And so to Barry's first proper road trip - and what a corker it was...
I've said it before but NEVER change a trip just because of a weather forecast. One week ago, the forecast was predicting monsoon rains across Wales - the reality couldn't have been more different and roof's stayed down for the entire trip.
However, the trip up to Gloucester on Thursday evening after work was worrying - the monsoon did happen and I've rarely driven in rain that hard - a very good test of Barry's drains. We arrived around 9pm to a pretty nice hotel with a brand new and almost empty bar - we even had to go find the barman to get us a drink.
There were to be 4 of us on this trip; me in my 987, my son in his BMW M2, Vic in his 981 and Tony (joining us in the morning as he only lived 40 mins away) in his lovely, blue 981.
Day 1 - Gloucester to Llangynog - 163 miles
The day dawned sunny and bright and we drove 2 minutes from the hotel for breakfast in an excellent little cafe, who did a great bacon and egg roll and provided inspiration:
The route to our first coffee stop in Hay-on-Wye was a sign of things to come; twisty, pretty good surface (at least, compared to Surrey) but quite a lot of traffic. We managed to park right in the centre of Hay, with a cafe right next to the cars:
The route onwards continued to be excellent fun and we arrived at our lunch stop (we didn't go hungry on this trip) in the pretty town of Llandrindod Wells - a lovely cafe by the lake:
Parking was a squeeze but we all got in...
The A483 from Crossgates to Newtown was a beautifully smooth, curving run through stunning greenery, only let down by the 2 vans who drove just fast enough to prevent us over-taking on the very few straights.
A few narrow roads and some brilliant B-roads brought us to Lake Vyrnwy (yeah, try pronouncing that!) for our final stop of the day at the ice-cream shop there - very nice. We found a good spot further round the lake to get my drone up and I'll add some video at a later date:
The road around the lake is truly stunning; huge trees, moss-encrusted rocks and a sublime road that twists and turns, with no traffic - wonderful.
We arrived at the hotel for the night pretty knackered - and the hotel was a story in itself. Called the New Inn, it was 'new' in much the same way the 'New Forest' is new; probably first built in the 17th century and not been much updated since - well, certainly not this century. Our room had a large wet patch on the carpet, underneath a tear in the ceiling, where water had obviously leaked. I found out later that my bed was also wet - fortunately, there were 3 other beds in the room. However, the less said about the shower, the better...view from my room below:
The evening meal was pretty reasonable, the beer was cheap and the pool table was ours all evening - my son had a crash course and was surprisingly good. I slept very well that night...
Day 2 - Llangynog to Rhayader - 183 miles
The sun was out again in the morning as we headed off to Lake Bala; a narrow, single lane road along one side and the main A road on the other:
The A5 to Betws-y-Coed is a truly stunning road through lovely scenery but clogged with traffic at the best of times, more so on a hot, sunny day that we had. But perfect for a convertible and we stopped in Betws for coffee in the sun:
I'd always planned to skip the Llanberis Pass as, beautiful as it is, it's always rammed with coaches crawling down it and today was no exception - one turned off to the pass in front of us. The roads in the area were still quite busy but we had patches of excellent B-road mayhem, the 3 Porsches trying to keep up with my son's mental M2. Considering we had over 100bhp less, we did well.
Lunch was at the Ffestiniog railway station, a regular haunt for me on previous trips and a great location. My son learnt all about steam engines as the train thundered past during our meal:
The run down the coast, via Harlech and Barmouth was a fun cruise with a great view out to sea and my son's confusion at the Penmaenpool toll bridge when the man asked him for £1 was a giggle - he had never heard of the concept (kids, hey?).
Afternoon coffee stop was at another well-known place to me, the Two Hoots cafe in Devil's Bridge, where we experienced the only bit of rain on the trip (not enough to put the roof up) - nice cake:
The final leg of the day was arguably the best of the trip - the Elan Valley. This is always good because, despite the narrow roads, bumpy surface and blind crests, there is almost no traffic, long sight lines and the roads are like a go-kart track, which really test the car. Add in some sun and it is nigh-on perfection - we tore along it, the M2 leading and gradually pulling away from us, me giggling insanely at several points as Barry snicked from side to side. If cars could talk, I'm sure Barry would have been cackling as well...what a drive! We had planned to stop in the middle and take some pics but we were having way too much fun for that.
