Luckily our host had said we could have a 12.30pm check-out as I was communicating with Lynne, Jill & Mum. After finishing my packing I walked to a coffee shop for a latte & chocolate brownie for Richard. Mums test results were good, she was feeling dizzy (understandably) & they are saying discharge tomorrow. We have booked the bus transfer from North Shields into Newcastle, Mum was initially collecting us, Lynne may collect us / me if Mum isn’t being discharged, Lynne flys back from Barcelona tonight.
We caught the tram to central station & headed into a cafe for some lunch & then headed to the bus stop. The bus was surprisingly full. Once at the port we checked in & went through passport control & then boarded. Our cabin was on level five, we were shown to our cabin which was bigger than we anticipated, which was good, although still took some manoeuvring with our large bags. I wanted to take some photos as we left port so Richard had a shower & we headed up onto deck, at 5.15 as we departed. It was relatively calm & the weather sunny although quite windy once we left the heads. Once we’d cleared the heads there were quite a few ships we could see & also rigs & wind turbines. We returned to our cabin & at 6.30 headed up to the compass bar for a drink, we shared a table with a couple who lived just outside Carlisle, they had driven to Italy 8 weeks ago, it takes about 9 hours from the port. He suffered from seasickness & they’d read an article about getting drunk stops this & seemed to work for him, so no food just lots of alcohol!!
We had pre-booked a two course meal, Richard ordered an entree, pork three ways & had lamb for main, I had steak, Parmesan fries & bearnaise sauce & had brûlée for dessert, the meal was nice & we then headed back to our cabin. We had bunks & I took the top bunk which apart from trying to work out how best to climb back down the ladder as the head room wasn’t very high was fine. We actually slept quite well, although I wanted the curtains open & it started to get light woke Richard just after 5.30am. During the night I could see a row of red lights & wasn’t sure if they were rigs or other ships or channel markers. There was a constant hum which you did get used to.