The Adventures Of Sierra Alpha Logistics - Episode 1 - Cotswolds To Belfast.
Where do we start with this one. Well, the beginning would be a good idea wouldn't it hey.
This episode is all about a lady called Joanne Murray. Jo was a lovely pleasant lady who came over from Ireland 4 or so years ago for work. She got here to only find out, the job she had taken on... well... she didn't like it. She carried on living over here in England, moving from Yorkshire down to the Cotswolds again for another job. Well, it got to the point just 5 weeks before this move happened where she went, ya know what... its time to go home to Belfast. So, she advertised the job on Bark and we responded.
We spoke to Jo on the phone and explained who we were and where we got her details from and that we would love to quote her move. Now, at this stage we had never booked in a job to travel overseas, so this was our first. We began taking details from Jo and I won't lie, my hair began to curl at the thought of this job as we would need to deal with customs, book ferries and all this good stuff and all this was brand new to me and Simon, which was scary, but made the job interesting.
What was the job?
The job was to move Jo's belongings (Review is on Google) to a storage unit back at her home, Belfast in Ireland. The original plan was to move some of her belongings to storage and some to a new home, but for some reason or another, this wasn't what went down. So, everything ended up in storage.
Map of the journey we had to take to complete the job below:
So... Sierra Alpha stepped up to the job. We got ferry quotes, contacted both Freight Link and Customs Link and got quotes for the ferries and spoken to them about what we would need to do for customs. We then, scarily totted up the quote for the job. I am going to be completely transparent here and even tell you the quote... we quoted £2.5k for this job... all expenses included in. This was our biggest quoted job to date. Off the quote went.
We was absolutely s*!tt*ng ourselves, I won't lie... BUT, Jo very quickly accepted our quote as she loved the fact that the move would be done fast, efficiently, safely and the whole thing would be tracked as she was not coming with us on this journey. All we saw of her was when we picked up the goods in Moreton In Marsh.
Jo paid her deposit so we could then begin to get the ferries booked and the hotel and we had the dosh for diesel. Job was officially booked in and put into our diary.
The day of the job finally arrived after many messages exchanged and emails sent to customs and between us and Jo keeping her informed the whole way through. A lovely 3.30am alarm went off so we could travel to her home and arrive shortly after 7am, with a little stop for breakfast on the way.
The loading of Jo's good went all super smooth, however we did wonder if it was all going to fit in the van at one point, baring in mind we have a XLWB High Top Citroen Relay, aka the mobile bungalow. BUT... we got the lot in, safely, securely, strapped down and covered in removal blankets where needed... TICK!
The long journey then began to Cairnryan where we had to travel through Storm Debbie, which I can only describe as, WINDY & very wet! It took us from 11.20am to 7.15pm, you do the math. A BL**DY LONG WAY. We stopped twice during the drive just to get some grub and swap drivers, as so far... Simon had done all the driving. Our journey lead us across to the M6 and all the way up to Gretna Green in Scotland, then across the A75 to Cairnryan.
Once there, we pretty much got straight onto the ferry which I was very apprehensive about as I don't do too well travelling by boat. Lets say, I don't have good sea legs and I have heard many horror stories about crossings over the Irish Sea. We was on board and set off by 8pm.
The ferry finally docked at 10pm where it left us with just 1 more thing to do to complete the job in hand... dropping the load off at Titan Storage in Belfast. The storage unit was around 20 minutes away from the dock so it wasn't a long drive at all. The storage unit we was delivering too was right at the back of Titan Storage which was heavily secure. Took us forever to work out the gate, then to find the unit, then to open the bl**dy doors to the unit! Oh yeah, like fort knox. But we did it and safely stacked everything into the container and locked it all up.
We was instructed, once the storage unit was locked to put the keys into a post box at the side of the main gate, which we did (as you can see on the video) and then that was it... the job was done.
By this point it was 11.15pm and we had been on the go for over 18 hours, without any sleep or proper rest. Safe to say, we was super tired and in desperate need of some R and R... so we headed off to our hotel.
We got to the hotel and checked in at around 11.30pm. We was knackered, however... it was only 30 minutes till it was Simon's birthday... we had to celebrate whilst we was in Ireland for his 34th. So instead of going to bed which would have been the sensible option... no, no... we got ready and went out in Belfast for an hour or so to have a sneaky bit of the local brew they have over there called Guinness, you ever heard of it?
We asked the fella at the hotel, where will be open... he said in the most broad Irish accent I have ever heard in my life, "The only places that will be open now will be in the middle of town, out the door and turn left". So, never being to Belfast before, we followed his instructions, which any normal person would have done. Well... we went round Belfast in search of a pub for over 40 minutes... not a sniff of ale anywhere. Everywhere was shut. We was very sad at this stage and was going to give it up as a bad job. So we began to head back to the hotel... when all of a sudden, we heard music... LIVE MUSIC. An Irish folk singer with some chap playing a Banjo! What more could we ask for. "Please be open, please be open, please be open"... and YES!!! This pub was open... RIGHT ACROSS FROM OUR HOTEL!!! So we walked miles and miles round Belfast trying to find beer, when literally we could have stepped over the road. Moral of that story, never listen to the geeza behind the customer service desk in the hotel... they know NOTHING!
So, in we went into this bar called The Points I think. It was MEGA! Proper Irish folk music, in a proper Irish bar, serving the local jungle juice, Guinness. What more could we have asked for. Safe to say, The Points saved the night. We was 2 very happy chappies.
The next day we had our breakfast and begun our travels home ready for our 4 o'clock ferry back from Larne to Cairnryan. It took us until 1am gone to get home that day, as we hit every bit of road works, road closures, traffic, etc you could possibly imagine. But despite the long journey home, we had a blast, but most importantly... our first international move overseas was a super success.
MISSION COMPLETE
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