Our story begins at 10:30 on Friday 27th of February, safely inside the Forum with the other 165 wide-eyed Jailbreakers. Dressed as Superman, Spider-Man and Batman, we had no idea what we had let ourselves in for! Like everyone else, we had our photo taken, collected our foam green thumb and took our place on the Forum steps, our superhero capes flowing. As the ten second countdown began, we started to realise how unprepared we seemed compared to the other teams, but before it could sink in the starting gun had gone and we were off to a flying start! We found ourselves running down Forum Hill like there was no tomorrow, heading for the only thing we had planned: Exeter Coach and Bus Station. Our competitive nature had set in and we were determined to get there before all the other teams we thought would have the same idea as us. As it turns out, we need not have worried, as we were the first ones there when we arrived. Two teams later joined us, but one shortly left. Was there something they knew and we didn't? Where had the other 66 teams disappeared to? We thought we would start of ambitiously, after all we had nothing to lose by asking. Our target was a National Express coach heading for Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole or Portsmouth. Our plan was to head South and hopefully make it to Dover and cross the channel into France. We then had our first of many rejections and headed down to the local buses at the other end of the station. It was at this point were received our first donation. Two women, impressed by our costumes, asked us about our adventure and the charities we were raising money for, donating £5. Then, after tense minutes trying to find the mysterious 'Ian', who would or would not give is permission to ride free on Stagecoach buses, we found ourselves on a bus to Tiverton. Not exactly south, but it was a start and our spirits were high! The journey was longer than expected and took us on a tour of some of the narrowest and windiest country lanes in Devon. Eventually, we arrived in the sleepy town of Tiverton and, with the help of some friendly locals, made it onto a second bus to Taunton. After arriving in Taunton, we realised we couldn't get free lifts on local buses all the way to France so we headed to the train station. We managed to get on the other side of the barrier, with the help of an employee, but were abruptly turned away by management. This is where we made our second sighting of another Jailbreak team, who were buying tickets to board the train. However, we were determined not to spend any of our own or anyone else's money, so we thought now was as good a time as any to try our first attempt at hitchhiking. We followed signs to the motorway, but quickly found this was not a skill we were natural at. We struggled to find a suitable spot to wave our beautifully crafted sign and thumb. After ending up in a deserted housing estate, we decided to ask the help of a petrol station cashier, who told us of a spot he thought we might have some success. We headed there, full of naive optimism. We soon found that spreading out was the best way to get noticed and allow drivers time to slow down and stop. We were actually really surprised by the number of people who stopped for us, around one every five minutes. However, the first was heading back to Exeter, the second (a car full of boys) only had space for one girl and the third was a kind woman, who also did not have enough space. An lovely Irishman and his cute six-year-old daughter were our lucky charms though, taking us fifteen minutes down the road to a Service Station near Bridgewater. Our plan to head south was abandoned and we were now accepting lifts to anywhere but Taunton! We quizzed our driver on why he had picked us up in an attempt to better our technique. His reasons were: 1) we didn't look like axe murderers, 2) we were dressed as some of his daughter's favourite superheroes and 3) the green thumb. Our hitchhiking technique was clearly improving as after turning away just two people near Bridgewater Services, who were heading in completely the wrong direction, we managed to get a lift with a secondary science teacher. He was heading to Weston-Super-Mare, which was at least in an easterly direction. He turned out to heave some hilarious stories of his time teaching, one of which included a eleven-year-old girl pulling a six-inch kitchen knife on him during his teacher training! This time we were dropped at some motorway services, which soon proved to be a very bad idea indeed. Very few vehicles passed us and those that did were mostly full or were lorries with only two seats. Hope was waning and we were questioning whether or not we would ever get out of this service station. After about half an hour standing in the cold, we were rescued by a kind couple heading towards Chippenham. It turned out he too had some very funny anecdotes to tell us about his own experiences hitchhiking in his RAF days and of when he had picked up other hitchhikers. This was our longest lift so far and after about 45 minutes, we stopped at a service station near Chippenham. Our fortunes were clearly improving as we hitched a lift in less than a minute. Our saviour was a trainee surgeon travelling from Cardiff to Cambridge. He too had hitchhiked in the past and had picked up hitchhikers before. Our original plan was to be dropped off at a service station near Reading and head South. However, he then suggested we try heading towards Norwich and getting a ferry across to Holland. This sounded like a great plan so we stayed in the car. He was very grateful to have some company for his long journey and we were very grateful for him taking us all the way to Cambridge. He went out of his way to drop us at Cambridge Motorway Services which was fully equipped for all we wanted at the time - toilets and 24-hour McDonald's. We though we had walked into heaven, but very quickly discovered it was far, far from that. Determined to keep going, despite the fact it was now dark, we stood in the bitter cold, hoping for a lift to Norwich, or, by this time in the evening, anywhere north of Cambridge. We had no success. No one at all stopped for us! Spirits dampened, we returned to the warmth and tried to sleep. We had no success with this either so returned outside for one final attempt to get out of here. After about just ten minutes, we were frozen and decided to call it a night. We got chatting to a group of teenagers and told them about our challenge and the charities we were raising money for. As they left, one boy kindly donated £7 because the charity MIND was particularly close to his circumstances. Despite how exhausted we were, it was hard to sleep under the bright lights of the services. With nothing else to do, Bethan befriended an employee. As we drifted in and out of sleep, he questioned people coming in and out of the station about where they were headed. At around 01.00 on Saturday he told us of a coach that