I am not a good story teller but I will try to write whatever has happened with as much detail as possible. This is not going to be a photo-log, so please expect lesser images than my other posts.
Thursday Night - I didn't want to go to Lake district. I didn't want to do any more road trips this month. You know there is always a constraint- money. I have already spent more than what I should in Scotland. But then when it comes to road trips my brain doesn't work, suddenly my heart takes all the command. Despite the constraints and other things I rarely say no to any road trips. So on a fine evening sitting at 9 Mandeville Saptarshi da convinced us (me and Anindya da) to go with them. We were on drinks so the convincing part was easy I guess. Only within half an hour after that all the rooms were booked, 14-15 people were interested and have said yes to the trip. Everyone was so fucking excited that we couldn't say no any more. 3 drivers were required to hire 3 cars for 14 people. It was Thursday. I was given the responsibility to book the cars next day.
Friday Morning- I usually wake up early. I catch the 8:30 bus everyday for office. Friday wasn't any different. But I had to book the cars. I opened the Avis portal and booked 3 five seaters. I received the confirmation email in my mailbox instantly. I got ready and then headed towards office. While I was in the bus I got several calls from an unknown number. I didn't hear the phone ringing. I got a text message saying that Avis do not have 3 cars and they can only rent out 1. Usually whenever I rent a car I book it at least a week back. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest at any car rental company. So when Avis told me that they don't have 3 cars I was thinking that we might need to cancel the trip, because if Avis cant provide cars how can others because Avis has quite large fleet of cars. Luckily I am an avid customer of Enterprise (another car rental company). I called them and they did manage 2 cars for us. I didn't waste any more time and booked them over phone. Pick up time was 4 pm friday. So we decided that Abhijit da would pick up the car from Avis, while me and Anindya da would go to Enterprise.
Friday Afternoon- I asked my onshore boss to let me leave early i.e. 4pm. After reaching Enterprise I saw Anindya da and Mrinal was waiting for me. Rest of the process was simply, they took our papers, did some background check and gave us 2 cars.One was Kia Creed and the other one Vaushall Asta. Both the cars were in very good shape.They were ready for us to pick them. But, none of the cars had GPS navigation. We dont know any streets, we dont know any route, even we cant read the signs properly while driving. So in short without GPS navigation we cant even drive home, let alone Lake district. The Location manager of Enterprise couldn't provide any external navigation system as all of them were rented out already. Its bloody Friday and how can we expect a navigation system, right ? That was the expression we were given. Nonetheless my phone has Here maps installed with all offline maps. That saved me for the day and took us to Mandeville. I drove while looking at my phone and Anindya da followed me.
Friday Evening- Any roadtrip requires a lot foods to be taken, so that you dont have to stop everywhere for food. Usually cakes, biscuits, chips and cold drinks. So we went to Asda to collect some food and wine.
Saturday Morning- Everyone was ready by 6 am. Everyone was super excited. All the foods were distributed in 3 cars. We took a lot of water from home. It was going to be a great trip, with so many amazing guys. Anindya da's car didnt have much fuel, so the first thing to do was to refuel our cars. Abhijit da started and informed us he will be waiting at some place en route. We picked up Prashant from Cardiff station and went to the nearest refuelling station. I stood behind while Anindya da while other people got down from the car to refuel.
Incident 1- We looked at the manual but couldn't find anything regarding the fuel type of the car. My car was diesel and that I knew for sure. Anindya da said he heard the customer representative from Enterprise mentioning Diesel. So we didn't know what fuel would the car take. Asta 1.6 had both diesel and petrol engine, so with everyone's consent I started filling diesel. The nozzle somehow was not going in the car properly, Prashant came down and confirmed its a diesel car. As the nozzle was not going in properly we had to hold it for the diesel to go in. We thought may be its a different kind of fuel station. The country always brings something knew, the other day I saw a touch and pay debit card, where you dont have to swipe and put pin, you just have to touch the debit card on the machine and that's it. We are not aware of all such things. I took the fuel pump to be same as those, its same when you try to put a micro sim card in a nano sim slot. We took around 20 litres diesel. I didnt refuel the Kia. And the journey started. I was using my phone as gps. Prashant brought a gps and installed it in Anindya da's car. Around after 5 minutes and 2 miles away from the fuel station the Asta 1.6 broke down. Anindya da stopped at a signal and the car refused to start after that. There was white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe and the engine was knocking to death. Bang. We did put the wrong fuel. I called the roadside assistance and confirmed its a petrol car. Never in my life and all these years of driving I have ever imagined to experience this. It was like "What the fuck, how could we do this. We did something terrible and we didn't know if that can be fixed or not ?". We called the roadside assistance for help. Suddenly all the excitement and enthusiasm was lost and we were afraid that the trip might not happen. The AA guys told they can tow the car now, but cant come to repair before 12. Another hour to repair it. Some of us went to nearby stores to ask for help, but being a Saturday early morning every car workshop was closed. So many thoughts was going through our minds, what if they ask us to pay for the entire card, what if the car had major problems in the sensor due to diesel etc etc. While we were looking for help the AA guy came with a truck to tow the car. The driver told it was very common (common ? :O ) and he knew a place where it can be fixed, he said the Enterprise would charge us more, also it wouldn't take much time in the garage. Well people are usually good in this country, so we took his advise. He towed the car to Star garage. The technician after checking up the car gave an estimation of 150 pounds and 2 hours job. 10 pounds each is quite good than cancelling the entire trip. So the process of emptying the fuel tank started and we started praying. At that time we came to know that the nozzle for petrol is smaller than diesel, hence the nozzle was not going in. Late realization....sigh !!!!
