| 16th May 2008 | |
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The tour started here, for myself and Richard at least. We were heading north to Scotch Corner in the afternoon to
get us near to the start point for the tour proper tomorrow, in Newcastle. Still time for the final bit of pfaffing around in the
morning, filling with petrol, and finishing off getting things packed and ready. After lunch, it was time to stop fiddling around and get on with some driving. Unfortunately it was fairly dull stuff ahead in transit to the north. The weather had been a bit ropey all morning, with drizzly rain on and off, and sure enough just after we left, it decided to rain a bit more. At least this was a bit of a test for the tonneau and half doors, which seemed to be doing a good job so far. A steady trundle up the A1 for a few hours saw us get to our classy overnight residence at the Scotch Corner Travelodge. We were both mildly surprised by our fuel economy, as reckoned we had both managed somewhere around the 30mpg mark, and had got a bit further than we thought we would on a tank full of fuel (though not _quite_ all the way, or at least we didn't chance it). I wonder whether this is anything to do with the re-wiring of the lambda sensor giving me a better mixture, but that could be clutching at straws. |
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| 17th May 2008 |
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Day one of the tour proper saw us leaving Scotch Corner at around 10am for the rendezvous just on the outskirts of
Newcastle just before 11am - in a McDonalds car park, classy touch. The weather forecast for the day didn't look too great,
but certainly not too bad, just showery rain fading through the day. It was at least fairly accurate, as soon as we set off
it started to rain, and had turned into a reasonable amount as we trundled through the Saturday morning shopping traffic on
the A1 at Newcastle - why would you want to go shopping when you could be getting a soaking in a car with no windscreen? We soon arrived at the start point, and hopped out to shelter from the rain, grab a coffee, and say hello to the ne7ers we were meeting there (who had actually organised the tour). |
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We were soon all underway, and onto the roadbook, so should be some good roads, even if it were a bit wet. Another brief
call into the petrol station to top up, and everyone else trundled past us to put us last on the road (this is a bit of
a recurring theme!). Not a problem though, as it was a fairly short 40-odd mile run up into the Kielder forest to the
lunch break. We were soon out of suburbia and its traffic, and heading out into the countryside and more interesting, less populated roads. The downside of this was that they seemed to be populated by tractors and horses instead, but they were fairly painlessly despatched. As we started to press on, I was quite aware that the back end of my car felt quite loose, despite it being sort of wet but not massively wet. After a while I got on the radio to Richard to see if he was experiencing the same, he was, so that put my mind at rest, and we continued to enjoy it. As we passed through a village we found MikeK and the nice blue Indy (see above pic) parked up. They indicated they were ok, so we carried on. After a short while, Mike caught us up, having left the Indy to swap in a spare clutch cable it turned out. Now, anyone who knows Mike, knows that he drives quite, briskly, shall we say. After we ambled a bit to see if he wanted to get past, we ourselves were stuck behind some slow cars, and once they cleared, I decided it looked like Mike was happy to sit in behind us, so got on with it about as quick as I felt I could in the conditions. We soon arrived at the lunch stop at Kielder Water, where everone else was parked up. A bit wet, but a lovely place to be, with lunch and nice view over the water. It was something of a compliment that Mike said we had done our reputation for driving slowly a disservice on that road while he was behind us... |
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After lunch, the weather looked as if it was lifting, a little, maybe, or perhaps I was being optimistic. Anyway,
onwards, and our route took us out through Kielder and across the border into Scotland. We then broadly turned left and
continued roughly along the border for a while, before later heading north through border country towards our hostelry
for the next two nights. As I was being directed, rather than attempting to navigate myself, I mostly don't really know where I am, so it is difficult to recall where we went! I do remember that the roads slowly dried out, and were nicely twisty, and most of all hilly, which is a great novelty to those of us from the flatlands. After a while we caught up with a larger group of cars whom had all stopped at the side of road, seemingly for a cigarette/comfort break, so we pressed onwards. At this point we were the first cars on the road, and due to the relatively short routes today, this meant that we were the first cars to arrive at the Peebles Hydro. This is a definite novelty for me, as I always seem to end up being amongst the last cars to arrive, usually with about 5 minutes to get sorted out before dinner. This time we had loads of time to mill around, chat, look at cars, get checked-in, etc. Nice and relaxed. |
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| 18th May 2008 | ||
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Since we were based at the same hotel for two nights in a row, day two was a circular route out from Peebles, an advantage
of which is that we didn't have to get all packed up and could travel a bit lighter. Another bonus was that the weather had
perked right up, although it was chilly to start with, we were greeted with barely a cloud in the blue sunny skies. The route for today was approximately 100 miles in both morning and afternoon, heading out west in borders country, into Dumfries and Galloway, with a lunch stop due in Galloway Forest Park. Given the weather forecast, and light travel, I opted to leave the crash helmet behind, and test out my new driving glasses setup with the practice headsets on the intercom. |
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We ran in a group of three cars today, myself, Richard, and Roy, guided by Richards sat nav to save us trying to drive and
read the roadbook. The early part of the route took us out roughly following the path of the River Tweed. I won't attempt
to recall all of the roads, but needless to say, they were good, the countryside was good, and the weather was great. We
drove over some decent sized hills and descended through some lovely valleys, although the collections of campers did blot
