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  1. Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO

    Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO

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    Kingster

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  3. Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO

    Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO

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  4. corsechris

    corsechris

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Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 23/10/19 in Posts

  1. Brands Hatch and my son Ben driving
    4 points
  2. On our way out of Albania, as one last little bit of crazy that the country decided to throw at us, I got pulled over by the police. I wasn't speeding (and Chris was in front at the time, so not sure how they would have picked me up and not him if we were, but as soon as I saw that I was being flagged down, I pulled over. Immediately, the officer started shouting at me for stopping, and telling me to go again. I have no idea what was going on there! Next up was Montenegro, and it pretty quickly became a highlight of the trip for me. I didn't know much about Montenegro, so was slightly concerned it might just be more of Albania, which I sort of needed a break from! From the beginning, the border crossing gave me confidence though. It's the first place on the trip I've actually been asked for insurance (which I had, but more on that later). For anyone that didn't have insurance, such as Chris, they had a formal office set up, and it was just €15 for the week. Yep, Euro. They're not in the EU, but use it anyway. That's because back in the '90s, the country decided to switch from their own currency to the German Mark. Then when the Germans switched onto the Euro, so did Montenegro! Ireland were playing in the RWC that day, so we stopped for some lunch across the border. It was good, cheap, and the people were friendly. Couldn't ask for much more! We carried on from there, and almost immediately were driving alongside a beautiful gorge. I thought I'd take out the gopro for a couple of minutes, but ended up leaving it on for the whole drive. You couldn't go too fast anywhere though, as the roads weren't only used for cars! Miles, and miles of twisting, winding roads. After the first hour, the roads emptied out, and we had this to ourselves until we got to our destination in Zabljak. We set up camp for the night next to an abandoned ski lift, ready for an early morning and a big hike. It maybe got a little colder than anticipated overnight though!
    4 points
  3. I worry, that you only worry sometimes 😝
    3 points
  4. Hah, don't worry Adge, pretty sure if new built cars were let in most would be struggling to beat me at the rate I'm going anyway, but it's OK, I'm sure I can try to win it in a few year's time instead!
    3 points
  5. Dorset this afternoon - overlooking Chesil Beach
    3 points
  6. I famously (among those who know me) have a scatter gun approach to life, I put it down to being both dyslexic and bi polar... that seems a reasonable excuse.... Shock horror - I have booked house sitters for the duration of the Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh for next May. 😲 This would be considered planning wouldn't it??? I am on a roll now and fancy a cruise, being new to planning how do I do that? Book a cruise then try to get a house sitter OR book a house sitter then try and find a cruise... how does this planning thing work? Be nice 😏
    2 points
  7. @Julie Hall - Peak District AO you could run a separate odo comp for the new builds most mileage from registration to first MOT ie 3 years?
    2 points
  8. Normally I lock my steering wheel in Chris's car when we go hiking but this time with the cars being separated, that wasn't an option, so I couldn't resist this shot. When you want to do a big hike but can't stand leaving your Westfield behind (or when you have no doors and want a but of extra security). Either way, FreeWheel has you covered! The way down continued to yield some beautiful views too. 8 hours and 16 minutes after setting off, we arrived back at my car. The guy in the national park ticket office there told us that there had been at least 200 photos taken of my car that day! We packed up and drove around to Chris's car. After the cold the night before, we thought we had better lose some altitude before we found a campsite, and this is where I found my only issue with Montenegro (although it's really an issue with my car, rather than Montenegro...). I had struggled a little in the build with figuring out how to get the Westfield fuel level sender to communicate with the koso dash. After reading back on some old posts on the forum, I bought a Spiyda gauge wizard. I spent hours calibrating it to the point where it sort of works. The top half of the tank is fine, but when I go below 40%, I'm not really sure what's happening. We set off for a 56km drive to where the campsite was, which was right on the limit of where I thought I could reach. Somehow, Google turned that 56km into 80km, and there were no places to fill up on the way. By the time we pulled over, my guage had been flashing at me for a long time! To top it off, the first two camping spots we had aimed for were no good, and when trying to leave to get to a 3rd one, Chris bottomed out on a rock and got stuck. Fortunately I had packed a tow rope, so strapped it to the roll bar and managed to pull him free. We made it to the third camping spot without running out of fuel, parked up and cooked some dinner figuring we'd find a petrol station in the morning. Not the perfect way to end the day, but still one of my favourites all things considered!