We pulled into The Bear, which was not a pub, as I had expected with a name like that but just a very luxurious (compared to the New Inn) B&B. We ate in a very nice local pub and had a few beers while the only serious rain of the trip thundered down outside. It only lasted an hour or 2 and the roads were almost dry by the time we stumbled out back to the B&B.
Day 3 - Rhayader to Hereford - 195 miles
After the rain on the previous night, all the water was obviously gone and there wasn't a cloud in the sky as we set off, back through the Elan Valley. We took a slightly different route past the lakes, which were really beautiful before joining the road we had taken yesterday, in the opposite direction. This time, we took it more leisurely....nah, nah, we didn't - we barreled down it at only slightly less of warp speed - damn, that is a truly great road.
We were supposed to stop at the Two Hoots for morning coffee but it was decided it was too early, so we soldiered on. Being Sunday and Wales being a little more traditional, lots of places were shut, so lunch was sandwiches from a petrol station.
The roads continued to be glorious; smooth, flowing with bursts of lunacy possible; there is little better in the world than seeing your sat-nav telling you that the next turn is 20 miles away.
The final highlight of the trip was the Black Mountain road through the Brecon Beacons, a short, twisty road that rises up to some splendid views. Sadly, this road has been somewhat tamed by average speed cameras that first appeared last year, so much so that this may be my last visit to this road - the rest of the Brecons are either tiny, single lanes or main, traffic-clogged A roads (unless I'm missing something). The view, however, is always breathtaking:
It may not look like it but the car park was packed, so we weren't able to park together for a better group shot, although my son made up for it by taking another 30 odd pics of his car, as he did at almost every place we stopped.
The last 30 miles or so were relatively tame on those busy but pretty A-roads, to an isolated pub outside Hereford. Vic left us at this point to get straight home that night, while we had to resort to ordering a Pizza Hut delivery - the pub stopped doing food at 4pm. From about 7pm, we had the pub and the pool table to ourselves - a fun night and we also taught my son a little about darts - every day is a school day for some...
Day 4 - Hereford to home - 178 miles
The last day of a road trip is always a bit depressing - saying goodbye, knowing you are returning to drudgery and work (well, for some). We said our goodbye's to Tony who had a nice route planned back through the Cotswolds and we set off in blazing sunshine again.
My son and I had originally planned to amble along to the M4 and shoot home but the weather was too beautiful to be wasted on a motorway, so we stuck to the long route. On any other day, it would have been huge fun but, compared to the previous 3 days, it was a little slow with too much traffic (although still MUCH better than the motorway slog). We got home around 4pm and another great trip was in the bag.
Epilogue
After 839 miles, zero car issues, no chats with plod and the best weather of the year so far in this country, I feel I can safely say the trip was a resounding success. It was always a risk going away with complete strangers but Vic and Tony proved to be kindred spirits in a desire to use these cars as the designers intended and not to get too upset by the ever-growing coats of dirt their cars accumulated - many thanks to you both.
This is my 2nd road trip with my son and I love the fact we have this interest in common (I feel safe in writing this, he's a yoof and he won't read 'words') - I hope there will be more with him. Although I think he has enough photo's of his car now...please stop taking pics at EVERY stop!
I always leave my final words for the most important member of the trip - my car. This was Barry's first road trip and he performed flawlessly. Considering that he is 19 years old (the oldest car I have ever owned), it astounds me how comfortable, smooth and fast he is. In the full twisties, he was keeping up with a much younger, far more powerful BMW - only the straights saw him lag behind a little.
Roll on the next trip...
Video of the trip - apologies for all the music but I forgot I had my stereo on while filming, so I couldn't easily edit it unless I plastered music all over it...
