In which an unsuccessful attempt is made to be an IT whizz.
In what would become a feature of the trip we arrived on time! Then misread the satnav, and missed our turn.
We’d no idea what to expect, I mean we have friends who’ve done it, but their info was just “it’s ace”. The meet point was next to the bridges in Soith Queensferry so we wander round looking at the other entrants, one chap has ruined a perfectly nice Corrado, there are two Transporters that I doubt will make it to England. A flush of Volvo estates, big Mercs and Audis. Some of the competitors were in fancy dress and our leader, Marko, is dressed as an Edwardian fop, I’m not sure sure even now whether this was fancy dress, or just how he dresses.
Suzy has rocked up to see us off with one of her pals, and 3/4 of Clan Ford have also appeared to wave us off! I offer to help setup someone’s satnav (I mean how hard can it be) because he said he was a mechanic and I was hoping we’d be friends, for when the MX5 breaks down. I’d even brought the macbook exactly so I can make myself useful as there’d been some chat on the FB page tha folk were struggling to set up their Garmins. Mine was genuinely incredibly straight forward, so I figured they were all just a bit slow.
I do not manage to setup anyone’s satnav. I just got lucky with mine.
Anyway, driver briefing was short and put us all into groups of four cars – all connected by our CB radios and off we went. Heading South.
The Mazda was exceptional in the Lakes, it’s so small and the steering is so direct you can position it exactly on the road and the lack of power never really rears its head. Overtaking is an issue as it’s hardly got any power, but the Lakes is so busy it doesn’t really matter what you are in – unless you’re on a bike you’re stuck in traffic. Although the Mazda has an ace up its sleeve if you’re really cheeky, pull the right hand stalk, up the lights come and we look like a 60s race car.
On a charge.
Both Wrynose and Hardknott were despatched with aplomb, although whilst we occasionally scraped he exhaust we saw some of the bigger stuff taking chunks out of the tarmac with their sumps…
Dinner in a pub in Grange, then a campsite on a slope.
