Day 23 - 3 September - travel to Newcastle Upon Tyne

This morning we drove to Ashford to catch the train.  First we had to drop off the hire car, which went very smoothly.  We had gone to the trouble of cleaning the mess off the roof of the car because the Thrifty people in Southampton had been so pernickety about the state of the car, and we were quite concerned that they people in Ashford would regard the seagull mess as 'unacceptably dirty' (which can cause loss of deposit or being charged a cleaning fee here).  However, when we got there, we saw a car parked in their lot that seemed to have been strafed by thousands of seagulls!  
Anyway, no problem - they even gave us a lift around to the railway station in the car, which was much easier (and cheaper!) than getting a taxi.
I had been a bit worried about getting the tickets - I had prepaid for them and it was necessary to collect the actual tickets from a ticket machine using the credit card I originally used to pay for them.  The problem is that although the 28 Degrees card is good for buying things from overseas it's not so good for using overseas - although it has a chip it's non-standard and doesn't work properly as a 'pin and chip' card.  Card readers here can read it and interact with the 28 Degrees computer system, but they always come back as 'signature needed' - and of course, like at home, you're not supposed to sign for credit card purchases here any more.  A few places have surprisingly allowed us to sign for purchases, but some don't. Interestingly, the paywave thing works without a problem.  It all went ok as far as the tran tickets were concerned though.
We were originally booked on the 11:15 Ashford-London train, but the man at the station said that although the London-Newcastle trip was definitely only for the specific train we had booked, the Ashford-London tickets allowed us to catch any train from the 9:43 onwards.  So, we decided to get the 9:43, which was definitely a mistake.  There had been a problem earlier in the day and the train was reduced from the usual 12 carriages to 6.  And, I'm pretty sure it's the first off peak train of the day.  So, it was simply packed solid.  The carriages also don't have any large luggage storage, and we weren't the only ones with suitcases.  So, we stood up for the whole trip, pretty much crushed into place.
However, we survived, and we got to sit around King's Cross station for a while to recover.
Our trip from London to Newcastle was much more relaxing - we had a first class ticket and so had pre-booked seats with a table and power points etc.  The first-class carriage wasn't too crowded and the service was very nice - some food, regular free drinks (beer / wine / soft-drinks), free wifi etc.  It wasn't perfect - the carriage was really too warm, and there was a delay of almost half an hour because of switching problems - but overall not too bad.
In Newcastle we're staying at the Staybridge Suites - we have a one-bedroom apartment with a separate kitchenette.  We took a short walk once we were settled in, just down to the docklands area.  Apart from that though, our only achievement here so far has been that Paul has done some laundry (there's a free laundry downstairs).