A stupendous weekend of sun awaited the Surrey Porksters as we met up at Denbies:
Then a short drive to Max's Diner for breakfast:
I've never had pancakes with syrup and bacon but it was damn nice - I always thought it sounded horrible but no...
While at Denbies, I noticed a BMW show going on, so I called my son (did I mention that he has bought a stonking M2?) and he joined them, so I went back after breakfast to have a look. I've had 2 Beemers in my time; an old 525i which was my first automatic (lovely, comfy cruiser) and one of the first Z3s bought new in '97. Some guy was selling his 150k mile, 3L Z3 for a miserly £1,950. The bodywork was really bad but the engine sounded great - if I had space, I think I might have bought it because I can see me in 10-20 years trying to buy one and it will cost me £50k.
All set for Wales later in the week...very excited, hope the weather holds out.
The British Summer has started and will probably finish on Monday, so I took the opportunity to go for a short lunchtime drive in the glorious sun. I turned up at the Brockham village cafe and, amazingly, there was a space right outside. A tad embarrassing reversing into the space with the full cafe all staring at me but the lunch was great and the drive awesome:
You may notice that Barry looks quite clean? Yup, washed him a few days ago and even put wax on, although I only managed half the car before the rain started. Can you tell which half? No, neither can I - and this is why I never bother.
In preparation for the Wales trip, I decided to bin my perfectly fine 245 section front tyres for the standard 235s that the car should have, in a hope to fix the tramlining Barry is suffering from - and, boy, did it seem to work!
The old tyres had a good 3mm of tread but they were 5 or 6 years old, so maybe that was the problem but the new Michelin PS5s (£260 for the pair - not too bad) have improved the tramlining (although I haven't been on a bad road to test it more thoroughly) AND have improved the ride comfort significantly.
Out for a drive later this evening - I'll update this post after that, if necessary.
A bright, sunny day looked great from my bed but the air temperature was 6 degC and it felt even colder with the Arctic wind blowing - I expected to see penguins, it was that cold.
Earlier in the week, I had done something new for me - I bought cleaning fluids! The roof had some algae growing on it, so I blew £34 on Autoglym roof cleaner and sealant. Total waste of money - it looked better afterwards but only because I scraped the algae off. I could have done that with normal car shampoo. I put the sealer stuff on, which is supposed to have UV protecting and water beading properties - we'll see. I also bought some cheap Halfords spray-on wax but I never got time to use it - hopefully soon and I'm expecting miracles.
Strangely, despite the temperature and wind, with the roof down, heated seats on, it was fine and I met up with the Porksters at Denbies at 8am:
I was able to pass on my wooden spoon to someone else, who's car was still cleaner than Barry but I was ineligible, luckily...
We then headed off (with me leading, for some strange reason) for an amble down the A24 to the Old Barn garden centre, where we took over the still-empty car park:
(That's a Chesil, not an original 356, but still looked great).
After an enjoyable breakfast and some chat, I had to shoot off a little earlier than the others (dog walking promises) and I had a nice drive back, chasing down some 60s Midget-type car, with full rollbar and chunky wheels - he was doing 105; pretty impressive in that rickety looking thing. I obviously had to go past him just to prove a point...
I love the A25 on sunny days - all the garage queens come out; E-types, old Alfas, numerous Lotus's and supercars - great fun just to watch.
Devon in Zedster this weekend and my Wales trip is looking good as I put a post on the Boxa forum and got 2 people keen to join me, so that's in 3 weeks or so.
A wonderful weather weekend (alliteration!) gave me an excuse to get out in Barry.
On Saturday, I drove over to a fellow Boxster owner who let me have his Porsche decals that he had decided not to fit. I was still on the fence about these but I thought no harm to get them and add them at a later date, if I wanted. However, subsequent talks with others suggests I better not because they are difficult to take off if you change your mind and my paintwork is bad enough. But it was an excuse for a short drive in the sunshine...
On Sunday was an initial meet with the Porksters at Hindhead and the Devils Punchbowl. The weather bought about 15 of us out:
It was a bit cold initially at 8am but I put the roof down for the Hindhead tunnel - lovely!! I hadn't washed Barry for a while so he did look a bit of a state and I won the wooden spoon award for dirtiest car. Proud to have actually won something for a rare occasion but not worth bragging about.
