RogueRunners '23 Day 3 - Hoik, Hexam & Kielder

 

With the cars stripped of luggage, we headed out, but the first question was "which way?" SatNavs know where you are, but not which way you're pointing, Linda went left, everyone else went right. There was some radio chatter on a theme of "Linda's pointing the other way, we must all have it wrong", at which point Linda turned round & a little male pride was restored. However, at the end of the high street, the SatNavs sent us back the other way (left from the hotel).

We set off along one of the "B" roads that run parallel to the motorway, in days past this was the main road to Glasgow, so it's wide, smooth, sweeping & empty - apart from two couples walking along it, miles from anywhere. It's Scotland, there are much nicer places to walk than in between two major roads.

Before long we rolled into Canonbie & it all went a bit wrong. It started well enough, with two MkII Escorts coming out of town towards us, but vey soon I thought I'd missed a turning, so went back, only to find the SatNav telling me to turn round again. Brian turned round & sped off in the direction the Escorts had gone, the rest of us followed the SatNav up a steep road, only to be told to turn round again. Research since I got home suggests we entered Canonbie from the wrong direction, but looking at the route I can't see how the SatNavs did it. Anyway, we all got back in a line & headed out of town.

While all this was going on, we'd seen a couple of old Porsches & a TVR, so there was an event on somewhere & we quickly came up behind a WRC liveried Subaru going very slowly, we followed it for miles doing 35 - 40 on a 60 limit road until we all entered Newcastleton, which is a long thin village with an interminable 20 limit. The Scooby was doing 12-15mph, so I overtook it on the high street, never exceeding 20 & soon after that it pulled in to let the rest past.

Next was the ever popular B6399 up to Hawick (the "Hoik" in the title) it's a lovely road & not long re-surfaced & here we caught up with Brian. Heading south again, I rounded a corner on a narrow lane to be faced with a HUGE tractor, with HUGE tyres, pulling a HUGE trailer. I was able to pull into an entrance to let it past, I radioed a message out, but apparently chaos reigned behind me.

The next remarkable thing was another enormous tractor rumbling along a twisty A road, never dropping below 40 considerably faster than the WRX Subaru, it was both hilarious & scary to watch.

Then there was a trip up on to the moors - lovely road again, but the blue sky vanished, to be replaced by ominous clouds. We were following two very slow bikers when the hail started, they wanted to go slower, but stuck to the middle of the road, I wanted to go faster as I was taking hits from hailstones the size of marbles. I managed to overtake one of them & soon after that three of us turned left & followed the SatNav's instructions along a narrow twisty road which appeared to go through a farm yard, at which point a Mustang & Porsche from Belgium appeared round a blind corner "at speed".

Having disentangled ourselves from that, the road passed through a field & with a gate across it, we waited a while for the others, but as they didn't didn’t appear we went on & arrived at the very quaint Simonburn Tea Room just after them. They had got there by an entirely different route.

The next part is a bit of a blur I'm afraid, but with all the excitement so far, having nothing memorable happen was probably a good thing. I do remember having more SavNav trouble with the route I'd plotted along a dual carriageway, off at a roundabout, then through Hexam to re-join the dual carriageway in the other direction.

Firstly I saw the blue line going both ways along the D-C, but missed seeing it go into the petrol station, so had to double back, then as you may have guessed, the SatNavs took us not through Hexham, but along the D-C & into Hexam from the other direction with "hilarious consequences". The worst part was being told that this all happened last year as well.

After what seemed like not very long at all, we rolled into "The Nook" café, I arrived a little before the others & was able to leap out & take some "arrival pics".

As we left The Nook, the sky was pretty dark in one direction & only a mile down the road, there was proper surface water, so we'd just missed a downpour

We travelled along a stunning road behind a pick-up pulling a tree axle trailer, often these are difficult to keep up with, but not this one. After that was the flat-lands around Longtown & Gretna, long long straights with little scenery, but soon after crossing the border we made a wide sweeping curve into the hills & were rewarded with some excellent roads & lovely scenery, quite a lot of sunshine too, 

Eventually the route turned & came into Lockerbie, by which time the sun had gone away & it hailed again while I was stuck at traffic lights, but shortly after a petrol station provided a canopy, but did we put the roofs up for the last run for the hotel? Of course not, so we got wet in a shower after a mile, but after 2 miles it was dry at the hotel. That evening old SKCCer "Beefy & his son James arrived to join us for tea.

