In the spirit of better late than never..
A few Fridays ago Colon Elk & I went to collect a vehicle he'd purchased off eBay.
At the time I didn't really know why, and tbh I'm still not that much clearer. I can only assume he was drunk. Or is weird.
I make no apologies for the total cackness of the photos in this thread - we were traveling light (/ totally unprepared) so it was cameraphone FTW! (& mine is particularly guff - adds something of the overall 'feel' of the trip tho don'tcha think..?)
So, we're in Brighton on the sunny South coast and Marks new toy is in Aberystwyth (that's in Welsh-Walesland). According to Google that's 280miles and takes 5hrs35mins (each way), tho that was never gonna happen (will make more sense when you see what he's bought..)
The decision was quickly made to go Friday night rather than Saturday. I had tickets to a gig Sat evening and wanted to go to Goodwood on Sunday
All packed up and ready to go:
See ^^ weird!
Some pasties, homebrew and a tent, plus 50l of the finest rapeseed oil in the tank. What could go wrong..
Well, heading toward the M25 at 5.30 on a Friday night is pretty much always going to be a stupid idea, but on this particular Friday a serious incident had completely closed the motorway in both directions
A u-turn at Gatwick, cut-through Crawley to Horsham onto the A24 & back up got us on to the M25 further round than the blockage. Pictorial evidence of traffic situation in the other direction:
This went on for literally miles and miles and miles..
All this conspired to wasting about 2 hours and the first 70 miles of driving achieved getting us precisely 0 miles closer to our destination
Ahh well, we were on our way! Some random motorway spots:
I didn't take many pics on the way for some reason, but at any rate it was already getting dark as we passed Bristol & by the time we ran out of M4 talk had already turned to where on earth we were going to spend the night! To say this trip was poorly planned is an understatement. In fact no planning of any sort happened.
For some reason (I really can't remember why now) we just kept going. And going. And going.
By the time we were into Wales I was in the driving seat & testing out Marks Cavaliers suspension (the compression of the bump stops) on dark & deserted Welsh twisties ;D as we got close to Aberystwyth (nearing midnight at this point) a few lay-bys were scoped for suitable sleeping quarters (none!) before I turned off the road on a whim & into a perfectly good field ;D
Tent erected by headlight & home-brewed cider cracked open. Niiiice. zzz
Up at the crack of dawn, nice place
Aha, that's where we are!
Short drive into town (like 5mins) to do some feeding:
Ommm nom nommm - hungry Colon..
Time to find out what it is we've come to collect! Off we head to the guys yard.. Is it in here?
No. Here?
No. Has Mark bought a Hi-Boy shell?
Erm, no. Still no?
Yes, still no. Aha! There it is..!
It's.. erm, .. a van!
Correct! But not just any Van.. It's a VW (somethingorother) Van ;D
Another view of it (and a Granada Limo hedgerow)
A Man & his Van.. (this may provide clues as to his intentions - no pedobear jokes please)
(Mr.Colon looks quite a lot like Alexander Litvinenko in this pic, I know not why, he doesn't usually..)
We spent a while giving it a thorough(ish) looking over - everything appeared to work. It started and ran pretty well actually, the choke cable didn't seem to do a lot but thats not so bad when you can reach down and adjust the choke by hand whilst turning the key ;D
A test-drive took place - terrified / hysterical?
Money was exchanged, and off we went! Mark driving the horsebox, me driving the Cav (long straw, I haz it )
Stop for fuel & scoobies..
..and we're homeward bound. Welsh twisties first, cue amusing listing & fuel falling out of somewhere..
A stop in a layby for a pasty (for us) and a wee (for the Van)
Bridge over River Severn (7!) - fortunately you pay on the way TO Wales (£5.60 for 1 Cavalier), rather than the way FROM Wales (else would've been £5.60 for 1 Cavalier + £1billion for 1 VW LT31 (yes, that's what it is, definitely NOT a horsebox))
& we're out of Walesland, back into Englandland
Another stoppage (can't remember where, Membury mebbe?), splash more fuel for the Van - it's economy seems actually ok, not great but ok, tho not helped by some falling out at each left turn (note we still haven't added to the 50l of Rape the Cav received before we left..)
And here we are back at Lady Colon Towers:
So 660 miles in 2 days of fun and silliness - being 'into' cool oldcars vehicles is a life-enriching pastime. You get to meet & become friends with like minded buffoons, go on daft stealth-camping adventures & spend all the money you (don't) have on weird tat
Cav did that^^ without refueling (I actually used it the next day too & it got to ~720 miles on the tankful - EPIC) I need to get me some of this dizzle business (actually, since this trip I have, in another 'ColonElk & HC Stealth-Camping adventure(TM)', but more on that another time
)
Just for completeness, here is Marks van a couple of days later, on arrival at it's home (for now) outside our barn..