After a nice breakfast, a smaller group of 7 or so headed off for a lovely drive down to the Three Horseshoe pub in Elsted. We were going to go to Goodwood but the members meeting was on. We got to the pub just in time for it to open and had a nice cold drink in the sunshine, trying to catch the chickens that wandered around the pub garden.
We all agreed - the best way to spend a sunny day.
On the way home, in an attempt to avoid the beautiful but always busy A272, I fluked an amazing route back, which was sublime - no cars, reasonable surfaces, twists and turns - almost perfect. ,Gawd, I hope I find it again...it was so good, in fact, that it has cemented my decision to keep Barry. He was great fun on roads that would have had Zedster scraping his seat bolts. What a callous, heartless git I am....
In sadder news, my son's Golf is gone. He was quoted £3k to fix the turbo and intercooler (I think that was unnecessary), with no guarantee that would be the end of the problems and he just couldn't face it, especially since he hadn't really bonded with the car. He managed to recoup £6k of the £9k he bought it for by selling it to a friend's garage but he is now carless and a little depressed, poor guy. He's going to save up some money and wait until he is 21 in July (cheaper insurance) before committing to anything else.
This also means he misses out on both my trips; Devon in a couple of weeks and Wales in May. In fact, someone else may also not be able to make Wales, so we're down to 2 of us - I may have to postpone it.
Finally, on my return from the day out, I noticed my spoiler was not flush with the bodywork. Looking closer, I seemed to have lost all 3 of the fittings that hold the top piece on:
Weird, not sure when that happened, or has it always been like that and only now popped up? Anyway, quick trip to Halfords, £3.09 for some plastic pop fittings and all fixed - probably the cheapest fix I will ever do on a Porsche.
So a decent run out with the Surrey Porksters, from Fairoaks airfield in Chobham to Benson (yeah, never heard of it) in Oxfordshire...
The clocks had gone back so the 7am alarm call was actually 6am and I had a few drinks the night before with friends, so I was pretty knackered. But it was dry with the potential for sun later, so roof down and a fun 50 minute drive to the airfield to meet the others:
Just the 5 of us but it was Easter Sunday so lots of people had family commitments. The traffic was pretty light so we had some good blats along some nice roads (pics courtesy of Artur in the red Cayman):
The Waterfront cafe did a very nice omelette:
The others had to get back so took the motorway- I tried to use my newish Tomtom satnav to take me a more fun route home but failed miserably. It was set to 'thrilling' which basically meant the tiniest, single track lanes - not what I wanted. I changed it to 'short' and that was better, although the M4 corridor is not the greatest place for nice roads.
I happened to be driving past Blackbushe Airport and stopped to have a quick look as they had a car meet there that day but it was done by the time I got there at 12. However, a kit car friend invited me round (he'd been at Blackbushe earlier and lived down the road), so I popped over for a coffee and chat.
The sun was out for the rest of my drive home, which was lovely - can't beat a convertible in good weather.
For the first time, I used my camera to film the run. However, the mount, stuck to the wind deflector, vibrates far too much, so the video at speed wasn't good. However, a short video was produced:
In other news, my son has had more bad luck - the turbo on his Golf GTi let go. Its going to a garage to see how bad it is - if he is lucky, it's just the turbo and will cost him £1200 or so to fix (lucky he just got a bonus at work).
However, this setback had him thinking again and he came up with an idea; he'd buy Barry off me and that way I could still drive him occasionally AND keep Zedster. I'm not sure about that - I'm not really keen on part-ownership but he bought an insurance policy (same price as the Golf) and he's had a few drives over the weekend.
His verdict was that Barry was great to drive (especially with the roof down) but the manual gearbox will be wearing on his commutes to work, so thankfully, that idea is out.
Booked tickets for the Goodwoood revival in September- only been once before and I stupidly took the kids who wanted to come home after an hour. Just me this time...