    2 points
  9. This one is one of the best days I've had so far, and as a result is so photo heavy it's going to be at least 2 posts if not 3, so bear with me! The cold morning certainly didn't put us off our hike for the day. If anything it made us a bit more efficient with our packing to get moving! We were hiking up Bobatov Kuk, with a summit at 2523m. There are a couple of different trails you can take to get to the peak, but to give ourselves more views, we chose to do a different start and finish point, so we dropped my car at the end of the trail, bundled all of our stuff into Chris's mx5 and drove to the start of the trail. Even the view from the car park was amazing! It felt freezing when we got out of the car so we were wrapped up warm at the start of the hike. The elevation at the start was pretty steep though, so it was only a matter of minutes before we were down to a t shirt and shorts. Of course with the cold start we forgot to put on sun cream though! The views just improved as we climbed: The final bit up to the summit was a slog, but definitely worth it!
    2 points
  10. Or don’t crash 🤣 Especially if you’re an Amber Gambler 😜
    2 points
  11. Tango Man survived another day, in fact he has been a jammy git and he has pulled
    2 points
  12. If you are on a limited mileage insurance policy make sure your entry mileage is under that!
    2 points
  13. Oh dear, now I'm going to be embarrassed. Tell you what, as I'm a hard up pensioner, and I've got to find the money to buy a more powerful power pack to turn over the motor on my XKR, I'll put a fiver in the pot.
    2 points
  14. Great so far....and you aren't finished yet! The car will need a good inspection on your return - I wonder what souvenirs you will find? Best wishes for the remainder.
    2 points
  15. It's a real pleasure to read and feel part of your journey. Your making me want to do more travelling.
    2 points
  16. Happy to do it! It's quite nice for me to have a bit of a record of things anyway. With the numbers of countries we've travelled through and miles covered, some stuff can blur together, so taking the time to write about it here helps me to keep the memories a bit clearer! Glad you're enjoying it too!
    2 points
  17. Keep your eye on them, you don’t want them to start getting their peel off!! We all know what happens then, you end having little segments running around.
    1 point
  18. Just a quick update I fitted two of the normal Rj45 fiddly type of connectors on to the original cable and the camera came straight online. I'm just hoping I don't need to replace the other 70 connectors I've already fitted. Thanks for the help guys
    1 point
  19. I thought that might be the case 😀 See you at Stoneleigh. 👍
    1 point
  20. Jude, I’m just wondering why you can’t board your dogs at a boarding kennel ?
    1 point
  21. ...or divide this by 3 for a years equivalent.
    1 point
  22. 1 point
  23. Event instructions received today.. still showing some availability on Javelin's website.. Lionel needs some endless love.. all night long! 🙂
    1 point
  24. Thanks guys! This club, and of course Patrick and Jason from the WSC parts team are a massive part of this trip happening. There's no way I'd have finished that car and gotten this far without all the help along the way so I'm glad people are able to enjoy the updates! For anyone thinking of doing this or something similar, really just go for it! It's not the most relaxing way to spend your free time but it's brilliant fun, and really not that difficult or expensive (assuming you've got a car to go in!) Hah, yeah, it's definitely going to need a good clean and a service when I get back! There's dirt from 19 countries all over the car so far. God knows what I'll find under that!
    1 point
  25. Can I take these please PM sent.
    1 point
  26. Don't forget the discrimination against those with a new built car too 😋 I got my first MOT in April this year and hence it will be Nov 2020 before I'll have the two MOT's required to enter In the defence of the 'Queen of cake eating', I can't really see any fair way to include new builds earlier, either though!
    1 point
  27. Oops, meant to add that in my previous comment! You need an MOT to enter. Don't worry Adge, it comes round sooner than you expect!!
