RogueRunners '23 - Day 3

 Day 3 is a little clearer in my head - & not necessarily for good reasons. We all set off heading for the proper north - to Inverness - and beyond! as Buzz Lightyear so nearly said

Robert was still having trouble with his car, but we set off along the A7 & some local byways, arriving on the outskirts of Edinburgh where most of what I can remember is how shockingly bad the road surfaces were. There was one road with speed humps, but it was difficult to tell where the humps started & the pot holes ended.

We all parked together under the Forth bridge at South Queensferry where an extremely enthusiastic woman sat in the Stylus so her brother could take photos.

After that it went a bit down hill. Most of the journey was good - we got over "The Bridge Of DOOM!" (it's a particularly pointy bridge so you can't see if anythings coming towards you until you're perched on the top).The weather closed in & after refueling in Perth we headed for the Cairngorms & Glen Shee. It's a fantastic road winding through the mountains & we stopped for refreshments at the ski lodge which seemed to be full of painfully thin, extremely fit looking outdoor types looking miserable.

By this time we'd lost the two Elises, so We took some photos outside & as the rain started properly, I fired up the car to find it only running on two cylinders. We headed down the mountain & by the time we reached civilisation the rain had stopped & we pulled into a petrol station where the Elises were just finishing a re-fuel stop.

I fiddled with the Stylus & managed to get it running a little better & with a hundred miles still to go we headed gingerly out onto the road again & what a road it was. It even managed to impress me through the stress of the car not running properly. I looked behind me at one point & realised that while I was stressing & not paying attention, I'd got ahead of the others, but decided to press on as the car was running tolerably well, though that meant I HAD to stick to the route so if the car did fail I would at least be found, so I was driving the middle-of-nowhere single track roads on my own with a sick car. Not a good feeling.

But the miles ticked by & eventually I found myself on the outskirts of Inverness - over the bridge - onto the Black Isle - refuel at Miur Of Ord - the hotel (sigh). Only then did I look at my phone & find that Robert had run out of brake pad (or so they thought) somewhere along the way, but shortly afterwards he came squealing & grinding like a freight train into the car park & the last two followed close behind.

The Repair Crew set to & took down the part No.s of the brake pads & from that found the donor car, but in trying to remove the wheel, we realised the pads were fine. The problem was the wheel bearing. There was a “proper” garage just down the road & we took the car in, he made some notes & after a couple of days it was mended.