With some sadness, we set off on our last day from our farmhouse:
The first 50 miles or so were, by congested SE England standards, a brilliant run as we found the last little patch of green on the map and we had our last hoorah through the trees.
A brief stop for brunch at a small town patisserie:
...before the last excitement of the trip; the old grandstand at Reims:
The Beast did a couple of Le Mans starts for the gaggle of petrolheads filming and we got talking to a guy only a few years older than Jake who turned up in his Ferrari 360 on a dream trip to Italy. His car sounded great, like a V12 but was actually a V8 - not a stock exhaust, we think.
By sheer luck, there was a Lamborghini club there as well, in the grounds behind the stands:
I do love a Countach...
We pulled away (the Beast in a cloud of tyre smoke) and headed for the autoroute and the last 170 miles to Calais. We arrived early and managed to get on a train an hour earlier than booked.
On my last trip, England welcomed me back with a thunderstorm of biblical proportions; this time, it was a 14 mile average speed zone before an accident that closed the motorway - our 1 hour return took us 2 hours!
A day when all the best-made plans went out the window...
We started out from Moutiers (not the prettiest town in the world), heading to a route I did on my last trip, 3 years ago. We drove up to Albertville and then set off up the D925 towards Beaufort, a lovely road bathed in sunshine. I briefly spotted a sign saying 'Ferme' but thought nothing of it...
At the Lac de Roselend, we stopped at the lone hotel on the lake with THE most stunning view:
Remembering the sign I had seen, I asked the waitress and, yes, the road was closed 1km further on! It had collapsed earlier in the year and they still hadn't repaired it. This explained why the rubbish tomtom satnav app my son was using said, "no route available" and explained why his Sygic app kept telling him to turn round and do a 60 mile detour! My very basic (but reliable) CoPilot app just happily let me route - it doesn't do any fancy live updates.
I really wanted to take my son up the 9,000ft Col d'Iseran, which meant taking that 60 mile detour. Fortunately, turning round on these roads isn't much of a hardship, so we went back to Moutiers and then on up to Bourg St Maurice.
The road up to Val d'Isere was yet another great piece of tarmac and we saw several signs assuring us the Col d'Iseran was ouvert, so up we went, with the views getting scarier as we drove along edge-less roads with sheer drops to oblivion scaring my son into a reasonable pace (and the road was much bumpier than I remembered).
Their was also a heck of a lot of snow, with 6ft high banks along the top of the route (last time, I was here in July and there was hardly any).
The top of the Col was sunny, cold and...CLOSED!! Yup, the lying French %#&*&*# hadn't bothered changing the signs to say the Col was ferme. It must have been a recent closure because none of the satnavs knew about it either and obviously, there was no explanation.
So, we headed back down (again, not a hardship) and I stopped at the same place I had 3 years ago, taking the same picture:
Definitely more snow a month earlier....spot the difference in Zedster?
Without enough time to go somewhere very different, we set off for Annecy (going past Moutiers for the 3rd time!) and I found a little wiggly road to get there; the D911 up past the hamlet of Ecole and then the D5 through Gruffy (great name), which gave us our last taste of alpine twistiness before we start the journey home tomorrow.
No map route today as it was all over the place and I think we did around 200 miles, but I can't be sure.
Anyone who has read this far is probably getting very bored of my American-style cheesiness and I'm afraid there was more today - sorry about that.
Today was the start of proper alpine hairpins and twisty mountain roads. The day started off cloudy which kept it cool, then a bit of drizzle and then full sun, with the temperature reaching 31 degC.
Beauty and the Beast both had problems today; the Beast continued to boil its gearbox oil so there were a couple of stops for this:
...and I had a problem with Zedster's bash plate. It covers the protruding bellhousing and has always been pretty rubbish; it was very difficult getting rivnuts into the chassis rail under the car when I only have axle stands. They don't get the car up high enough to give you the leverage to use the rivnut tool properly, so they've never been in well. Looks like one bolt vibrated out of one side and the other fell out the chassis rail, rivnut and all, so the plate was hanging on with the 2 bolts on the other side but it had dropped down and was scraping on the road.
I didn't have any spare bolts so the old, faithful gaffer tape was brought out:
This worked a bit but gaffer tape never works well with heat, so the plate kept dropping down a little; I had to push it back up at every stop. I'll try find a garage tomorrow and see if I can scrounge a couple of bolts which will do until I get home.
