The Pearson Project - Project Reports

Project Report Part 6

Venue: Whitley Bay + Cullercoats Beach
Date: 14/1/2004
Team Members Present: Pearson, Gilly, Tooma, Wally + Harle

Another early start for the team on Part 6. Phone calls at 7:15am to make sure everyone was ready, then the team met up on the X36 bus at 9:22am, and headed for the Metro Centre. After buyig some breakfast and papers we headed back to the bus stop. Pearson, Gilly and Harle checked the timetable and quickly realised the bus to Cullercoats - our destination for part 6 - only visited the Metro Centre on a Saturday. With our extensive knowledge of buses we jumped on the 45 service to Newcastle then waited for the 301 bus. The 302 arrived first and despite that also going to our destination but to the disagreement of Harle the team refused to board the bus as it was only a single decker. We waited another 15 minutes for the 301, climbed upstairs and got settled in for an hour long journey.

During our journey we once again passed those famous sites from Part 1 - Dennis Chemists, Krusty's, The Quadrant, The Pineapple, The Run Down Dance Studio and Tom Swan. We arrived in Cullercoats at 11:52am and headed straight down to the beach, we didn't have any implements to record the official temprature but it was freezing. Tooma and Gilly immediately stripped down to their shorts and noticed that is was even colder than we first thought. After running around on the freezing cold sand confusing and scaring people walking their dogs they returned to the rest of the team and forced Pearson to brave the weather. Wally and Harle refused to come join Pearson, Gilly and Tooma in the water as they said it was too cold (Puffs!). After losing the feeling in our legs and feet we exited the water and attempted to get dried. While we were getting dried we noticed a man walk past, Gilly then started shouting to him in a Japanese accent saying that the team had been shipwrecked, he gave us a hacky look and kept walking, every few seconds he would keep looking back at us.

We were then confronted by 3 dogs, one of the dogs took a keen intrest in Pearsons crotch but soon left us and gave us a chance to get dressed properly. As the dogs ran away we noticed that the man who was watching us had stopped about 70 metres away and was still watching us. As Wally and Harle were already dressed they walked across in the direction of the man and tried to stand infront of him about 20 metres forward from him, as Wally tried to take a photo of Harle infront of the man, he moved. Harle moved round in the same direction, but the man kept moving and Wally failed to get a photo. The man was heading back towards us, Wally and Harle got back to us first. The man was getting closer and still looking at us, we got ready as fast as possible. As the man walked past us, Pearson pulled down the back of his shorts in full view of the man - and he still watched! He slowly kept walking then eventually came to a stop again about 30 metres away. We waited for Tooma getting dressed and then stood up to get a photo of the team with the man behind, as we were about to take the photo the man turned round and started walking the opposite direction ( Click here for photo ). We then decided to follow the man, he suddenly sped up when we headed in his direction and by the time we got to the steps taking us back to the bus stop he had returned to his car.

We climbed steps (Exactly 100 of them in total) and were about to go back home when Harle suggested we get food, the whole team agreed and opted to get the bus into Whitley Bay to visit the Chippy we went to on Parts 1 and 4. A 15 minute journey and we were there. TJ's Fish and Chips is highly reccomended by the team. After our chips we went to the next door arcade and spent quite a while in there. After getting bored of the arcade we proceeded to the bus stop. We boarded the 301 service and were heading home. We got as far as North Shields before the bus was invaded by hundreds of school kids, they filled the bus but got off only a few stops later. We arrived back in Gateshead at 4:40pm and got the bendy X66 bus back to the Metro Centre. The team then split up and all went back home.