Day 1: London to St Gaor.

Sunday 23rd September

Woke with a start to Chris's banging on the door, a blackout of a bedroom, with the time and a cup of tea. Thanks to Chris and Jo we made it safely across London to Cleoptra's Needle, the bus and the awaiting media from the BBC. After introductions with Mark, Andrew and our fellow travellers we were interviewed for the One Show with our backs to a beautiful emerging dawn across the Thames illuminating of all things The Festival Hall. Ironical that our bus journey should start with our backs to the building where Grenoside danced in 1951 to celebrate peace. Our journey is destined to end in Boston dancing with Grenoside.

The trip down to Dover went smoothly, caught an early ferry and France passed by unnoticed. After a long journey past Brussels, Brugge, Aachen and Trier we arrived at 6.45 at a very quaint campsite in St Gaor on the river Rhine. When I walked into the bar the owners wife, a celebrity in the area, through her hands in the air exclaiming Joe Cocker. Didn't no whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. My 25 years of teaching surely hasn't had the same effect as the plumber from the top of our roads bingeing on drugs, fags and beer. However, the river, site, food and accommodation all lived up to exceptions: for an extra 2 Euro we upgraded to caravan. All in all a very pleasant day passed as skirted by the birth places of two of my favourite historical figures .i.e. Chalamagne and Carl Marx.

With very little ceremony we enjoyed a hearty menu consisting of a tasty salad starter, pork, peas and fritz and peaches and ice cream and all washed down with copious anounts of passable German wine and excellent larger. After, we experienced a surreal session in the night club under the restaurant that brought back memories of a similar session in the Ecuadorian Amazon. On this occasion instead of UB40 singing Re, red wine Hermie the campsite owner played a selection of Umpa music through box of speaker while equally as loud some opera singer stood arms under her breasts singing Wagner as the backdrop to a tv presentation about Rhine wines. This kind of evening is obviously a regular occurrence because the ceiling of the club is covered in beer mats containing messages posted by previous travellers and revellers. Just as on Facebook Lucy Allen dominated with a message for all of us that 'the first bus is better than ours'

This appropriatetly leads me on to the crew and our fellow travellers. Simon Caudels observations in the Independent that the trip could become a big brother of wheels is a lot closer thaa even he could image. The bus consists of, at the moment, 35 travellers and three crew members. The crew, strangely enough, seem more normal than theose us sitting behind them.

The bus is being driven by John a coach driver from Brugge, Belgium. Over a beer last night he told me the story of how he came to be here. Earlier in the year he was fined 750 euros for breaking some EU driving regulation and was so pissed off that he handed in his notice in to his boss. His boss then asked him if he would like to reconsider his decision and drive a a coaches to Calcutta. After little convincing that the boss was not taking the piss he jumped at the opportunity. After a day and bit of driving us I'm very glad he agreed to because he's a very steady driver and a thoroughly nice person. However, daren't ask him what the offence was for just in case it changes my opion of him. The backup driver Marcus is a returning Kiwi after working in Edinburgh. However, normality stops with the leader of the bus Layton an Irish Pakistani ex PE Teacher with striking dark eyes and a very strong County Down ascent.

On the other hand the travellers are something very different to your normal coach party and I use the term 'party' very wizely because a certain small section are intent on doing exactley that all the way to Sydney much to the annoyance of Leyton who is at the moment adopting a similar approach to another of my heroes (all in one day) Napolean and as that great figure attempted to bring France in line after the Revolution Leyton is trying stear bus such anarchy and chaos. At the moment the trip is more resemblant of Animal Farm than Big Brother, although I suppose they are similar. I am convinced the outbreak of violence is more imminent here on the bus than up the road in Iran and Pakistan. Can't wait!