had arrived that was heading all the way to Belgium. The complete opposite direction to our new plan - north - but at least we would we making it overseas! We soon found ourselves squashed into the back of a coach in their only three free spaces. Bethan ended up to an elderly man who slept the whole way there, Louis' neighbour also spent much of his time sleeping and Haley was next to an outgoing bearded man, who liked to repeat himself. She heard, around three times, the story of how he had done a Jailbreak himself in record time. He also asked to sit on her lap and requested a cuddle - both of which were swiftly rejected. He also asked her to buy him some tobacco that she could sell to him once we had driven back with them to England - the first sign this was a different sort of coach trip! After some time and chatting to our co-passengers, we discovered that they were headed for the rural town of Adinkerke, just across the Belgian border. They would be stopping there for half an hour then returning to England. This was very strange, but in our weary state, we thought nothing of it, or the fact the bus was drug checked at Folkestone and reeked of tobacco. Turns out we had hitched a lift on what we dubbed as a 'Tobacco Tour' - a trip just across the border with the sole purpose of buying cheap tobacco. Surely this was not cost effective! We were baffled by what we had just experienced. It was all so surreal and we were now left stranded in the outskirts of this completely deserted town, which only seemed to sell tobacco. We headed towards the motorway, but had no success. After shivering at the side of the road for approximately half an hour, we decided to walk to the next town, Veurne, which was six kilometres away. However, Veurne turned out to be just as much of a ghost town as Adinkerke and after little success trying to hitch a lift, we decided to head towards the train station. Once again, our journal was halted by the fact the train station was closed and there was no sign of any trains. Eventually we managed to get a lift on a bus to Ostend with a very kind bus driver who paid for our €3 tickets. Once in Ostend, we soon realised we had very little chance of hitchhiking a lift out of it, so we once again went back to buses. Despite our best efforts, the bus drivers in Ostend were not as kind as the first we had encountered and would not let us on for free. We were forced to spend the money we had been given (which we had confirmed with then could be used for our transport) to get to Bruges, costing us a total of £6.50. Finally we were back on track! The journey to Bruges turned out not to be as long as we were expecting and we still had three hours remaining by the time we arrived. Our next goal was Brussels, but could we make it in time? We immediately headed for the train station, thinking this was the fastest way there. It was here we met Matthew and Hannah from Team 8. We decided to join forces and try to get free train tickets to Brussels bus again had no success. Following this, we tried some coaches outside, but were again rejected. At this point, we split from our new companions as they headed back to the station to raise money for train tickets and we headed towards the motorway to once again try our luck at hitchhiking. Our fortunes had turned! We were shortly picked up by two very helpful German men driving straight to Brussels. We were so excited to once again be on our way and to know we would make it to our goal destination. We arrived in Brussels, 553.9km from where we had begun, with one hour to spare and spent it exploring this wonderful city. As soon as the thirty hours was up, we booked buses back to Exeter and made it home by 14.00 on Sunday, weary but very proud of what we had achieved. Overall a fantastically surreal and constantly exciting experience!
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We have finally made it home after getting 553.9km away to Brussels! We have been in 5 cars, 7 buses, 2 trains and done a lot of walking! We all agreed it was a fantastic experience so have written a list of seven things we learned on our travels. 7 Things We Learned from Jailbreak 1. No matter what Madonna or Edna Mode say, capes are a fantastic idea! We were told a number of times that our fancy dress was the reason people stopped to pick us up. 2. If someone offers to swap your teammates for their children, say no. We were offered many things during our Jailbreak, but one of the strangest was someone offering to take the two female members of the group in exchange for his sons – an offer we swiftly rejected. 3. Cool kids don’t sit at the back of the bus. It is never cool at the back of the bus. Just hot, muggy, smelly and full of people who don’t want to sleep. 4. ‘Tobacco Tours’ are a thing. People actually spend a lot of time and money traveling from Leeds to the deserted town of Adinkerke, Belgium, to buy cheap tobacco. Surely this is not cost effective! 5. You have to spend more than a penny to use the toilet in Belgium. Every public toilet we went to in Belgium cost 50c. Considering we spent all of Saturday there, we estimate we spent more money on going to the toilet than on transport (which was just £6.50 in total). 6. I’d rather a TP burger over a ‘Bicky Burger’ any day! Hungry and short of Euros, we opted for the cheapest food we could find in Belgium. This was the form of a ‘Bicky Burger’, which is a mix of chicken, pork and horse meat (we later discovered). 7. It’s a small world after all. We were so surprised by the number of teams we saw throughout our journeys. One in Taunton, one in Bruges and two in London. Just a few hours left now. We've spent the last 48 hours on a sponsor hunt to no current avail but we're sure the kindness of strangers will be enough to take us an admirable distance. Still keeping one eye on twitter though. Would be absolutely amazing if something did come through. Off for one last meet up with pizza. Finished the sign. Am no artist but still quite pleased with it. Hopefully it'll help us attract some help. We will do our best to update during our journey but will be subject to whatever wi-fi we can get our hands on. So after a few blissful weeks doomsday is almost here.
We've had the safety briefing. We've got the t-shirts. We've even almost finished painting Spiderman. With just the last few bits and pieces to prepare we are almost ready as we'll ever be. Fingers crossed we'll even have a sponser! In exactly three weeks today we will begin our thirty hour adventure to get as far away from Exeter as possible, spending no money at all! It is all in aid of Exeter RAG's chosen charities, Mind, Food Bank and Exeter Student Volunteers. Keep an eye out for more information about how our preparation is going. We will be updating this blog as much as possible during Jailbreak too!
You can sponsor us here: https://mydonate.bt.com/teams/oldverlucians More information about Jailbreak: http://www.studentjailbreak.co.uk/exeter/ |