Day 3 video part 1

Day 3 video part 2

RogueRunners '26 Day 2, Snaith to Ecclefechan

Day two, up with the lark, re-pack the cars & head out for breakfast at "The Motorist". Today they were holding a Ford meet, so hopes were high as I consider myself to be a Ford person, though I haven't actually owned a Ford car since a "Sebring red" (orange) MkIII Cortina in the late '80s - lots of Ford parts in numerous other cars, but no actual Fords.

We arrived at the gate brandishing our tickets, the chap said "Umm - is this a Ford?" "most of it is" I replied, but he sent us off to park on the gravel anyway, but not before saying "and him behind you?" while he pointed at Linda.

If I'm honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the cars on display, they seemed to be mostly restored front wheel drive cars from the '80s & not a single Hot Rod, though we were early, so more interesting things may have arrived later

Not a "Ford day" car, though it is a Ford & very nice.

This seemed to be a real RS200, one of the road cars

Not really a MkIII Escort, it's an RS1700T rally car, produced just as the rally world went 4WD. Pity really, we could've had RWD MkIII Escort homologation cars & maybe a production RWD RS car

But apart from a few interesting things like that, the order of the day was hatchbacks.

So we out headed north on the A162, past the inevitable speed trap van. There was a spell on the A1(M) but we were soon off & heading west past the Harewood speed hillclimb course. We crossed the river Wharfe in Otley, where the town fete was in progress - I made this mistake last year & repeated the error. We dropped into Blubberhouses & up the other side of the valley & after a fair bit of good moorland road we drove into Masham & saluted the Black Sheep Brewery, then there was a guy taking photos on a bend, no sign, no website, just a red van parked up, but Linda found him & the photos he took of us on the internet anyway. Shortly after that was the first refreshment stop at the very nice Brymor ice cream parlour.

Suitably refreshed, we had some confusion over a petrol stop, before passing the hamlet of Booze & up onto moorland - over 400m up & then down to Barnard Castle, where all of us saw the castle. After that there was a run up the river Wear valley to – unsurprisingly – Wearhead, then climbing over the 600m contour into Nenthead.

We'd been going a fair while by this point, so called into “The Nook” farm shop & café for the next refreshment / loo stop. 

After our cake nourishing snack, we found ourselves rising up the South Tyne, we passed through Slaggyford, but missed out the M6 altogether, headed north west with not far to go. I had planned a refuel stop at Longtown, 36 miles from Ecclefechan, but it was just a pile of rubble, fortunately I was just checking the SatNav for "petrol near me" when a Gulf station hoved into view.

Shortly after that we rolled into The excellent Ecclefechan Hotel to find Duncan already there, having driven up from the south coast in a day. The car park was also filled with biker types from The MZ Owner's Club - though they mostly seemed to be riding BMWs.

So considering the weather forecast looked like this before we set off, with that rain front pretty much right on our route, we actually did rather well, only a brief shower just before Ecclefechan, certainly not worth putting the roof up for.

RogueRunners '26, Days 0 & 1

 Why Days 0 & 1? just like last year I established "base camp" at my girlfriend's house so I didn't have so far to drive. This turned out to be something of an adventure in itself as there were a couple of bursts of hail, short sharp bursts, with the emphasis on the sharp. But almost instantly the sun came out, so my luggage in the passenger seat remained dry - ish.

The following day I woke up stupidly early, but after a couple of hours of lying very still, I got up & we loaded the cars before heading for the breakfast meet at the Stamford Garden Centre. We found Richard on the A1, but as I'd refuelled on arrival the day before, I went direct to the café & found everyone else standing around in the car park when I arrived. As usual the garden centre café did us proud - the first of many Full English Breakfasts.

Having paid our dues, we headed north through the almost Cotwolds-like areas of Lincolnshire. Finding quite a few quiet sweeping roads, we stopped for coffee & cake at "The Courtyard Tearooms", but unfortunately Richard didn’t see the turning & carried on. We were looking a little unkempt so we were ushered into “the barn” which was very nice. As we left, the staff took an interest in our journey & came out to see the cars & wave us off.

Immediately after that was the 50p toll bridge, I checked the price again this year - still 50p.