    1 point
  28. Booked in at hotel and do.
    1 point
  29. Tell you what Stephen, I'll stick the £10 difference in the awards night charity collection, how's that?
    1 point
  30. Every Westfield owner should have a spare MX5 in the garage! Good luck with the sale.
    1 point
  31. Julie, thanks for running this competition again this year it is the little things like this, that make this such a great club. I won't bother entering this year as I only have a middling 2.5k, hopefully next year will be a better effort. Thank you again for organising. Chris
    1 point
  32. Excellent, Dave, glad its going to a good home! No problem to bring it to the awards dinner. Looks like I should have delayed reducing the price!😉
    1 point
  33. Great to meet your Dad yesterday Paul, a real Gent, font of knowledge and helpful too. Hope the car goes back together and you enjoy the racing and travels.
    1 point
  34. Half way there we (Simon) ripped his heart out last night.....
    1 point
  35. I've no time for them, the UK does very well. Instead of all this Ranting, we just need to continue the sensible movement that had been going on. Making good scientifically based progress. It's the Rants and Idiots that create havoc. ie the really brilliant Gov Policy of telling everyone to buy Diesel and then a few years later telling them, sorry got that one wrong, we will tax you massively for doing what we told you. I think that has damaged the car industry / market far more than Brexit. But also I'm still pretty sure that it's based on"bad science" and we will find out in a few years that the knee jerk reaction was wrong again.
    1 point
  36. I was going to fast for him when he got me, only time for one pic https://www.bikerpics.co.uk/p154332664
    1 point
  37. @jonjh1964 I hope you don't mind but I've just had a quick play with your great shot in Light room, resulting in this:
    1 point
  38. I know you are on holiday but Thankyou so much for spending the time to write all about your adventures. The one above is fantastic reading and really enjoyed it.
    1 point
  39. Having one big hike under our belt, we decided to continue the tradition the next day with another big one around Seven Rilla Lakes. We had about a 3 and a half hour drive to get there, then a chair lift up to where the hike started. The chair lifts stop running at 4:30 and we figured on about a 4 hour hike, so getting there at lunch time seemed to work. We hadn't quite anticipated the pricing though. After paying for parking, we only had enough money for chairlifts up, so had to add an extra 2 hours to the hike back down to the cars! It was a little chilly at the start of the chair lift. 20 minutes later, we were surrounded by snow! Very different views to what you see if you Google the place but it was absolutely beautiful anyway. We hiked up to the summit but it was above the cloud line, so we didn't stay too long! By the time we got back to the chair lift, it was nearing 5 o'clock, so we would have missed the last lift down anyway which made us less annoyed about the extra few km back to the cars. We also came across more great views on the way down. We had planned to camp nearby, but realising how cold it was at this altitude, we thought it would be best to drive a little lower down before making camp. We found a spot down a dirt track away from a main road to set up. Chris's mx5 needed a little shove once or twice when it got stuck, but the westie made it without issue thanks to the realisation that I can sit on the tunnel and drive it with all 4 corners in view to navigate the tricky bits! It was made a little difficult by the fact that my clutch pedal had been acting up though. It had started "popping" when I was releasing it a couple of days before but was working fine and I just hadn't had time to diagnose it, but suddenly it has become quite hard to press more than half way. I assumed an old favourite garage yoga position with my legs over the roll bar and head in the foot well to find this: The nut at the back of the clevis had wound itself off. Sure enough, in not being quick enough to diagnose and fix the issue, I'd damaged the thread too, so couldn't just nip it up. Instead I had to take the pedal out of the way entirely, wind the other nut out until it bound at the end of the threads (not sure how or why, but it did), and then use this as a reaction to allow me to wind the other nut back out. After much swearing, the end result was a very high clutch pedal, but at least it was working again!
