Are we ready for Day Two? Buckle up – it was a bumpy ride!
After a very blustery night, we woke to Storm Ashley throwing some pretty hefty gusts of wind around and it was decidedly wet. But we gathered in the hotel conservatory dining room and enjoyed our Full Scottish Breakfasts whilst waiting for the weather to blow itself out as promised by the forecasts.
Thankfully, by 10am, the rain had stopped and the wind had settled to a strong breeze (with very enthusiastic sporadic gusts) so we all loaded our bags into boots, checked tyre pressures, stubbornly put our roofs down, and headed out to see how the roads were.
Our final destination for the day was Berwick-Upon-Tweed, which is right on the opposite coast to where we were starting. We were hoping that the storm hadn’t caused any catastrophic flooding or brought any trees down on our route – the local reports looked hopeful on that front at least – and if the weather forecast was accurate we should be able to keep the tops down all day!
We set off and after a short while, there was even some blue sky above us! The roads were clear of fallen trees, but there was a lot of water about. We had a few bits where we had to paddle the cars through carefully as the puddles had met n the middle of the road… and were also sometimes more running water than not.
For all there were no full trees across the roads, the weather had stripped a lot of leaves down making some areas very beautifully carpeted with very slippy leaves. Great to look at, not so fun to drive over as they hid potholes and puddles and were just quite slimy all round.
There were also lots of sticks about, one of which decided to attach itself to the bottom of our car (but not any of the four or five cars in front of us, clearly we are just special) – which meant we had to stop so Caius could fight it out from where it had wedged itself and then we had to catch back up with everyone again. Luckily it was on a bit of road that didn’t really have any turn offs, so we didn’t lose them!
All was well until we stopped in Moffat for a loo break, and then we jumped back in the car… and watched as everyone else pulled out and drove away whilst our car refused to even try to start.
Turning the key just did… nothing.
We checked the battery – it was fine, so it wasn’t that. The car was just… weirdly dead.
By this time, the others had noticed we weren’t in the group and called us to check if we’d got lost somewhere. When we said we were still back in the car park, everyone turned back to come help us get back on the road – thankfully it wasn’t a Top Gear Road Trip because we all know how that would have gone otherwise!
After a bit of prodding we got the car going again by bump starting it, and decided to head for lunch with no further stops. The idea being that we could have lunch and then have another look at things after the engine had cooled down enough to be touchable!
We made it to the lunch spot near Selkirk with no further issues, but on arriving we stopped and then attempted to start the car again and nope. Nada.
So we left it and went for lunch, then afterwards those with a bit more car brain than I have went out and had a poke around the now-cool engine and identified the problem as a loose connection somewhere in the starter motor.
This meant that if said loose wire got wiggled back in enough, the car started again – yay!
This discovery meant we were able to set off again reasonably confident that if we turned the engine off, we would be able to get it going again afterwards – which is always a good thing.
The second half of the day was thankfully quite uneventful, other than some spectacular rainbows and impressive puddles.
To round off the weekend, we all went out for a very tasty curry near our hotel in Berwick-upon-Tweed and finished off with a few drinks together to celebrate our adventure.
That was the end of the ‘official’ Zed Run – everyone went their separate ways the next morning – but Caius and I weren’t done just yet, so I will be back tomorrow for Days 3 and 4 our our Z’Adventure.
See you then! (Or not, if you’re sick of photos of rainbows and cars and vast Scottish Border views…)
Carole Finds Her Wings 