Driving, Driving Rain, Driving Me Insane and The Deep

Day Thirty-three – Newcastle

From now on lets just ASSUME it is raining unless otherwise noted. The best thing you could say about the weather today was that we didn't waste a sunny day travelling. The weather, if possible, was actually WORSE than it has been yet.

Driving from York to Hull and thence to Newcastle was a real test, both of my patience and my ability. There are some idiots in Australia but nothing compared to the UK. Thank God we got the convicts. They may not be honest but at least they understand the baiscs of motoring signals, lane changes and the rest. I'd rather share the road with a murderer. At least when he kills you its because he cares, not becasue he has NOT FUCKING IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING.

Our last actitivity in Yorkshire was to drive down to The Deep, an aquarium on the Humber in Hull. The Humber itself was a sight, cracking in a gale with 2 foot waves and visibility less that the length of a football pitch. I've only ever seen brown surf once before (at Bondi) and that was for an altogether different reason. Inside The Deep was quite pleasant well set out and pretty good fun overall. Sydney Aquarium is a better one, but then it is also a lot closer to where the fish live. The Deep had plenty of good exhibits, a decent big tank and some massive mantas. For once it WASN'T a shame about Ray. Sorry, couldn't help myself there... ;-)

The drive from Hull to The North then began. In total it took about 3.5 hours, all motorway. Along the way I got to see plenty of "stuff" including a continuous 23 miles (YES, truly) of roadworks, the largest power station I've ever seen (getting desperate now), The Angel of the North (not as big in real life) and traffic. I missed Hadrian's Wall as it was too late when we arrived but DID get to see what happens on the A1 outside Newcastle at 4:30pm on a Friday. It's called Hadrian's Crawl. Not as interesting but probably more likely to turn people back than the wall ever was. If by now you have not worked out I'm a bit crazed after today then you probably need help as much as I do.

Anyway, we're here now. The weatherman, teasing bastard that he is, promises a morning of sunshine tomorrow which would enable us to see Alnwick Castle (aka Hogworts School) in the sunshine. I don't believe him for a minute. If he said it was going to shit meteors and lightning bolts I'd be more inclined to believe him after today. I wonder what the Georie is for "Ming the Merciless"???

Cheers,

Millsy