The rest of the day was glorious, flying along twisty roads with HUGE drops to one side; so huge that you couldn't see the bottom; it felt like you were driving on the rim of a bottomless pit. The views were amazing - proper mountains are so impressive and the top of one pass still had chunks of ice on the side of the road.
Towards the end of the day, we came up behind a trio of German Renault fans (who knew?), two Clios and a wonderful sounding 80s Renault 5 GT turbo. All had roll cages and were certainly not stock - we chased them for the next 10 miles; me just being able to keep up and the Beast chomping at the bit to get past me and fill their mirrors. The road was narrow and twisty as hell; it was brilliant and exhausting fun.
With so many hairpins today, I have almost perfected my rear wheel slide and there were a couple of them I actually drifted round sideways, smoke from the tyres (well, a little). These Avons are so bad that they let go quite easily...
The hotel in Moustiers was a welcome sight - I was knackered.
A great day, one in which Beauty did hurt the Beast!
We started off with a slow cruise into central Cannes for breakfast:
...which, amazingly, didn't require a house re-mortgage. We then had a nice walk around the marina, planning our next yacht (there was an old rowing boat we could maybe afford).
On the way out of Cannes, I went halfway through a red light, slammed on the anchors and almost took out the police motorbike behind me! He wasn't too impressed, told me to take off my headset (you're not allowed to wear them in a car in France) and advised that it is a 90 euro fine for going through a red light. I put on a pathetic look, apologised profusely and he let me go...phew, close thing.
Next up, about 10 miles north of Cannes at Grasse, began the famous Route Napoleon. I was a bit worried about this; would it be rammed with wheezing Clios, motorhomes and trucks? Would it heck - it was bloody amazing. I'm not sure how long it went on for - at least 30 miles - but it was glorious; sweeping bends, a few little twisty sections, majestic views and those little stone blocks that are all there is between you and a 1000ft drop.
Towards the end of this blatfest, we got caught by 3 bikers who were, to be frank, mental. The first 2 went past me on a blind bend, one of them almost getting clipped by my front wheel. The 3rd guy, obviously deciding he didn't want to die today, got stuck behind me. After a few corners, I let him past - I really didn't want him doing something stupid.
My son was all for going past me and racing them but I put my worried dad hat on and he relented, sulking...
Which was lucky, because it was all too much for the Beast. It seems a known problem with C63s is that their gearbox oil overheats if you push it too hard for too long and the car goes into limp mode until it cools down again. Now limp mode on a C63 is almost enough to still keep up with Zedster - but not quite. So that's a win for Beauty and, who knows, one day I might let my son forget about it.
We stopped at the beautiful Castellane, which has a church perched on a huge chunk of rock that looms over the town:
Just after our drink, we went for petrol in a nearby supermarket and then went into the shop itself. By amazing luck, this was the first supermarket I'd seen with covered parking and because the sky had suddenly turned black and thunder was rolling, we parked up and ran inside. Seconds later, the heavens opened and half a reservoir fell out the sky, along with a large amount of hailstones. It was amazing - even the locals were filming it!
We shopped for 15 minutes and came out to just light drizzle. But I decided to put my roof on because the skies were still dodgy looking. Ten minutes down the road, just after our lunch stop:
... and the rain struck again, not quite as bad but enough to slow us down a lot and take it easy. A shame because the roads continued to be spectacular.
The rain stopped after about 20 minutes and we drove up a twisty delight of a road, alongside the huge Lac Serre-Poncon (catchy - never heard of it before). Possibly the best photo opp so far:
The last 10 miles were a nice cruise enjoying the view, stopping in Embrun for pizza from a vending machine. Yeah, it was as bad as it sounds...
Our gite was halfway up a mountain, with the most amazing view of the lake and surrounding mountains:
When planning the trip, I always thought a cruise along the French Riviera would be a bucket list ticker. The only problem was negotiating the industrial heartland of southern France and I wasn't quite successful.
The initial 30 miles or so from Millau were glorious; smooth, sweeping roads all to ourselves. However, as we approached Nimes (where 'denim' gets its name), it became more built-up, the traffic got busier and the real world intruded on our trip. The next 200 miles were a series of large towns we had to negotiate, with the occasional 10 mile stretch of fun in between - not the most fun in the world but my son was still enjoying the novelty of a foreign country, as well as revving the Beast on demand from other drivers while we sat in traffic.
