OK people sit yourself down as I’m about to rant for a while
Several months ago posters went up around CRUK requesting volunteers for the Rob Roy Challenge, which is a sixteen mile run followed by a thirty nine mile bike ride thought the west Scottish highlands. I didn’t care, as whenever I read said posters I was on my way to get my morning coffee & to be frank, when in that state a burning monk would only get a slightly raised eyebrow & a barely civil ‘Excuse me please’.
Then about six weeks ago I actually read the poster, realised it would be a good bit of fun, volunteered & started finding others that would be keen on doing it as well. As is often the case with these types of things several were keen but most dropping out come crunch time, in the end it was just Richard & I. We had a chat over a couple of pints & decided to make a road trip out of the event.
So Thursday morning we were up at a small bird’s flatulence so we could miss the
London rush-hour. After stopping at a Moto-break (Motorway petrol & café stop) & paying £12 for breakfast (normal breakie is about £3-4 in
London) we managed to time it perfectly to reach
Birmingham just in time for their rush-hour…Doh!
On we pushed on in our surprisingly peppy 1.4l VW Golf & soon we reached
Stoke-on-Trent where we ran into an issue that would haunt us for the next several days. Two good looking, sharply dressed men travelling together will often be mistaken for a gay couple. Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the Batties (Some of my best friends are comme ci comme ça) I would just prefer it if little old ladies in info centres did not jump the gun when we ask for a place to stay & ring hotels asking for one room for two guys!
After grabbing some rolls at one of those little country café’s that give you massive amounts of food for next to no money, we were on the look out for somewhere cool to eat lunch. As we drove along there were sign showing ‘Camelot’ about seven miles off the M6. Now I realise that Camelot is a mythical place but I was thinking maybe it was a place scholars thought it may have been located. In any case, no it was a theme park!
At about
2pm we rolled into the Lakes District & the little
village of
Ambleside on
Lake Windermere.
A very cool lake with a really quant village & RAF jets that buzz the lake about eight times a day!
So we found a pub & set about owning the pool table (Always a good way to meet people), when we discovered that they had a special running that night of Stella for £1. A great evening meeting top people & it didn’t kill the bank buying the occasional round. Latter that night we meandered back to the hostel (in the roundabout kind of way of the offey (Bottle shop)) hoping to find a couple of Swiss backpackers named Eva & Sara.
Unfortunately all we found were some Korean men who answered ‘Yes’ to every question we asked them including ‘Where are you from’ & ‘What is your name’, but they were willing to drink with us & had their own beer so at the end of the day were fine drinking buddies.
The next day we had to be up by 9:30am before they finished serving breakfast, only to discover our ‘Youth’ hostel (Yes I’m still a bloody youth and will be until I’m thirty five… & even then it may be extended after review) catered for not only current youth (ME!) but also ex-youth in the way of about eight or nine 80 years olds & many many extreme youths (6-10 year olds).
Trust me sharing a dining room with about forty extreme youths when you are feeling a bit ‘sandy’ is not the best way to start your day. Obviously we scoffed down our food plus multiple coffees & OJ (Not in the same cup!), & got the hell out of dodge.
Only to discover one of the most beautiful places in the world…The UK.
At this point I would like to state that if I ever hear a Pom waxing lyrical about how wonderful & majestic
New Zealand is, I will agree & then firmly remind them that their own country is also amazing & maybe they should try going further from the CBD of their particular city than zone three!
Heading into Penrith I was reminded of a travelling trick my dad taught me (Fairly sure it was you Dad, can you confirm?) that some of the best/cheapest food can be found at truck stops.
Much more casual than the school cafeteria we had eaten in that morning.
Onwards to Glasgow & the only real crappy part of the whole trip. 
The Famous Lancashire Goat/Sheep
Before I start, I am sure that parts of
Glasgow are very nice & if you know where you’re going you won’t get lost (Deep that last bit eh?), But I HATE GLASGOW! It should have taken us about 30-40min to drive through the ‘city’ (Unfortunately there is no bypass), it ended up taking us just under 3 hours! I have never seen a darker gloomier town, or so many shell suits in my entire life, plus it is very hard to get out of the hole when the monkeys have ripped down most of their road signs in a heroin induced rage!
Much later we got to Drymen (About 20min out of
Glasgow) where we were booked into ‘The Buchanan Arms’. A decent shower & I made my way to the bar to relax & read a paper or 3. The whole bar area was upholstered in what I thought was the Farqueson tartan (I now think it was just the Stewart tartan)
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The Tartan shown is Stewart Hunting
but they had no idea what a Bloody Mary was, & when I explained they were even more confused by
Tabasco sauce. Note to self Vodka, T Juice & Worcestershire sauce while not as good as a Bloody Mary is still a very fine early evening drink.
