JC wants your travel chaos stories

Well JC, where do I begin? My chaotic journey was between Jersey and Manchester! My friend was moving to Jersey from Manchester and had planned to simply come over on the plane.
Did it happen this way? No. No, due to significant amounts of dust in the air the flights were postponed indefinately. So, as I had a couple of days off work, I offered to go across on the ferry and drive up to Manchester and bring Matt (my mate) to Jersey that way. It would be a chance to have a nice road trip and give my car (a 1998 Rover 114) a run out.
You can probably guess where this is going…
After a very choppy crossing from Jersey to Portmouth I got into the car and pulled out of the terminal, and this is where things went very very wrong.
Now those of you who have owned Rover 100′s probably know that the engine is a K-series model which are renowned for head gasket problems and overheating.
Mine was no exception, for 10 miles into a 500 mile round trip I noticed the temperature gauge going into the red. I quickly pulled over into the nearest services and had a look in the coolant reservoir. It was empty, which was odd as I had filled it the night before. Shrugging I filled it up again and carried on.
But it didn’t end there.
About 20 miles later I managed to pick up a puncture and had to change the left front tyre.

After doing this I managed to get a whole 5 miles before, yet again, the engine overheated.
This set the tone for the whole of the journey. I stopped a total of 36 times on the way up to Manchester and a further 42 on the way back – this is no exaggeration, I actually counted them.
Somehow, by a miracle we managed to get not only TO Portsmouth, but on time as well. Once we were in Jersey I took my car to the garage, who informed me that the water pump had failed and the car had fried it’s head gasket from overheating.

The moral of the story? If you have to travel to Manchester, for the love of God, don’t use a Rover 100!

While temporarily seduced by the sweet sweet feel of turbo boost in the 2001 VW Jetta Wolfsburg, I found the need to drive myself from Wisconsin to my school in Arizona (yes, the US of A). Now, my trip was uneventful, mostly due to the existence of speed limits on the 465 miles of perfectly strait and flat road across the corn field known as the state of Nebraska. The drive through Colorado has got to be some of the best road in the world. Mountains, turns, rivers, and a notable lack of law enforcement at the wee hours of 2 AM. Moonlight across the snowy mountains is a sight one just cannot explain. However, the feeling of black ice at the continental divide while doing 125 mile per hour is also something that cannot be described. The odd thing was, I was going so fast that the car was on the ice only a fraction of a second, and skated to the side just ever so slightly. After checking to be sure I was alive and that I did not need to clean my shorts I continued on my way. I took the map out in Utah, thinking I should cut across the country side and save some time. I picked a road and was off down the empty desert. Pretty soon, I could not see any lights of any kind any more, and the pavement gave way to dirt and what felt much like a rally course. Me being a “driver-in-training” I took the opportunity to drift and go as fast as I dared. Pretty soon I felt as if I were descending a grade, but couldn’t tell for sure. On one side of the dirt trail, I could see a slight ditch, or so I thought. When morning broke, I was back to roads and civilization. I had to stop, two hours of drifting had made me VERY sick to my stomach. I stopped at the first gas station, and when I came out, I noticed what I just drove down. The rim road around a 1000 foot cliff in Moab National Park. The “ditch” was a 1000 foot drop that I was drifting six inches away from! In the end, I defied death multiple times and drove 1850 miles in 24 hours.

While the planes where grounded I was stuck in spain. For our first 2 weeks (the holiday weeks!) we had rubbish weather. Then on the day we had to leave we got told about the news, I had no TV to watch, and asked if it was a late April fools!! And on that day I had a Talent show to go to so I was Upset about that, and no Top Gear!! We had no money so we were needing money and to get home badly!! We came home a week late!! I had missed a whole week without Top Gear (on Dave!!), Britans Got Talent And other programs!

Mom and Dad were booked to fly on Holiday to their villa in Spain for a much earned retirement break. Turn up to Leeds/Bradford Airport at 5.30am and told 1/2 hour before flight it’s cancelled due to the Volcano erupting. Dad, quick thinking gets on the web and books a ferry for the same day. They decide to drive down to Spain taking in some of TG’s famous Europe routes, and stopping over for a few nights in budget hotels. There and back cost £1200 in tolls, hotels and beer at £5.00 a pint. Original tickets for the flight cost £240.00 Doh!!!

Shame!!!!

I heard of a bunch of londoners who paid for a taxi back from belfast to London. It cost them thousands of pounds in cash!

a mate of mine was in the bottom bit of itily and had to get back home in 2 days he did it but only had 4h sleep and was in a robin reliant

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rel=”World Travel France

I don’t drive.
Public transport is a JOKE! Especially if one is disabled -as I am!