FIN.
A few Fridays ago Colon Elk & I went to collect a vehicle he'd purchased off eBay.
At the time I didn't really know why, and tbh I'm still not that much clearer. I can only assume he was drunk. Or is weird.
I make no apologies for the total cackness of the photos in this thread - we were traveling light (/ totally unprepared) so it was cameraphone FTW! (& mine is particularly guff - adds something of the overall 'feel' of the trip tho don'tcha think..?)
So, we're in Brighton on the sunny South coast and Marks new toy is in Aberystwyth (that's in Welsh-Walesland). According to Google that's 280miles and takes 5hrs35mins (each way), tho that was never gonna happen (will make more sense when you see what he's bought..)
The decision was quickly made to go Friday night rather than Saturday. I had tickets to a gig Sat evening and wanted to go to Goodwood on Sunday
All packed up and ready to go:
See ^^ weird!
Some pasties, homebrew and a tent, plus 50l of the finest rapeseed oil in the tank. What could go wrong..
Well, heading toward the M25 at 5.30 on a Friday night is pretty much always going to be a stupid idea, but on this particular Friday a serious incident had completely closed the motorway in both directions
A u-turn at Gatwick, cut-through Crawley to Horsham onto the A24 & back up got us on to the M25 further round than the blockage. Pictorial evidence of traffic situation in the other direction:
This went on for literally miles and miles and miles..
All this conspired to wasting about 2 hours and the first 70 miles of driving achieved getting us precisely 0 miles closer to our destination
Ahh well, we were on our way! Some random motorway spots:
I didn't take many pics on the way for some reason, but at any rate it was already getting dark as we passed Bristol & by the time we ran out of M4 talk had already turned to where on earth we were going to spend the night! To say this trip was poorly planned is an understatement. In fact no planning of any sort happened.
For some reason (I really can't remember why now) we just kept going. And going. And going.
By the time we were into Wales I was in the driving seat & testing out Marks Cavaliers suspension (the compression of the bump stops) on dark & deserted Welsh twisties ;D as we got close to Aberystwyth (nearing midnight at this point) a few lay-bys were scoped for suitable sleeping quarters (none!) before I turned off the road on a whim & into a perfectly good field ;D
Tent erected by headlight & home-brewed cider cracked open. Niiiice. zzz
Up at the crack of dawn, nice place
Aha, that's where we are!
Short drive into town (like 5mins) to do some feeding:
Ommm nom nommm - hungry Colon..
Time to find out what it is we've come to collect! Off we head to the guys yard.. Is it in here?
No. Here?
No. Has Mark bought a Hi-Boy shell?
Erm, no. Still no?
Yes, still no. Aha! There it is..!
It's.. erm, .. a van!
Correct! But not just any Van.. It's a VW (somethingorother) Van ;D
Another view of it (and a Granada Limo hedgerow)
A Man & his Van.. (this may provide clues as to his intentions - no pedobear jokes please)
(Mr.Colon looks quite a lot like Alexander Litvinenko in this pic, I know not why, he doesn't usually..)
We spent a while giving it a thorough(ish) looking over - everything appeared to work. It started and ran pretty well actually, the choke cable didn't seem to do a lot but thats not so bad when you can reach down and adjust the choke by hand whilst turning the key ;D
A test-drive took place - terrified / hysterical?
Money was exchanged, and off we went! Mark driving the horsebox, me driving the Cav (long straw, I haz it
)Stop for fuel & scoobies..
..and we're homeward bound. Welsh twisties first, cue amusing listing & fuel falling out of somewhere..
A stop in a layby for a pasty (for us) and a wee (for the Van)
Bridge over River Severn (7!) - fortunately you pay on the way TO Wales (£5.60 for 1 Cavalier), rather than the way FROM Wales (else would've been £5.60 for 1 Cavalier + £1billion for 1 VW LT31 (yes, that's what it is, definitely NOT a horsebox))
& we're out of Walesland, back into Englandland
Another stoppage (can't remember where, Membury mebbe?), splash more fuel for the Van - it's economy seems actually ok, not great but ok, tho not helped by some falling out at each left turn (note we still haven't added to the 50l of Rape the Cav received before we left..)
And here we are back at Lady Colon Towers:
So 660 miles in 2 days of fun and silliness - being 'into' cool old
Cav did that^^ without refueling (I actually used it the next day too & it got to ~720 miles on the tankful - EPIC) I need to get me some of this dizzle business (actually, since this trip I have, in another 'ColonElk & HC Stealth-Camping adventure(TM)', but more on that another time
)Just for completeness, here is Marks van a couple of days later, on arrival at it's home (for now) outside our barn..
FIN.