A good news came at around 10:30 that the car is now fine, and with 2 gallons of petrol in it the car has started and the engine is running fine. 4 hours wasted is nothing compared to the joy we had that time when we knew the car is fine and we can still make this trip. The third car in the mean time had almost crossed Birmingham.
Saturday Afternoon- Winderemere was the first location we were to visit in Lake District. Abhijit da reached there first. Anindya da and me were trying to reach Lake district as soon as possible. We both had different gps, mine was here maps and his was binatone. They showed different routes, and after entering Lake district Anindya da lost my trail. Lake district is a national park so post codes doesnt work properly there, sometime post code can take you to barren places. When you have spent almost the entire day driving and sitting and you have not visited a single attractions you can get mad at any time. After a series of phone calls and missing proper turns and wrong routes we 3 car met at Lakeside in the afternoon. Everyone was so happy to see each other. We had lots of plan for the day, all got cancelled due to the incident. But we cannot let the day go wasted so we decided to take the boat ride. Its an hour ride on the Winderemere lake, not much exciting but there was nothing else to do. Even the weather played a spoil sport here and we couldn't stand on the deck for long.
Saturday Evening - You cant call it an evening actually, the sun doesn't sets before 8:30. After the boat ride we headed towards hotel, which was an hour drive. Everyone wanted to be at the hotel, no more drives and fun. The hotel we booked was in a town called Barrow-in-furness. Irish sea was on the right of the town. While entering the town the weather became so clear that we could the sun coming down. We also saw hundreds of wind mills. Its like "Wow..we have something to see now, we can watch a brilliant sunset, lets go there, lets make the end a beautiful one". The beach was full of pebbles or had sand. And we could see those wind mills far away in the sea. The sun looked brilliant. It felt like at least we could see something, the entire day didn't go wasted. The other 2 cars followed us and enjoyed the same view. We did spent some time there until it was dark.
Saturday Night - Food is very important to me. And after such a hectic day I always need good food, which means rice. I know I might sound like one who cannot stay away from rice and dal, but no I am not like that. But at that moment I wished to have rice. Barrow is a small town hence all the restaurants were closed by that time. The next Indian restaurant was 8 miles away :) Yes, I did drive to that restaurant with 2 others and brought food for all of us. Single malt, pilau rice and chicken made the day complete.
Sunday Morning to Evening- We were so happy to see such a beautiful morning. We completely forgot yesterday's disaster after seeing the sky and the weather. We started as early as possible and headed towards Derwentwater. Derwentwater was another lake, equally beautiful and large.
After spending some time over there we headed towards Keswick for lunch. Keswick is again a small town with a small city center. This time I did have a proper British meal -
Next we went to Buttermere and Honister pass. We even did a small trek on the honister mines. The day was being spent really well. Good weather all the time and the drive was beautiful too. What more can we ask for after a exhaustive saturday. And then it was time to return home. At 6 we gathered together after honister pass. Our plan was to start at 6 so that we can be in Cardiff at 11pm.