    1 point
  40. After the extra driving we did the night before, we didn't have to roll out of bed quite so early in the morning, so we treated ourselves to no alarms. It made very little difference though - once your body has been conditioned for 7am starts, it's hard to lie in! After some breakfast, we started driving towards our first stop in Bulgaria - Krushuna falls. I was needing some petrol, but a lot of the petrol stations in Bulgaria are seemingly cash only so I had to use up the last of my cash to put some more fuel in the tank. I probably would have gotten away without topping up, but I'm not very confident in the calibration once it drops below half a tank, as it seems to fluctuate and drop to empty pretty quickly. I've got a Spiyda gauge wizard between the sender and the Koso dash, but I think it needs something else to make the signals match up properly. When we got to the falls, we realised it was a paid admission place, and we needed to get more cash again. We realised that despite being a massive help in actually building the car, Chris hadn't been in the Westfield yet. It made no sense to take both cars back looking for a cash point, so we shuffled my bags from the passenger seat into his car, and set off in search of some cash. When we arrived into the nearest town about 10km away, we turned down a side street and ended up behind a police car. Sure enough, he held his little "stop" sign out the window for us to pull in. "No problem" I thought. We weren't speeding or anything, so it's just a routine stop. Everything on this trip is legit, so I'll just show him my documents and we'll be away. My documents. Which are in my bag. On the seat of Chris's car. Fortunately, the police officer pretty much just wanted a photo of the car. He asked for the documents, but didn't seem too fussed when I explained that they were 10km away in Chris's car. He was happy enough for me just to show him my driving licence which I had with me, as long as he could take a photo of the car! We eventually found a cash machine and made our way back to Krushuna falls. It was a nice little park, which looks to be very busy during tourist season, but it was dead when we were there. We took a couple of photos, made some soup for lunch, and carried on. Next stop was Plovdiv, where my friend Joe, from back home in Ireland, was going to be joining us for a few days. It was a bit tricky working out where he could join and leave us, but he figured out he could fly into Greece, and get a bus to meet us in Bulgaria. We arranged to meet at a hostel in Plovdiv, where we'd spend the night before going a little north to find a mountain to climb in the morning!
    1 point
  41. Definitely falling behind on updates waay too far. I'll try to speed up, however this one needed gopro shots - so laptop and wifi rather than updates on the phone unfortunately. Whilst I've got data on my phone and could technically use a hotspot, my laptop has a power issue at the moment and only works while plugged into the wall. Hence I've been delaying until reaching another hostel. I need to open this post with some kudos to a certain @AdamR. The settings applied to the car on his advice were really great for this one! When we set off from the hostel, it was still sunny, but there were a few threatening clouds. These grew as we approached the mountains. We had planned to stop off somewhere before getting to the mountains to make a few sandwiches (and for me to take the lead - as great as the MX5 is, it's not able to go around a corner as quick as the Westie!), but didn't really find a suitable stop, so just carried on going. We were greeted with miles and miles of this: And this: We only hit a couple of bits of traffic during the morning run, and everything we did catch up with immediately pulled to the side to let us past. The locals obviously know what they've got and are watching their mirrors closely. At this point it was certainly the best driving road I'd ever been on, but it still had more to offer! After our lunch stop, the roads continued to twist and bend, and the views got more spectacular. At the top of a load of switchbacks over the valley, we pulled in to take a couple of photos. A couple that had just gotten married had a similar idea! Chris's poor MX5 looked disappointed that it wasn't shown any love though! Our mini photoshoot was cut short by the weather. The rain started tipping down quite heavily, so it was hoods up for the next stint, which unfortunately means no photos. We got stuck behind a string of cars anyway, which really took away from the excitement so we pulled over for a break. It seems that on the downhill stretch we caught all the ignorant drivers that we'd avoided on the uphill section, including one Jag driver who seemed determined to block us into our little break spot by parking straight across the only surface we could easily drive out over, but oh well. Once the rain reduced a little bit, I took my hood off again. I don't think I set my front cycle wings low enough at the rear, as when I'm driving with the hood up on a wet surface, the front tyres seem to flick up gravel, which bounces off the rear arches, off the inside of the hood, and all over the interior (and my hair), so hood down driving is definitely more fun! The rain was stopping and starting all the time, and especially with the intermittent tree cover, Mike's freewheel configuration had just about every setting used on it for the wipers at different points. On a twisty road like that, the more intuitive and easily accessed the controls the better, and looking at the gopro footage, it gave me so much freedom to tweak it to keep the windscreen clear! The gopro was mostly covered in water droplets and a good chunk of the remaining video is stuck behind an Audi driver (who was determined that all the horsepower in his car should mean he was faster than us) holding us up around every corner before shooting out of reach on the straight bits so there's not much of interest to post photos of! We stopped off for a coffee on the far side and then carried on to find a campsite. Unfortunately the campsite we were aiming for that was supposedly public land turned out to be a farmer's field. It was promptly suggested that we turn around. We obliged. It was getting dark, and rather than risking the same thing happening again, we decided to drive the extra hour and a half to Ruse in Bulgaria. After all the fun of the day, that was a pretty miserable drive due to a combination of the darkness, the rain, and some not so well surfaced roads, but we made it to our guest house, cleaned up and found a restaurant around the corner. It was only after we had each sunk half a pint and ordered some dinner (without knowing the exchange rate) that we realised it was a pretty fancy restaurant. Fortunately, the exchange rate was pretty good, and the meal, including a couple of pints equated to less than a tenner each! With Bulgaria added to the list, this took me to 13 countries in the Westfield so far, with plenty more to go!