Today was also lots of the 2 favourite French road furniture; roundabouts and speedbumps. We must have gone round 33 gazillion roundabouts today; like Milton Keynes on steroids. But the speedbumps are even worse; the French put them everywhere in towns, even on main roads - I can't believe the usually bolshy French haven't brought down the government over them.
I was getting very hot and a short rain burst just before lunch was actually quite welcome - we managed to find a large tree for me to park under and ate our gourmet lunch while the rain did its worst:
I put my roof up for the next 15 minutes or so but the sun soon came out and I was slowly getting cooked, so roof of again - my tan is going to be awesome.
We finally got down to the coast - and almost turned round straight away; a 2 mile traffic queue for what turned out to be a large speedbump! I hate queues of any type but my son's iPhone told him it was over soon. After that, it was a slow amble through an endless stream of promenades, cafes, cars parked everywhere, a pedestrian crossing every 6 feet and a 1000 buzzy mopeds, throttles pinned, weaving through the traffic.
As a driving experience, it wasn't great, although the views over the sea, the cliffs, boats, beaches; all looked very pretty.
My radio battery died for the last 50 miles or so, so I was able to take my doors off and that was much more comfortable in the heat (29 degC). The last 10 miles after Frejus was superb; red cliffs towered over the twisty little road and because it was now 8pm, everyone had gone home, so we had the road to ourselves for a last thrash.
The hotel was a sort of upmarket Butlins but reception was closed and there was no food; evening meal was chocolate pancakes - we were far too knackered to go out looking for food.
I really hadn't expected much from today, just an excuse to see the Millau Viaduct and to get further south. As such, I'd simply picked roads that went through the green bit on the map - and, Holy Navigations, did I fluke it or what...
The first section from Limoges to Tulle was unbelievable - rolling hills, quaint towns and some of the best roads I've ever been on. Being a Sunday, there was even less traffic than usual and the road surfaces are SO smooth (I guess because there's just so little traffic to damage it?).
It was so hot, I tried taking my doors off but at anything over 55 or so, the wind blew my cap and headset off and I couldn't use the radio, which I've been doing a lot of this trip, so they had to go back on. I managed to half-open my windows which helped a bit.
Most of the time, my son was behind me because his satnav was playing up but the Beast is literally that; it may be 2.5 tonnes but 6.3L more than makes up for that and I can't even vaguely keep up with him, except in the tightest of corners. Any straight more than 50m long and he pulls away like a train. And the sound - it's like following a really annoyed tiger; it literally growls all the time. It truly is the most awesome production car I've seen/heard. I'll do some video at the end of the trip from inside the car and you'll hear what I mean,
But don't get me wrong - I was having an awesome drive, just a bit slower. Picking off the occasional Clio, Zedster was lovely to hurl round the curves and only when I had to slow for a town did I realise how hot I was.
Once again, the little towns were beautiful; lots of medieval stuff and we drove through one, looking for a parking space but I've worked out where the French all go on a Sunday; lunch! Driving down little cobbled streets, a local stupidly signalled my son to rev the Beast; I think the building damage will be fixable.
Tulle was a pretty place for a coffee stop; set in a narrow valley with a river in the middle and typical French townhouses either side - lovely.
And then the D1120 from Tulle to Aurillac and Rodez was amazing again; sweeps and bends and omigod brilliance. At our lunch stop in some cute little town:
...we checked out an estate agent; €60,000 for a 2-bed house with garden. Lucky they weren't open...my son would have been in there.
The last stretch down to Millau had a nice little alpine-like twisty section, where I almost managed to keep up with the Beast.
The Millau Viaduct is very impressive (don't try go over it; you have to pay, can't see the view from it and can't stop, I'm told):
The short drive to just south of Millau and our hotel in the motorway services (very few hotels in this area) was uneventful, with 30 seconds of rain as we pulled up.
Dinner was a sandwich (weren't very hungry) and about 5 litres of water - never has a shower been so refreshing.
A beautiful winters day forecast gave me the impetus to get up at 6.30 to meet those die-hard runners who go out most weekends (admittedly, most of them have Elises with heating etc).