that landscape slightly. Again we caught up with and passed most of the others, when they had stopped to take photos - which was promptly followed by us missing a turn just after passing them, most embarassing! A little later on we had what I termed a "GPS moment", where a rogue waypoint had us heading up a farm drive and popping out in the farmyard. Fortunately, the farmer was quite amenable and we had a quick chat as we turned the cars around :-) Shortly after this, we stopped for a break, thinking that a) we were still ahead of everyone on the road (to be proved wrong) and b) we were only 20-odd miles from lunch (wrong day in the roadbook, Roy!). We parked up in a layby and thought we'd get some photos of everyone else as they came past... except they must have got ahead of us during our GPS moment. When we realised we were actually 50-odd miles from lunch, we thought we'd better get on with it! |
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The next bit of the route was, quite simply, awesome. We got onto a single-and-a-half track twisty twisty road south
through the Galloway Forest Park. There were loads of passing places, and seemed to be very few other cars on the
road, and we were able to make... good progress. Amazingly fun bit of road, despite having a fair few blind-ish
bends and crests, so the speed wasn't all that high, but it was major point-and-squirt fun. We arrived at the lunch stop (last!) with big smiles, and I duly proclaimed it the best bit of road I have driven, maybe ever, in the car! It was that good. And the weather made it too. |
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After lunch, we were in need of fuel, so made a quick diversion into the local town to get filled up. The afternoons
run was also rather good, although it was on quicker A-roads, a different sort of driving to the tight twisties, but
also a chance to go a bit quicker and working the overtakes can be fun too. I remember having a bit of a play with
some motorbikes (and getting rather held up by some touring bikes doing a steady 40mph), which usually wakes the bikers
up as though they are quick in a straight line, they can't really maintain the speed in the corners. We had another great blat towards Peebles on the A708 past Moffat, and down a beautiful valley past St Marys Water. Some bits of this road were rather bumpy, and there was another GPS moment, but we were having too much fun to care really. For once, I could have carried on for another hour or so when we got back to the hotel, but at the same time it is nice to not have to rush everything - and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the impromptu car park geometry setup session on Marks car! |
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| 19th May 2008 |
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As usual, the weekend was passing quickly, and we were into the last day of the (admittedly short) tour already. Again the
weather forecast for today was pretty good, so despite having to head for home later in the day, I was able to run without
helmet for most of the day. The early part of the morning route was the stuff of tour legend - a run on part of a route done on a previous tour, famously a road which passes through the middle of a golf course, not too popular with the golfers! However the road which followed on from that stretch was another really good road which took us up into the hillsides. After that we found our way onto a really narrow twisty road. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit too narrow, and the surface was rather loose. More amazing scenery to take it too though, and we had a brief break at the Jim Clark Room in Duns (where there is a collection of Clarks trophies and memorabilia). |
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After that is was a short run down across the border (again - I don't know how many times we crossed it!) into Berwick,
where we all met up for lunch, after a brief walk up on the ramparts with a lovely view out over the coast in the sunshine. The afternoon route was due to take us to about 4.30pm, but as we were having a good time, the roads and weather were great, and both Richard and myself had a day off work to recover tomorrow, we decided it would be worth the late transit back south later on. |
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We were mostly right too, more good roads, although a couple of GPS moments were a little annoying, but it didn't really matter
as we ended up in the right place eventually. We were fairly tired by the time we got to the end of the route, but we made it
to the final rendezvous point, and as we were the only ones to do so (we assumed all the locals had headed for home), it was
worth a photo to prove it! I think that is probably the first time I have managed to do the full route on a tour, the only
digressions from the route were minor ones caused by the GPS. We had a break, and relished the prospect of the 200 mile transit ahead of us, which would see us getting back home just before 10pm. A long day, I could have done without the last 100 miles of it, we were tired, but had a really good time. |
| 20th May 2008 | ||
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A recovery day before going back to work - a chance to sort everything out and get the car cleaned up a bit... Whilst I'm here, I've not said anything much about the car on tour. Once again it was pretty much faultless, which is good news. The only problem I seem to have had (that I've found so far, at least), is that a couple of the angle brackets on the front edge of the half doors have come adrift. I suspect I need to roughen the mating surfaces a bit more, and try bonding them again, before I resort to having to drill a bolt through. The half doors and tonneau worked pretty well, we didn't have any long-term heavy rain, but the doors seemed to keep some of the water from jumping over the sides, during the showers we did pass through. And the boot cover and tonneau just make life much easier when leaving the car anywhere - I didn't even use the the full car cover, except to prop up the middle of tonneau to prevent any puddling overnight (I need to invent a better solution for this. Mechanically everything seems fine, I do need to get under the car to check, and need to have check that the rear ARB is still intact, as that was untested. I even received a couple of comments about how well it looked like my car was riding over some of the bumpy roads - that's the benefit of independent rear suspension though. I've got a mental shortlist of things to sort out before September (off on tour to Scotland again!), but I think I'll enjoy ignoring the car for a week or two... |
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| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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