And it’s Go, Go… Stop
Posted by Rugby Nick | Filed under Charity updates
The 2nd day of the walk is now complete and all is well. Which is better than they were this morning. All the boats got away fine, making good time. All but one that is. Whilst the Wasps walkers and boat got away fine we, the Newcastle boat I am skippering, was left dead in the water.
All sorts was wrong, from the engine not starting to having no power, to no running water. It was not an auspicious start. But we are not a crew to sit around moping. We are in fact far more resourceful than that – we are a crew to sit around drinking instead.
After a quick panic call to the owners of the barges to come help us out we settled in for a wait – with a pint of Guinness, which quickly multiplied.
The barge owners turned up, left again to get new batteries, and came back. All the time we were showing true British grit in the face of adversity. Pickling our livers. Is there a more British way to deal with a crisis?
Go, again.
After a few pints, a change of batteries, a quick fix of the engine and goodness knows what else we were on our way – about 3 hours behind everyone else. But there was no rush, we had plenty of beer to be getting on with and the walkers had everything they needed with them.
The day was a glorious one, sunshine all day. We got to punt along the river without a care in the world. We passed some walkers – including one hard as nails man Matt. Not only did he complete all 17 miles on the first day – but he did it using crutches!
We got to relax, we got to take in the sights, and we got to drink beer – which stood us in good stead as we were ending the day, as is traditional, in the pub.
The pub were kind enough to lay on a bit of food for us, a choice of curry, chilli or beef stew gave everyone some much needed sustenance. Though, of course, some of us partook in more than one helping.
A pub quiz was part of the entertainment and we all enjoyed it – though the 1,000,000 rounds (well if felt that way) were a tad much considering most of us were shattered and just wanted to get to bed. It might sound daft considering all I did was drive a boat whilst walkers had just knocked out a ’swift’ 17 miles – but my feet were killing me and I wanted nothing more than to get some shut eye.
Eventually the quiz finished – with my team (wasps 1) finishing first and the others Wasps team (Wasps 2) winning the prize. People slowly drifted away and managed to get some much needed sleep ahead of a big day tomorrow.
