The OzBus adventure begins!

After months of waiting for the journey to begin it finally has. The day before the off, Saturday the 15th came all too quickly, I woke up early finished a few jobs round the house, unpacked and repacked my bag yet again then headed out the door with a ridiculously large back pack adorned with various pieces of camping equipment. I then headed into Wimbledon and my first stop was the Walkabout to watch Wales vs. Australia in the Rugby World Cup. After watching Wales put up a valiant effort but still inevitably lose the game I headed off to the station and jumped on a train to Waterloo.

For some reason I decided the best way to get over to Embankment and to the hotel was to walk, not one of my best decisions to be fair but I made it over there eventually and met up with my adopted little sister, thankfully put my bag down in her room and headed back down to the river for a swift pint. I then headed back to the hotel met up with my better half who had been having an afternoon nap. We then all headed down to the hotel bar and waited for more travellers to arrive, when we spotted a likely looking candidate in the bar surrounded by the backpack and appropriate paraphernalia so we sent little sis into to investigate. The girl with the bags told us she was not on the bus but her friend who was in the process of checking in was, the group was beginning to grow.

As the night continued we were joined by more members of the group including some familiar faces from the Facebook phenomenon that fuelled the wait for the trip. After a quick drink in the hotel bar it was decided that a bar with the rugby on and food was needed so we headed out onto the Strand. Deciding that relying on a pub to be showing the rugby and do food was too much of a gamble so we hit McDonalds to grab some chow then headed to the bar for the rugby.

As the night continued more and more OzBusers arrived and a couple of my Uni mates made an appearance, as usual the Welshman, who seems to be a permanent fixture in my life whether I want him to be or not ended up in his usual state, what I like to call travelling drunk. He has recently spent 8 months in Asia and lost a lot of weight, unfortunately he has not altered his drinking habits to match so ends up REALLY pissed and often embarrassing.

Eventually goodbyes were said and we headed back to the hotel bar, after a few drinks I headed off to bed to be reminded of my Uni days and what “fun” it is for 2 people to sleep in a single bed, it is fine until you actually want to go to sleep then you feel just a little bit cramped but at this stage nothing could dampen my spirits, when I woke up it would be time for the off!