Travelogue

Paul Balm describes a most unusual weekend away….

This is more of a travelogue or a lament on modern life and how easily it can go wrong so if you’re looking for ice hockey content you might want to look elsewhere but please keep checking back here as there’ll be some along in a minute – just like a replacement bus.

Let’s face it Dundee is a long way to go for a single game of ice hockey. It’s actually quicker to go to Lands End than it is to Dundee Ice Arena. Brussels is closer as well but despite all this it was Dundee that we set off for on a grey, overcast Friday morning armed with instructions on how to avoid the roadworks on the A1. Conversation drifted between the normal ice hockey chat to some pretty scurrilous opinions about some of the more recent events and statements that had come out of Sheffield. Our journey after the A1 took us across the bleak landscape of the A66 to Penrith and then north again past Carlisle. Here talk turned to the journey we had made to Belfast by a similar route 11 years previously to the day, but there was no turning off into the wilds of Dumfries and Galloway for us today as we headed North towards Glasgow and then across Scotland towards our destination in Dundee.

By the time we got to Dundee the sun was out as we checked in, opened our room’s door, chucked our bags in and then headed for the adjacent pub to allow the drinking to commence and to catch up with the friends who had travelled up separately. We knew we weren’t going to be the only ones there (half the people checking in to the hotel seemed to know my companion) but I don’t think we were really prepared for how few of us there were in the rink. If we numbered twenty then that was about it. We gave a good account of ourselves, making noise throughout the game. You sort of have to when you’re outnumbered to that kind of degree. The game didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, I don’t need to tell you that so by the time the game was over and we retired to the rink bar we were in a pretty dejected mood. This continued for a while and we were still in a bit of a low place by the time we got back to the Weavers Mill (or the Johnny Weaver to us). We all felt like the play-offs were realistically gone and that we were just marking time until the next season. We’d already done the who do we keep/release discussion, so it was time to move on.

Despite the pineapple antics the downbeat mood stuck with us for the rest the evening and into breakfast the next morning. It was either the loss the night before, the breakfast itself or the drink induced hangover that caused that time in the restaurant to be a gloomy quiet period of contemplation. Our goodbyes said we set off south for our overnight stop in Newcastle not knowing what was ahead of us.

The mood followed us as we drove south. Conversation was sporadic and the miles passed in silence as we journeyed. It was almost like we had fallen out as we sat with our own thoughts as we travelled. After a brief stop at a service station with views out towards Lindisfarne we made our hotel at Newcastle Airport, just south of the Google maps entry for Derek the angry horse in the mid-afternoon.

After another quick dumping of the cases and leaving, we were off across the road to the Metro stop and only had a few minutes to wait for the tram. But why were they all only going as far as to South Gosforth? This was where our problems began. What happened next was a chain of events that I promise you were true but will stretch your incredulity to its absolute limits.

Despite how it sounds South Gosforth is a tram stop just north of Newcastle city centre and all trams were being stopped there as there were major works being carried out on the trams in the city centre (at least that’s what the signs said). This meant that our journey would have to be completed via a rail replacement bus that wended its way towards Newcastle down roads that were barely designed for a car, never mind a double decker bus. There’s something very worrying about being in a place without any idea of where you’re going or where you are. We passed through Jesmond and into areas unknown as we searched the skyline for landmarks we recognised, but there was nothing. Eventually we came to the north side of the city centre and in hindsight we should have got off there and walked as the bus crawled through traffic getting closer and closer to our final destination – Central Station.

After crisscrossing the city centre we approached the station and goggled as the bus passed straight past it. What were we going to do now? The bus travelled onwards crossing the Tyne on a covered bridge that seemed barely big enough to hold a bus and ended up out in Gateshead where the bus finally stopped and we were able to get off. Our destination was a pub just off the quayside on the north side of the river. I can’t really say I was all that impressed with Gateshead as we passed through it. The centre had that sort of 60’s concrete feel that doesn’t really attract people and meant that we had a spring in our step as we walked through it towards the northern quay and the Millennium Bridge. Once over the bridge we got to the pub just as it started to rain. If you’re ever in Newcastle head for the Broad Chare (pub) on Broad Chare (street). It’s a cracking little pub with a good selection of beers (both on tap and in bottles) and is a great place to while away a grim Sunday afternoon.

After a drink we decided to head for something to eat and because it was Newcastle, and because it was the day before St. Patrick’s Day, AND because the football team were on the TV, everywhere was rammed and I mean RAMMED – play-off rammed, so after some deliberation and a quick stop in a massive Greggs we weighed up our options:

A) Get the Rail replacement back to South Gosforth and then head back to the hotel

B) Get a bus to the airport and then walk from there.

Given we had no idea about where to get the replacement bus we headed for another pint and then went to catch the airport bus. To cut a long story short the pint was a bit dodgy (avoid The Goose near the bus station, it’s nothing more than a fake Wetherspoons full of football fans getting angrier by the minute) and to cap it all off the bus didn’t turn up. So we ended up going back to plan A) – the replacement bus. That took us back through Eldon Square (there’s nothing quite like a teenager standing surrounded by girls while he drinks from a bottle red wine to give you an idea of the place) and back out into the rain on the road. After a bus had passed us, we consulted the website that led us to a series of incomprehensible maps showing us where the stops were, so we set off in the right direction finally. I could have kissed the driver when he stopped and then we were finally on our way back to South Gosforth and then on the tram back to the hotel and dinner in the restaurant, a good two hours later than we wanted to eat but we’d made it. We were cold a little wet and slightly disgruntled by what had happened.

After a couple hours food and a couple of pints we gave in to the stresses and strains the day had thrown at us and called it a night sometime around the end of match of the day. Not bad for two blokes who were looking at getting a bus back to the airport at ten past 11 eh?

Sunday morning saw us a lot more awake and alert for one of the anticipated highlights of the trip – a visit to a Toby Carvery for breakfast. Now that doesn’t sound very exciting but let me let you in on a secret – Toby do gravy with breakfast. And not just any gravy no, this was breakfast gravy! Now we had no idea what that was so we turned up, paid our money (and were told, after we said we’d never been before, that the coffee was near the gravy station – we found it) and set off to get our buffet breakfast. There it was, sat on it’s own at the end of the counter – the container of breakfast gravy – We had finally got what we were looking for! This was it! Everything else you could want was on the menu bacon, mushrooms, black pudding, sausage, beans etc and Yorkshire puddings. Yes Yorkshire puddings with your breakfast. Presumably they were there to soak up the gravy. Plates heaped high we sat down and tucked in.  It felt like the whole weekend’s success rested on the gravy, it was that important. And… well it was OK, it had a tomato tang to it similar to Tomato flavoured crisps.  I can’t go beyond OK though. A solid 6/10 at best.

Fuelled up with set off down the A1 towards home and after a bit of traffic we were home and there’s not a lot more to say about that. Once again the hockey let us down, Newcastle let us down and the gravy let us down but this was a weekend about those around us. We had some laughs, even when we were so low on the Saturday morning. There were ups and downs and a weekend like this wouldn’t have been any good without the people who made it what it was, we laughed, we cried, we discussed things I can’t mention here and we discovered my new role as Frankie Boyle’s joke writer.

If you want to take anything away from this is do what everyone else does, don’t think you’re going to go and do something better as it won’t turn out that way. Oh and check the Newcastle Metro’s timetable for rail replacements.

If you would like to read more from Paul, his book Nottingham Panthers: A Day by Day Guide is available to buy from Amazon. You can also follow him on Twitter/X @NotMrBalm