Spring Road Trip - 17th to 22nd April
Twelve intrepid club members in 2 x MGBs, 3 x MG TFs and a MG ZS met at what is fast becoming our default meeting place for a trip South – Castleton Farm Shop – on Monday 17th April for a breakfast roll and hot drink before setting off on our spring road trip. Special thanks to John and Jill Chessor who spent ages pouring over the maps and did the majority of the planning for what was a fantastic trip – they even managed to pick the best week weather wise with blue skies and sunshine for most of the time.
A cold and misty day didn’t dampen the enthusiasm as we set off from Castleton on the first leg to Duns via the Mortonhall Garden Centre in Edinburgh for a quick bite, before heading off on the 150-mile trip to the Jim Clark Museum. Even though some of us had been before, there had been a few changes and it was well worth the visit. The sun was now shining, so it was top-down motoring for the rest of the week.
The first night was spent in the fabulous Marshall Meadows Manor House Hotel near Berwick Upon Tweed where we had a fantastic evening meal.
On Day 2, we covered around 85 miles on a run down to Durham via the amazing Angel of the North and a stop at the Heighly Gate Garden Centre at Morpeth before arriving in Durham and visiting the Cathedral. Having never seen the Angel of the North in the ‘flesh’ before, I was amazed at the size of it – very impressive - despite the halfwits who thought it would be good idea to plaster the lower levels with graffiti. I didn’t realise that some people use it as a shrine to departed friends and relatives and there were a number of very moving tributes pinned to the trees nearby.
Three couples were staying in the centre of Durham, so the rest of us took the bus from our hotel outside Durham into the city centre where we met for an evening meal; none of us managed to work out which bus we were meant to get back to our hotel or even where to catch it, so we chickened out and got a minibus cab back - which turned out to be a mere 50p dearer per person than the bus!
Day 3 was a short run to the Beamish Museum where we spent most of the day, after which we drove around 80 miles down to Pickering for a visit to the Mathewsons (of Bangers and Cash fame) facilities the following day. Running around Pickering brought back lots of fond memories from my rallying days – there was even a Pickering stage on the RAC Rally many years ago.
On Day 4 we visited the original Mathewsons showroom in Thornton-le-Dale before heading off to their 2 huge warehouses where we viewed all of the cars coming up in the next Mathewsons auction; I fell in love with a clubman spec MK II Escort, but apparently a new kitchen is somehow more important?
We had originally planned to do a run on the North Yorkshire Moors steam railway up to Whitby on Day 5, but the advertised price of £20 return on the website was no longer available and had been changed to an Annual Unlimited Pass for £40 per person! We weren’t even guaranteed it would be a steam train up to Whitby, so we decided that £80 per couple for a trip on a diesel train (especially as we were unlikely to be able to take advantage of an Annual pass) wasn’t really on, so we decided to give it a miss and instead took a 180 odd mile run over to Ulverston (via the Chocolate Shop at Leyburn!) the following morning for a visit to the Lakeland Motor Museum on the final afternoon.
Some of the group took advantage of being 'south' and broke off to visit relatives, a couple of others decided to extend until the weekend and visited the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverston and then night stopped in Selkirk.
Apart from the first night, we stayed in a variety of Premier Inns all of which were extremely comfortable; we also stopped at a number of different coffee and cake venues on the way!
Some fabulous driving roads throughout the trip (especially across Yorkshire) in glorious sunny weather was the icing on the cake; this was only spoilt by the torrential rain on the initial drive home on Saturday 22nd – but by the time we crossed the border the sun was shining again and after a final stop at a super little tea shop in Blairgowrie, it was back to reality and home. Must remember to fit a bilge pump in the MGB if we're going to be out in the rain again...…
In the end, we completed around 830 trouble free miles and we all had a great time - hope to see you on the next trip!
The first set of pictures below were taken with myiPhone, the second set are courtesy of John Chessor.