My son was also keen and we met up with 4 or 5 Lotii and a BMW M2 for an early morning thrash. The roads were fairly damp and these Avons I fitted recently are, I've decided, pants; they're supposed to be better in the wet than the Toyo TR1s (?) I had before but they're not. I hardly have to try in the wet to get the back end out which is fun when I'm expecting it but a little too scary when trying to keep up with my sons 400bhp monster. At one point, at just 30 mph, I had a tankslapper moment over a wet, bumpy section - not what I expected!
Had a nice run for most of it, however, with the mandatory 'missed satnav junction' moment a few miles before the end, as I blindly followed some bloke in a white Elise, who hooned off from a roundabout and I was a mile up the road before I realised we had both gone wrong. As such, I was the last one to arrive at a very busy Newlands Corner where half the Lotii in SE England were parked up:
Zedster was the only 7 on show:
My son has a GoPro he rarely uses, which I brought with me but forget to switch on until the trip home - doh! But I'll add some video below when I get round to it and hopefully, it will be much better than my usual cheap camera, especially the sound.
I might get round to finally doing some work on the passenger door armrest, now the weather is warming up...
UPDATE: so here is the video I mentioned. The sound is better (the GoPro app has put music over it so you'll have to trust me) with less wind noise and you can hear the engine better BUT the picture is very jittery compared to my cheap camera. I had 'boosted' anti-shake on, so I'm not sure why this is - maybe some other setting? Anyway, see what you think...
Wow, the longest gap in my blogging history - I hope I haven't damaged the mental health of any of my hordes of devoted followers?
The weather has been extremely cold and wet for the last month or 2, so little activity for me apart from the odd run out to keep the battery topped up - until yesterday.
For christmas, I got myself a drone after watching numerous travel videos where people have had some great shots that are normally impossible without your own helicopter. Mine is fairly cheap (£240) but it is very impressive - very easy to do basic flying manoeuvres and some great views from it's camera. I bought it especially to try get some action shots of Zedster and so I took my son with me to a reasonably remote part of the world (Loxwood in Surrey) to have a play.
Sadly, I am a pretty rubbish pilot, my drone is not the best/fastest and Zedster is, so a lot of my attempts were pretty feeble. I had to get my son to drive Zedster, which was a shock for him (WHERE ARE THE BRAKES!!) but he got the hang of it...below is some un-edited (no audio) video from our session:
The bits at the end were of his car, in case you were confused.
Hopefully, I'll improve my flying skills and I'll get some better shots, especially on our European trip in June.
The Middle Earth Tour with the SKCC was a week-long driving tour of the Scottish Borders. The idea was to stay in one hotel for the week in Haltwhistle, Northumberland, officially the Centre of Britain (and that was the slightly tacky name of the hotel).
A brief summary of the trip is below, with a video at the end.
Day 1 - Getting there, 420 miles
The trip started with a 7am meet at Lakeside shopping centre:
Six of the eight cars met here; me, 2 Elises (Roger and Graham), a Caterham (Brian), Stylus (Tony) and an MK (Matt). The first couple of hours was a blast up A-roads to breakfast near Peterborough where we met up with the final 2 of the group; a Tiger (Linda) and Caterham (Duncan with wife, Alison):
The next 150 miles or so were actually pretty good, considering they were major A-roads and 50 miles of the M1, not scintillating blatting territory but not the slog I was expecting. Much was helped by some great scenery as we skirted the Peak District and this improved even more as we meandered up through the Yorkshire Dales, stopping for the obligatory ice-cream:
The local who worked in the shop was a major F1 fan and homed in on Linda's Gulf-liveried Tiger - they were like sisters separated at birth.
The final 50 miles to the hotel were a taste of the days to come as discovered some great driving roads. What also emerged was the continual flakyness of everyone's TomTom sat navs; the new ones are too clever for their own good and if you put a waypoint on a closed road, the stupid things just refuse to allow you to load the route - they don't even suggest an alternative. Me, with my £35 CoPilot app on my phone worked flawlessly all week. Remind me never to consider an 'upgrade'...
Another theme for the week was my cooling system - since the new rad last week, I must have introduced an air lock somewhere. I wasn't over-heating but my header tank was over-flowing as the airlock forced coolant out as it got hot. This just meant that I had to top up the coolant every morning before we left. At the suggestions of others, I also tried to clear the airlock by removing the top rad hose, where we assumed the airlock was. However, all I got was lots of coolant all over the floor, which suggested the air wasn't there.