After checking out the village & hall where at 6am the next day we would be checking contestants in for the race I decided on diner in the hotel restaurant & an early night, but room service & old school action movies are a dangerous combination & I saw 1am roll around. Even so at
5am the next day I had my wakeup call & was at the hall on time.
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So as I said I checked people in first off, then drove to the starting line to pick up a couple of girls & drive to the following checkpoints to do some marshalling & on to the finish line at Taymouth Castle on the banks of Loch Tay (I never did get to see the castle – maybe the Scotts were lying about it) to help out in any way I could, from directing traffic (Badly), to unloading the bar (eagerly), to taking bikes off people when they had finished, & even pushing stuck cars out of the mud (more their bad driving than my earlier bad directing) as although it had been a beautiful clear day at the first two check points it had been raining all day in Kenmore (Where the alleged Taymouth Castle is).
By early evening we were done with the volunteer work (13 hours is enough by anyone’s book) we were ready for the party. Sorry not a party but a fully fledged Ceilidh complete with battle re-enactments, a spit roast, fireworks, highland games (unfortunately called off due to the weather), several pipe bands, but alas no haggis.
Most who know me know my love for the sound of “the wee bags” (as one of the pipers called them over a pint) but we all had a ball, especially after a few pints & a few runs of ‘strip the willow’ which came back to me from the Caledonian dances Mum & Dad dragged me to as the child – Cheers for that, I can now strip better than your average Scotsman. OK the rain made the light weights head to bed around 11pm but you haven’t lived until you’ve heard YMCA preformed of the pipes…interesting.
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After a very deep sleep in my tent complete with double air mattress (When I camp I’m still going to be comfortable) while others were rained out of their tents & a very decent breakfast we hit the road. After being wet for the last eighteen hours and on the road for three days both Rich & I decided that instead of staying the night around
Newcastle we would do the full five hundred and eighty four miles back to
London in one fowl swoop.
The Wallace national Monument
Of cause we had to stop at
Stirling Castle best know as a prop in Mel Gibson’s true to life movie Braveheart – For one of the funniest reactions try explaining that to a Scott.
Then we were onto
Edinburgh to check out the home of the tattoo (Not that type of tat!).
I really like Edinburgh, after about an hour of driving through it & half an hour wondering outside the castle – it’s about £15 to enter which is just silly as we were only there for a few minutes. – I’ve decided I could maybe live there one day.
Maybe I'm a geek but this cracked me up
Now we headed out of
Scotland.
Then onto
Newcastle to check out the prototype for the
Sydney harbour bridge (aka the
Tyne Bridge)
& the Angle of the North – the biggest steel sculpture in the world.
Now we only had the final three hundred and five miles to go, lucky for us we did as over the previous few days & the following twenty four hours it rained enough to cause major floods that are still happening now one week later. Driving in that type of rain can be interesting, especially when passing a lorry that is passing another lorry while doing… slightly more than the speed limit.
Phew that was a trip just writing this, but I had to get it out of the way as I’M OF TO THE BRITISH GRANDPRIX THIS WEEKEND!
I’ll keep you posted.
We started on Saturday with the prologue (Qualifying) for the Tour de France (Ever noticed how people always put of a crappy French accent whenever they say that) there were reports of over 4 million people were spread out over the 8km course, I don’t know about that but there were FAR too many people. I was once again tempted to revert to primary school playground behaviour & start swinging my arm while walking forward & if anyone gets hit it’s there fault, but I’m not sure if the old bill would see it my way.
To be honest I’m not really that into guys in lycra, so the highlight was a small lorikeet type bird & the gendarmes (
He may look tough but I bet he would lie down if you showed him a Panzer tank.
Then onto Albert Hall with a bloody big statue of, I’m guessing Albert outside. I thought thespians liked a wee pint but good luck trying to find a pub anywhere near the hall.
We finally found a bar & after a couple of pots our mate Simon had decided to come to the F1 with us the next day, & didn’t care if he had to blag his way in or pay through the teeth (He ended up getting in for the same price as me!).
So after an average pub dinner we figured we would pop back to Clapham, have a couple & be tucked up in bed for the early start of 5am Sunday.
Before I start, the Red Arrows did a display before the race…Helen can you please buy some jets for the NZRAF…they’ve only been around since the late 1940s!
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After the race (I was at the track so had no idea where my boys had ended up) we went to have a look at the BMW F1 pit lane park which is very very cool. It’s all hands on so you can pick up a F1 front wing, compare a normal alloy wheel to a F1 wheel –Twice the size & 1/3 of the weight or a normal disc brake & a F1 disc brake –looks like it’s made out of cardboard & weights the same. But you haven’t lived until you’ve been a metre away from a F1 car doing donuts – Excuse I need some quite time. 
Plus I meet up with some F1 hussies and got a photo…I gave them my number & am now waiting by the phone for them to call.
Cheers for Chris for once again being a demon driver.
Constructors Championship
Grid Positions
Placings
Constructors Championship
Grid Positions
Placings
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