After that, more sweeping curves, but with more & less attractive villages, there was one speed camera van, but not a problem as I was 10mph below the limit behind a car. We then lost Linda & Mark at the same fuel stop we lost Linda at last year, but while we were there a message came through from Richard (now the one-man advanced scouting party) saying a road was closed, but follow the diversion signs until the SatNav tries to double back, then delete a waypoint. Wise words indeed. By the time I got to that point I’d taken a wrong turn on a dual-carriageway (or more correctly NOT taken a right turn) so I was on my own, only catching the others at the final fuel stop immediately before the hotel.

Richard had already dealt with the confusion caused by the hotel having us booked in on the wrong day, so we all checked in successfully & had a drink & a good meal at a very reasonable price, before retiring to bed.

There's a video here

RogueRunners '26 Epilogue

 Well the big tour is over for another year, so it's time to take stock & ask what we learned.

Firstly, we leaned that the weather in south west Scotland isn't always brilliant. Though to be fair, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the forecast.

Not strictly something we learned as we knew it already, but the Ecclefechan Hotel is a brilliant place to base a tour. with comfortable rooms, excellent food, plentiful "out of sight" parking & good access to superb roads & scenery. Adrian & Cath made us very welcome.

This year kit cars were once again in the majority & no-one went home on a lorry, so I suppose we learned that a properly maintained kit can be reliable in "less than optimum" weather.

There was no falling out, everyone just got on with the driving, chatting, eating cake & having a good time, some stayed for the whole tour, others came & went, took days off to see other things or just have a rest & this is as it should be, it's a holiday after all.

There will be more posts over the next few days as I look at my notes of things that happened & places we went. There will also be videos appearing on my YouTube channel "Fury1630"

This year's Rogues - well, most of them, Steve & Bob weren't there that day - an excellent bunch.

RogueRunners '26 Prologue

 

We have routes, we have hotels booked & most important of all, we have stickers & tee-shirts printed! For anyone who's wondering, no that's not AI "artwork" it was all created by my lovely girlfriend's fair hand, yes, she is very good at it isn't she.

Usually we alternate between Scotland & the north of England, but RR25 was SO successful & the Ecclefechan hotel SO welcoming, that we decided we would like to do it all again.

So here we are girding our loins for RogueRunners 2026 "Another Fechan Tour". There's a couple of people from 2025 not joining us, but on the other hand, there's a couple of people we didn't have on a run last year, one of whom is new to to the Rogues. The routes are more or less the same as last year, a couple of the longer ones have been pruned down to 200 miles as last year we were doing the South West Coast 300, so there were places we needed to reach, this time we're just up for the driving. I may have reversed  to direction of one ore two to avoid driving the same bits.

I don't suppose we'll get the weather we had last year (which was spectacular) but we will still enjoy ourselves, because that's what we do.

BRING IT ON!

Trim

 It's less than a week before the 2026 Road Trip, so what am I doing to the car? Checking important items? Topping up fluids? Testing electrical circuits?

No, I'm making door handle trims.

When I got the car it had Fiesta inside door handles - broken Fiesta inside door handles. I made up a plate & modified the release so it would hold together & work - which it has - but it's not a pretty thing & with the increasing "gentrification" of the Stylus' insides I thought something better was required.

Here's a picture of the passenger side handle, because - yes - I didn't think to take a "before" picture.

As you can see, it's  "serviceable" but not a nice thing to look at.

And yes - you just know the 3D printer is going to appear in this story, don't you?

Here's the 2D model I drew & you can see it has the same grooves as the handbrake boot / trim & the gearstick trim. I had to re-work it a little as it's all curves & angles, but the second print was very close, so after a few more adjustments I set the printer going again.

So there it is, all printed & in place. When I originally made the handles work I just put a countersunk bolt with a nut on the Ford bit, but that now has a riv-nut to save my knuckles, the hinge is all hidden & I'm quite pleased with the result. I may improve on it a little more yet, but it's a lot tidier than it was before.

Nice!

 

The steering wheel boss is finished, glued & fitted. 

I LIKE it, suits the style of the car perfectly.

It also has a little orange & blue stripeage going on Just to continue the theme.

Considering that wheel was a £30 Mini cast off from the Beaulieu auto jumble with a bit of 3d printing & a piece of alloy scrap, I'm pretty chuffed with that.

The instrument panels are looking a little "plain" now though. They might be a winter job.