Dinner in the hotel was very good - pretty hefty portions and our own private dining room (we pretty much were the only people staying there).
Day 2 - Road to Lindisfarne, 266 miles
After a great breakfast (lots of choice), we set off from the hotel car park we had pretty much taken over. And what a great first day - the route and roads (map above) were so good, I forgot to take any pictures. We went this direction because the weather radar showed less rain and so it proved - a few drizzles here and there but never horrendous.
After a semi-disastrous detour through a farm (lots of gates, sheep shit and puncture-threatening stones, all taken at 3mph), we stopped off in Duns, famous for local lad, Jim Clarke; motor racing legend who tragically died in a crash before I was born. The little museum is very impressive for a man who had a relatively short career (but won everything imaginable) and the local village cafe did a great range of cakes and pancakes.
We did get some slightly stronger rain here and it was at it's worst as we crossed the Lindisfarne causeway a little further on; very strong winds and a brief heavy rain squall meant we didn't stop at the tourist trap of a car park but simply turned round and came straight back. Some of the roads were quite bumpy and this was another theme of the trip - I'm not sure if this was because my new tyres (Avon ZVS) are stiffer than my old ones but I definitely felt more jostled all week. However, they do have much better grip than my Toyo's, especially in the wet.
A little further down the road, Bamburgh Castle was an impressive location - really should have stopped for at least one picture - doh!
Dinner in the hotel was again very good and after a quick beer, we all turned in - that much driving is pretty knackering.
Day 3 - Overhill and Underhill, 242 miles
Today was a route through the Lake District and a bit of the Yorkshire Dales. The weather wasn't as kind to us and we spent quite some time with hoods up.
At this point, my wipers started acting up - they wouldn't work at all initially. Then, they started working but only on fast speed, which wasn't great (I wasn't sure how long they would keep working at that rate).
After going through Keswick, we managed to fill up the layby over-looking Buttermere:
More lovely roads, great views and satnav shenanigans meaning we were normally driving in smaller groups and always with different people. It is always amazing how, on these trips, we can all have the same route and (apart from me) the same satnav software but they often choose different directions. It is actually quite fun as you can never be sure who will be in front or behind you or for how long.
We drove through the pretty towns of Ambleside and Windermere and got a lot of attention as we managed to get most of us together in one line. This part of the country is my favourite in terms of scenery; quintessentially English with green hills, stone walls and the traffic wasn't even too bad.
A brief trip into the Dales (Tebay, Hawes, Kaber) and the first of 2 visits to the Brough Castle ice-cream parlour:
...before we entered the wide open moors of the North Pennines. The winds were so strong here, my passenger door kept flying open - I must fit the same armrest setup I have on my drivers door. But the roads were lovely; sweeping bends, no traffic (except sheep) - Seven Heaven.
Back at the hotel, we decided on the local pub across the road from the hotel (well, we didn't want to WALK anywhere too far) for our meal and it was very good.
Day 4 - On the doorstep, 279 miles
This route was named because we were originally going to meet up with a Scottish guy who lived locally but he had to cancel at the last minute. Wonderful blatting roads over through Lockerbie, past Dumfries and up to Moffat via a beautiful lake:
The day continued like that - driving heaven. At one point, I was leading the group and there was a 20 year old Nissan Almeria in front of us; a local who obviously wasn't going to let a load of Sassenach's get past so he proceeded to push his aging car at frankly ludicrous speeds around some lovely windy roads. I actually backed off from him because I was worried we were egging him on - he was almost on 2 wheels at times and any hill forced him down to bus speeds. Crazy loon...
At some point during the day, I had a genius idea to check the plug into my wiper motor and, sure enough, it was hanging half-out. I think all the bumpy routes had vibrated it loose but pushed back in and my wipers were back to normal, just in time...
There was more rain over the day with hoods up half the time but we got back to the hotel and a meal in the pub across the road again.
Day 5 - Not at home, 261 miles
The name for this route was courtesy of some dodgy MP (are there any other types?) who broke lockdown rules in the area.
First up was our second visit to the Brough Castle ice-cream parlour - strangely, still had nice ice-creams and coffee; who'd have thought? The route carried us through Barnard Castle and Richmond, both very pretty towns and I would have liked to spend a bit more time in these places but I can leave that for when I'm too old to drive.