Incident 2- When we thought everything was over and its time to return home and we did spend a nice time in Lake district there was a thud sound from one of our cars. Abhijit da stopped in the middle of the road. Other vehicles stopped too. We got down from the car to check what happened and found both the tyres on the left side were punctured. There was a bus coming from the opposite end, and to give that bus space Abhijit da moved too right and his tyres hit few stones. A first we were not at all worried, its mere puncture and I have fixed so many punctures before in my life. Then we realized the gravity, 2 tyres were punctured, a car doesnt have two spares. It was 6 pm in the clock. The incident happened 10 miles before Keswick and just after Honister pass. I later googled and found the place was called Seatoller. At first we placed the spare on the front wheel. The spare wheel has a limited speed, 50 mph, so we decided we will need to go to any service on the M6 and then fix the tyres, because you cant drive to Cardiff on the spares. But, where do we find another spare ? The other cars Asta and Creed had different size. Later we realized we were struck there. The problem worsened when we discover that no one had network in their mobile phones. So we were struck somewhere in the middle of a national park with no network coverage, there were families and a kid and no localities around.
"We need to talk to the roadside assistance" - that was our first requirement. 4 of us including Abhjijit drove to the next town Keswick to get some help. Others decided that they would park the car somewhere safe and wait for us. 10 miles takes 20 mins in those areas. We tried everything in Keswick, no local helps, all the stores were closed, the roadside assistance told they can provide help only on Monday. The country literally dies on Sunday. After few escalations the roadside agreed to send a pickup truck and drop few of us to Cardiff. That was a big reflief at that point of time. All this took more than an hour. We decided to bring rest of the team to Keswick, so I drove to them. Then I made a mistake, it was 8:30 pm and dark outside, I forgot to ask the place where they have parked the car and where they were waiting. I drove straight to that place, however not able to identify anything in the dark. I stopped at 2 villages, went to restaurants and asked people if they have seen a group of Indians or a broken Ford focus. This was the time I felt that I might have to go back to Keswick, ask them the name of the place or hotel and then come back, which would take another 1 hour. The mobile phone doesnt work here, so I cant call anyone. Now I was stuck in the dark.
Probability- A man helped me to find a telephone booth. I had a pound in my pocket. The people whose telephone number I have were in Seatoller with no network (remember I didn't know the name of the place that time) and I didnt have any phone number of the guys at Keswick. A phone call from a booth will cost you 60 pence, so literally I can only make 1 call. I browsed through my incoming call history to find a number. I remembered Abhijit da had called me on Friday morning to discuss something. I found a number from the incoming calls and thought may be that was his. Inserted 1 pound in the telephone and dialled that number with lots of hope. If that didnt work I have to drive back 10 miles. Someone picked up and he did sound like Abhijit da. Well I guess I was not out of luck that day and. Glaramara was the name of the hotel where the other guys were resting.
Sunday night- We all met at Keswick. 4 people would stay back and wait for the pick up truck and rest of us will go to Cardiff in other 2 cars - this is what we decided. We had pizza because that was the only thing available in Keswick that time. We prayed for no more excitement that night and so that everyone is home safely.
I stopped twice for coffee on the highway and finally reached Mandeville 6 am in the morning. The guys waiting for truck reached around 9.
There are things to learn in every moment, we also learned some things there. We were on a road trip for fun, but one must not go one a road trip without proper arrangements. It was our fault that we mistakenly pour diesel in petrol car, but when the puncture happened we worked together and made it to Cardiff safely. So when in trouble you must stay together is what we learned.
Friday Afternoon- I asked my onshore boss to let me leave early i.e. 4pm. After reaching Enterprise I saw Anindya da and Mrinal was waiting for me. Rest of the process was simply, they took our papers, did some background check and gave us 2 cars.One was Kia Creed and the other one Vaushall Asta. Both the cars were in very good shape.They were ready for us to pick them. But, none of the cars had GPS navigation. We dont know any streets, we dont know any route, even we cant read the signs properly while driving. So in short without GPS navigation we cant even drive home, let alone Lake district. The Location manager of Enterprise couldn't provide any external navigation system as all of them were rented out already. Its bloody Friday and how can we expect a navigation system, right ? That was the expression we were given. Nonetheless my phone has Here maps installed with all offline maps. That saved me for the day and took us to Mandeville. I drove while looking at my phone and Anindya da followed me.
Friday Evening- Any roadtrip requires a lot foods to be taken, so that you dont have to stop everywhere for food. Usually cakes, biscuits, chips and cold drinks. So we went to Asda to collect some food and wine.
Saturday Morning- Everyone was ready by 6 am. Everyone was super excited. All the foods were distributed in 3 cars. We took a lot of water from home. It was going to be a great trip, with so many amazing guys. Anindya da's car didnt have much fuel, so the first thing to do was to refuel our cars. Abhijit da started and informed us he will be waiting at some place en route. We picked up Prashant from Cardiff station and went to the nearest refuelling station. I stood behind while Anindya da while other people got down from the car to refuel.
