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.