We also managed a great route up through the North York Moors where my poor passenger door took another pounding from the gale-force winds - if anyone needs a location for a new wind farm, let me know. I lost the others at one point while I stopped to get some pics:
At some later point, I met another enthusiastic local, this time in a Dacia of all things. This guy was good, however, and while I kept up with him ok, I couldn't have gone much quicker. Childish, I know but as Henry Ford once said, "motor racing was invented 5 minutes after the second car was built".
Back to the hotel and a second meal in the pub across the road - very nice burger.
Day 6 - Duncan's Route, 230 miles
This route was originally planned as a much longer route taking in the western town of Stranraer but it was decided to shorten it to this run - and what a corker it was. Using roads Duncan had been on before and wanted to share with his wife, it was probably the best day of the tour, partly because Duncan, like me, is not a fan of the small, single lane tracks and so avoids them.
It started off with a great road up to Hawick and more again across to the quaint town of Moffat, with a brief stop on the way while we were all actually together for a change:
Also during this time (I think - difficult to keep track), I was briefly leading the group and I saw a couple of bikers coming up behind, filtering past the others as we trundled along behind some slower traffic. Just as they got to me, I turned off onto a promising looking B-road and hit the after-burners - the bikes kept up with me for the first straight but after 2 corners, they were dots in my mirror. Four wide-ish tyres round bends makes a BIG difference. I heard later that they refused to let the others past initially but finally caved when they realised it was them, for a change, who were the mobile roadblocks. Must have been a shock to their systems...
I stopped at Moffat briefly to get some touristy stuff for the family while the others carried on and then had a very enjoyable thrash trying to catch up, which I eventually did as everyone turned up at yet another pretty lake, St Marys Loch which had an equally useful cafe for a coffee (which I proceeded to spill down their freshly painted counter - whoops):
On this thrash (I think), I met my final crazy loon of a local who wanted to show me how it was done. This time, he was in a BMW i3, the electric car with tidgy little skinny tyres. But, wow, he was moving - much like the Dacia the day before, I could keep up but couldn't have gone much quicker, although the roads were not as twisty, so he may have suffered more if they were. As it was, he turned off, probably to find a charging point as he must have blown his range with our 5 mile blat.
After our coffee at the lake, it was back via Hawick to the Kielder Forest, a beautiful, smooth, traffic-free, high-speed cruise through trees and valleys - delicious! We stopped for another coffee and cake at the Kielder Reservoir cafe, along with a bunch of Mini's:
Back to the hotel for my final meal (steak, hmmmm) and an interesting chat with the hotel chef who had just come back from holiday - a total nutcase of a woman who could hardly stop talking and told us her entire life story, including all the multiple health issues she suffered. And the 14 (fourteen!) Alsations she had on her farm, all trained to kill - nice. And the fact she hated kids but had 4 of them (and she was only 30 years old or so and the eldest was 16) - double nice. We were just glad she hadn't been there all week or we would have been at the pub more often.
Day 7 - Back to the Shires, 400 miles
I had originally planned to stay an extra day with the others but my wife had put her foot down about how long I was away, so for the sake of marital harmony, I left a day early.
I said my farewells as the others were preparing for the day's run and set off for the slog home.
My initial route was lovely - back through the Dales on some great roads to remind me of what I would be missing in congested SE England.
But it went pretty horribly after that - I thought I'd skirted around Bradford but no, got stuck in horrible traffic and took me an hour to do 10 miles! Then the M1 motorway decided to become 60mph average speed for 20 miles followed by congestion for another 10 miles and finally, the M25 came out to play and was a car park all the way round - I had to leave early as I almost ran out of petrol! Cut across country for the last bit.
Suffice to say, 12 hours after setting off, I finally got home!
Epilogue
Distance travelled: 2,098 miles Hotel costs: £520 (6 nights and 4 evening meals) Petrol costs: I'm too scared to look - it will have been more than the hotel!!
While I was building my car, this type of trip was everything I looked forward to; great roads, good company, beautiful scenery, sun shining (ok, 3 out of 4 is still very good). It wasn't particularly cheap, I used up precious holiday time and we definitely didn't save any polar bears. But it was....EPIC.
Many thanks to Tony for organising all the routes and the hotel and for everyone else for being such great company.
And huge thanks to Zedster - for being massive fun and not breaking down (yup, he got yet another wash this year).
Video of the trip ( I tried to trim it down but it's tricky, so apologies for the feature-length):