Incident 1- We looked at the manual but couldn't find anything regarding the fuel type of the car. My car was diesel and that I knew for sure. Anindya da said he heard the customer representative from Enterprise mentioning Diesel. So we didn't know what fuel would the car take. Asta 1.6 had both diesel and petrol engine, so with everyone's consent I started filling diesel. The nozzle somehow was not going in the car properly, Prashant came down and confirmed its a diesel car. As the nozzle was not going in properly we had to hold it for the diesel to go in. We thought may be its a different kind of fuel station. The country always brings something knew, the other day I saw a touch and pay debit card, where you dont have to swipe and put pin, you just have to touch the debit card on the machine and that's it. We are not aware of all such things. I took the fuel pump to be same as those, its same when you try to put a micro sim card in a nano sim slot. We took around 20 litres diesel. I didnt refuel the Kia. And the journey started. I was using my phone as gps. Prashant brought a gps and installed it in Anindya da's car. Around after 5 minutes and 2 miles away from the fuel station the Asta 1.6 broke down. Anindya da stopped at a signal and the car refused to start after that. There was white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe and the engine was knocking to death. Bang. We did put the wrong fuel. I called the roadside assistance and confirmed its a petrol car. Never in my life and all these years of driving I have ever imagined to experience this. It was like "What the fuck, how could we do this. We did something terrible and we didn't know if that can be fixed or not ?". We called the roadside assistance for help. Suddenly all the excitement and enthusiasm was lost and we were afraid that the trip might not happen. The AA guys told they can tow the car now, but cant come to repair before 12. Another hour to repair it. Some of us went to nearby stores to ask for help, but being a Saturday early morning every car workshop was closed. So many thoughts was going through our minds, what if they ask us to pay for the entire card, what if the car had major problems in the sensor due to diesel etc etc. While we were looking for help the AA guy came with a truck to tow the car. The driver told it was very common (common ? :O ) and he knew a place where it can be fixed, he said the Enterprise would charge us more, also it wouldn't take much time in the garage. Well people are usually good in this country, so we took his advise. He towed the car to Star garage. The technician after checking up the car gave an estimation of 150 pounds and 2 hours job. 10 pounds each is quite good than cancelling the entire trip. So the process of emptying the fuel tank started and we started praying. At that time we came to know that the nozzle for petrol is smaller than diesel, hence the nozzle was not going in. Late realization....sigh !!!!
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| Car being towed |
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| Mrinal asking the technician if he can rush, our car in the background, bonnet opened. |
A good news came at around 10:30 that the car is now fine, and with 2 gallons of petrol in it the car has started and the engine is running fine. 4 hours wasted is nothing compared to the joy we had that time when we knew the car is fine and we can still make this trip. The third car in the mean time had almost crossed Birmingham.
Saturday Afternoon- Winderemere was the first location we were to visit in Lake District. Abhijit da reached there first. Anindya da and me were trying to reach Lake district as soon as possible. We both had different gps, mine was here maps and his was binatone. They showed different routes, and after entering Lake district Anindya da lost my trail. Lake district is a national park so post codes doesnt work properly there, sometime post code can take you to barren places. When you have spent almost the entire day driving and sitting and you have not visited a single attractions you can get mad at any time. After a series of phone calls and missing proper turns and wrong routes we 3 car met at Lakeside in the afternoon. Everyone was so happy to see each other. We had lots of plan for the day, all got cancelled due to the incident. But we cannot let the day go wasted so we decided to take the boat ride. Its an hour ride on the Winderemere lake, not much exciting but there was nothing else to do. Even the weather played a spoil sport here and we couldn't stand on the deck for long.
 |
| List of places we planned to visit |
Saturday Evening - You cant call it an evening actually, the sun doesn't sets before 8:30. After the boat ride we headed towards hotel, which was an hour drive. Everyone wanted to be at the hotel, no more drives and fun. The hotel we booked was in a town called Barrow-in-furness. Irish sea was on the right of the town. While entering the town the weather became so clear that we could the sun coming down. We also saw hundreds of wind mills. Its like "Wow..we have something to see now, we can watch a brilliant sunset, lets go there, lets make the end a beautiful one". The beach was full of pebbles or had sand. And we could see those wind mills far away in the sea. The sun looked brilliant. It felt like at least we could see something, the entire day didn't go wasted. The other 2 cars followed us and enjoyed the same view. We did spent some time there until it was dark.
