keep the staff busy…
And we are finally onboard and relaxing a little.
It's all about the coffee 