    1 point
  42. The next morning we set off for the Romanian border. Some more of the same sorts of roads - nice, fast, winding corners, with the odd Ukrainian soldier holding a Kalashnikov giving me funny looks. We tried stopping for a coffee, but having used up the last of our cash on fuel, we couldn't find anywhere that would take card and just carried on. The border crossing out of Ukraine was much easier than the one in, although I did get told off for having my gopro mounted on the rollbar, even though it wasn't turned on. The Ukrainian side of the border was the first time that anyone checking the car documents has noticed that the DVLA for some reason decided to register my car as green (which clearly it isn't). I explained to them that this was a mistake, and that the DVLA couldn't get me new documents quickly enough, so advised me to just fill in the "change of colour" box and take it as is. Border security didn't seem convinced, but once they checked the VIN, they were happy to let me through. From that checkpoint, I drove across what seemed to be a very old wooden bridge. I'm glad nobody was coming through from the far side at the time as there was no way it was wide enough for two cars, and I'm still not a fan of reversing the Westie when I've got a big bag blocking my rear view! The Romanian checkpoint was a little friendlier, even though they made an effort to scare me. Initially they asked if I was carrying any goods that I needed to declare - drugs, weapons etc. (I wasn't, so all ok there!), before then asking whether I was married, followed by "why not?" when I said no! But once again, after many photos, I was allowed through. We pulled in to buy the Romanian vignette (road tax) on our phones and then carried on down the road. Unlike Ukraine, where the villages are spaced out with lots of farmland in between, Romania seemed to largely have villages built where ever there was a road, so you just went from one village to the next with no space inbetween. The meant that the first 20 or so miles were slow progress, limited to 50km/h. Eventually we got into a bit of free space, and were able to carry on on some really nice roads again, climbing back up the mountains. Our next stop was Barsana Monastery, which is home to some of the tallest wooden buildings in Europe, including the church at 57m tall. It was pretty much on our route, and was absolutely beautiful. We drove on to our camp spot for the night and set up next to a river just as it was getting dark. The next day we had a hostel booking in Brasov so we could wash ourselves and our clothes, but it would have been rude not to take a peak at Bran's Castle (Often thought to be Dracula's Castle (although it really isn't but still looks about right anyway)). It was massively touristy, and completely rammed, and quite expensive, so we took a walk down the road and climbed a hill where you could get a good view of the outside instead. On the next leg of the drive, Chris was leading in his MX5, and I couldn't stop watching it and thinking how thankful I was for the quantum dampers in my car. His car was being thrown all over the road, despite having some pretty decent HSD dampers on it, where the Westie wasn't struggling at all. It actually got to the point where he had to pull in for a break to get out of the car for a few minutes. We adjusted his damper settings to be a little bit harder which improved things a little, but he was still not having a fun time with some of the bumps. It really made me appreciate just how incredible these quantums are though. Even with fibreglass seats and a relatively light sprung mass, the fact that they just soak up the bumps so well really makes them worth the extra spend for me. We were feeling pretty tired by the time we reached the hostel, so after cleaning ourselves up, we went out for a meal rather than trying to cook something. The waiter at the restaurant also tempted us into trying some local plum based liquor which I'm sure contributed to the great night's sleep I had that night! That was needed, as we had a big day driving ahead of us the next day. You might have heard of it before since it was once called the greatest driving road in the world by none other than Clarkson, Hammond and May back in their Top Gear days... ...The Transfăgărășan Highway.
    1 point
  43. Sunny morning in Somerset, couldn't resist a short run. King's Sedgemoor, Somerset Levels.
    1 point
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