Rogue Runners Day 7, Bridlington to Home

Insect collection

Another fair morning with no rain in the forecast. I popped out to minister to the car & noticed a small pool under Steve’s car parked behind mine, I mentioned it to him over breakfast & a little rummaging around found a loose jubilee clip. The bonnet & nose cone came off & some tightening was done, levels topped up & a test run to warm the engine showed no further dripping, so we headed for the sea front for a group photo, for this was the day when all the merrie blatters would go their separate ways.

The plan was to photograph the cars on the prom, then after a “leMans style" start, convoy out of town. We often have this kind of plan – it never goes well. We all strapped in, started the engines & signalled we were ready – no-one moved. After a brief wait the Road Runner moved, pulling out & reversing to film the proceedings, so another couple of cars pulled out, then a couple of tin-tops drove round the camera car, then the rest of us went in fits & starts. I reached a tee junction with a couple of cars behind me, the sat-nav said turn right, just as I was pulling out I looked left & saw a seven heading into town – so we were properly split up now.

We wound our way south through the eastern flatlands, on any normal trip these would’ve been good roads, but traffic, unnecessarily low speed limits & the absence of scenery made it blur into one. It may have been while passing through Goole that I started singing “Dirty Old Town” to myself – it was to haunt me for the rest of the trip. Then in a small village a flash of yellow momentarily caught my attention, someone had opened a garage door to get their Westfield out & was staring open-mouthed as a handful of kit cars burbled past.

About ten miles before we reached the lunch stop, we found ourselves behind a bunch of bikers on Harleys & the like – doing 35 in a 50 limit, spread all over the road & with just not enough room to get past any of them. We followed them waiting for them to turn off, we followed them praying they’d turn off, in the end we turned off onto an entertaining country lane, only to fall in behind them a mile further on. The pulled into the lunch stop before us, so there was no chance of getting served.

It was here that I found out that the car with the water leak had obviously been determined to have a ride on a lorry, because the electrics had given out, leaving our man with little choice but to call for assistance.

We re-fuelled & said out good-byes, for the easterners were going east, while us southerners went south. There was a route to follow, but time was not on our side & we made the decision to take the motorway home & so it was that as we got to M25 Junction 10 I waved a last farewell to GB, & was home 15 minutes later.

2,300 miles

Seven days

Four coasts

One speeding ticket (ahem)

The highlights were the camaraderie, the scenery, the car not breaking (except for the fuse incident & an aerocatch - replaced with a bungee), even the people we met, the lows were two of our fellow blatters not making it & the drudgery of the southern end of getting home. Same again next year? Oh YES.