I took another ferry back from Holyhead to Dublin last night. The outbound journey was via Irish Ferries but I returned on the Stena Line. I left Holyhead at 22.15 and arrived at the Ferry Terminal at Dublin Port at 1.45am. I was a bit unsure what it would be like on such a late-night trip but the trip was uneventful. I’d had a very tiring day getting to Holyhead so I toyed with the idea of sitting in the bar and having a few drinks, but I thought better of that. Instead I found a quiet corner in one of the lounges where there was a bench seat, and managed to stretch out enough to get about an hour’s sleep.
I think quite a few passengers had booked cabins for the crossing. I didn’t think it was worth doing that for less than four hours aboard, but I will consider that next time I take a late-night ferry. There’s not much to see out of the window in the dark!
The disadvantage of being a foot passenger on these ferries is that you have to wait until all the people with vehicles have disembarked before getting a bus back to the terminal building, which adds about 30 minutes to the time. Anticipating the probability that I would be knackered topo fed up to try getting home by public transport with all my luggage in the early hours of the morning, I had booked a taxi to meet me at 1.45, the scheduled arrival time, but I didn’t actually meet the driver until after 2am. Sitll, I got home to Maynooth quickly and was tucked up in bed by 3am. I had to open all the windows as the house was very stuffy, but other than that all was well.
While I was staying in London I took a few trips by train here and there, most of them very shambolic. All the direct trains from London Paddington to Oxford were cancelled, so passengers had to get on very overcrowded trains that went through Oxford to other destinations. To get back to London I used a train to Marylebone which I didn’t know existed. It was slow, but got me back.
With these problems in mind I took an earlier train from Euston to Holyhead than I originally intended. I’m glad I decided that because even the earlier train was delayed by > 45 minutes leaving Euston. Worse, some other trains goint to Manchester and beyond were cancelled so passengers were advised to get on the train I was on and change at Crewe or Chester. The seat reservations weren’t working so the result was a very sweaty overcrowded train with standing room only, at least until Chester where many people got off. The uncomfortable journey made me break a 195-day blogging streak as I just couldn’t be bothered even when I got a seat. Instead I just relaxed and looked out of the window as we travelled along the coast of North Waves.
My train from Holyhead to London was delayed by over an hour as was the train back yesterday. The upshot of all that is that I get a 100% refund of the fare for the entire journey so it was effectively free (if you don’t count the cost of the stress and discomfort).
Anyway, this trip was my first experience of ferry+train to the UK and back. My summary of the experience is “Ferry Good, Train Bad”.
In the Dark 