Saturday Night - Food is very important to me. And after such a hectic day I always need good food, which means rice. I know I might sound like one who cannot stay away from rice and dal, but no I am not like that. But at that moment I wished to have rice. Barrow is a small town hence all the restaurants were closed by that time. The next Indian restaurant was 8 miles away :) Yes, I did drive to that restaurant with 2 others and brought food for all of us. Single malt, pilau rice and chicken made the day complete.
Sunday Morning to Evening- We were so happy to see such a beautiful morning. We completely forgot yesterday's disaster after seeing the sky and the weather. We started as early as possible and headed towards Derwentwater. Derwentwater was another lake, equally beautiful and large.
After spending some time over there we headed towards Keswick for lunch. Keswick is again a small town with a small city center. This time I did have a proper British meal -
Next we went to Buttermere and Honister pass. We even did a small trek on the honister mines. The day was being spent really well. Good weather all the time and the drive was beautiful too. What more can we ask for after a exhaustive saturday. And then it was time to return home. At 6 we gathered together after honister pass. Our plan was to start at 6 so that we can be in Cardiff at 11pm.
Incident 2- When we thought everything was over and its time to return home and we did spend a nice time in Lake district there was a thud sound from one of our cars. Abhijit da stopped in the middle of the road. Other vehicles stopped too. We got down from the car to check what happened and found both the tyres on the left side were punctured. There was a bus coming from the opposite end, and to give that bus space Abhijit da moved too right and his tyres hit few stones. A first we were not at all worried, its mere puncture and I have fixed so many punctures before in my life. Then we realized the gravity, 2 tyres were punctured, a car doesnt have two spares. It was 6 pm in the clock. The incident happened 10 miles before Keswick and just after Honister pass. I later googled and found the place was called Seatoller. At first we placed the spare on the front wheel. The spare wheel has a limited speed, 50 mph, so we decided we will need to go to any service on the M6 and then fix the tyres, because you cant drive to Cardiff on the spares. But, where do we find another spare ? The other cars Asta and Creed had different size. Later we realized we were struck there. The problem worsened when we discover that no one had network in their mobile phones. So we were struck somewhere in the middle of a national park with no network coverage, there were families and a kid and no localities around.
"We need to talk to the roadside assistance" - that was our first requirement. 4 of us including Abhjijit drove to the next town Keswick to get some help. Others decided that they would park the car somewhere safe and wait for us. 10 miles takes 20 mins in those areas. We tried everything in Keswick, no local helps, all the stores were closed, the roadside assistance told they can provide help only on Monday. The country literally dies on Sunday. After few escalations the roadside agreed to send a pickup truck and drop few of us to Cardiff. That was a big reflief at that point of time. All this took more than an hour. We decided to bring rest of the team to Keswick, so I drove to them. Then I made a mistake, it was 8:30 pm and dark outside, I forgot to ask the place where they have parked the car and where they were waiting. I drove straight to that place, however not able to identify anything in the dark. I stopped at 2 villages, went to restaurants and asked people if they have seen a group of Indians or a broken Ford focus. This was the time I felt that I might have to go back to Keswick, ask them the name of the place or hotel and then come back, which would take another 1 hour. The mobile phone doesnt work here, so I cant call anyone. Now I was stuck in the dark.
Probability- A man helped me to find a telephone booth. I had a pound in my pocket. The people whose telephone number I have were in Seatoller with no network (remember I didn't know the name of the place that time) and I didnt have any phone number of the guys at Keswick. A phone call from a booth will cost you 60 pence, so literally I can only make 1 call. I browsed through my incoming call history to find a number. I remembered Abhijit da had called me on Friday morning to discuss something. I found a number from the incoming calls and thought may be that was his. Inserted 1 pound in the telephone and dialled that number with lots of hope. If that didnt work I have to drive back 10 miles. Someone picked up and he did sound like Abhijit da. Well I guess I was not out of luck that day and. Glaramara was the name of the hotel where the other guys were resting.
Sunday night- We all met at Keswick. 4 people would stay back and wait for the pick up truck and rest of us will go to Cardiff in other 2 cars - this is what we decided. We had pizza because that was the only thing available in Keswick that time. We prayed for no more excitement that night and so that everyone is home safely.
I stopped twice for coffee on the highway and finally reached Mandeville 6 am in the morning. The guys waiting for truck reached around 9.
There are things to learn in every moment, we also learned some things there. We were on a road trip for fun, but one must not go one a road trip without proper arrangements. It was our fault that we mistakenly pour diesel in petrol car, but when the puncture happened we worked together and made it to Cardiff safely. So when in trouble you must stay together is what we learned.
K bollo you are not a good story teller?????? Ami to puro trip ta chokher samne dekhte pelam.....daruuuunn likhechis.....
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