Newport at 1 AM – a Travel Disaster

I thought I was clever catching the 10.45 to Bristol Parkway rather than the 11.30 Drunks Express to Temple Meads. I was wrong. It was a disaster. Newport at 1 AM was my punishment.

The Temple Meads trains stops in Bristol. And so however dog tired you are – and I was shattered – you will get some burly guard waking you up and you know that you will get home. The Parkway train heads off to Wales after visiting Bristol and last night I awoke to find it doing just that with me on board.

Newport at 1 AM is not a very nice place. I peered outside the train station to see two Police vans parked and waiting to deal with the local “nightlife.” Fat girls with short skirts and long heels tottered around wondering where they were heading next. Lagered up lads were hunting for a kebab shop still open. To quote Oscar Wilde out of context “the unspeakable in the pursuit of the inedible.” I refer to the kebabs here not the fat girls but I suppose that is equally applicable.

To be fair to Newport that is pretty much par for the course for any British town on a Friday night but I swiftly concluded that I did not fancy hanging around for four hours and sixteen minutes to catch the first train back to Bristol.

As such I struck a deal with a local cab firm and headed back to England. I figured that my cab fare to my door in England was £50 my can fare from Parkway or Temple Mead to my front door would have been £15-20 and so £35 was a small price to pay for not spending 256 minutes waiting outside Newport Station – the waiting room was naturally closed.

The driver plugged in my address to his Sat Nav and off we sped. As we approached Bristol the Sat Nav started telling him to head out into the countryside. I felt this was wrong and as we passed a sign saying Chipping Sodbury 2 (in the direction we were heading), Bristol 10 (in the direction we were coming from) I suggested his Sat Nav might just be up the spout. We checked. Aha a spelling mistake in the address entered. Problem solved. We headed back along the country lanes to Bristol where we passed through the City centre where (at 2 AM) there were still groups of fat girls in short skirts and high heels tottering this way and that and of lagered up lads in pursuit of a kebab.

Finally…salvation and my front door. Sleep and a long lie in.