Coniston Meet, Spring 2013

[explosive-cabbage]

I've done a bit of a ring-around today, and you were correct, the Hardknott Pass is closed and will be closed for around another week.

 

I rang a couple B+Bs on the route aswell as the Woolpack Inn, and they said that there was massive drifts still on the Cockley Beck side, and thus was closed for the time being but hopefully open in a couple days time.

I then rang Copeland Council who put me through to the Local Highways department who told me that it would be closed for around another week, as it is to dangerous to get snow clearing equipment up there.

 

That's a shame, would have loved to have done it.

 

Never mind, it would have been a brilliant route though!

[SambaS]

I have every faith it will be open come Sunday.

[explosive-cabbage]

Using my Mum's account I posted the owner of this clip a question, in regards to the Honister pass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8YCXI7LJkc&lcor=1&feature=em-comment_reply_received&lc=CBfzZfmJN6hRv5lZ74quLOTXPyXsI1rizFyLgP0quyc&lch=email_reply

 

I have every faith it will be open come Sunday.

Hope so! Easy to check, I have the Copeland Council Highways Department number

BTW, Nice pic in the Yorkshire Post!

[SambaS]

Looks good to me!

[eddyramrod]

I'm thinking we should line up a bunch of the attending cars and pose for a massed Woollarding photo on Sunday.....

[mouseflakes]

Hmmm - Delica or Saxo D? Which to bring?

 

 

Deli is more ridiculous, but I like driving the Saxo.

 

Or maybe just the wheelie bin.

[eddyramrod]

In case it influences the decision.... Woollarding a Delica could be medically inadvisable!

[gdhaydock]

In case it influences the decision.... Woollarding a Delica could be medically inadvisable!

 

Might be good to watch though.....

[Guest]

Checked the system at work, the Honister Pass isn't coming up as closed any more - although I'm not the one that made the check calls today.

 

HOWEVER - the one person who could feasibly cover me tomorrow isn't answering phone calls, emails and facebook messages, so it isn't looking likely I can attend. If things carry on the way they are I probably won't be able to make Arley Hall either, which is a pisser as tomorrow sounds amazing.

[eddyramrod]

Oh that's upsetting, Jon! I was so looking forward to meeting up at last. Let's hope something can be arranged for Arley Hall, or we'll just have to have another northern meet later on!

[KruJoe]

I'm thinking we should line up a bunch of the attending cars and pose for a massed Woollarding photo on Sunday.....

YES!

 

[KruJoe]

You'd better not have forgotten about this, any of you lot!

 

So any Yorkshire shitters gonna meet us ont' way? We'll be at our place at 8am, or near Settle at about 8:30. If not, we'll see you there. Proper looking forward to this. *goes off to charge camera batteries*

[eddyramrod]

Take your time, Joe! Cafe doesn't open until 10 and we'll be there gassing for a good hour or more anyway. I don't want anyone killing themselves to get here early! There's plenty of room. Don't worry.

[KruJoe]

No, I'm not fretting! We'll take our time getting to you, and I'm sure we won't be early!

[cms206]

Scotland is awake and leaving shortly... Really rather looking forward to this

[KruJoe]

Will and Joe are leaving soon.

The weather looks a bit 'moody', but will brighten up later.

See you there!

[skattrd]

Have fun chaps, I'm looking forward to the pics

[Guest]

Bloke who promised he'd cover my shift hasn't come through and confirmed. FUCK'S SAKE.

[eddyramrod]

Major update coming later, with pics. Lots of them, so be ready for a good read! However, in summary:

My exhaust broke.

[Formula Autos]

I can haz pikchaz of this meet. Which didn't go near Coniston, actually. Still, a good time seemed to be had by all.

Eddie's lay-by of choice, with some of the attendees' cars in a rare moment when it wasn't raining.

The line-up at the Lakeland Motor Museum, which was hastily herded into a staff car park by horrified car park stewards. I paid no heed to this and parked my Cougar in the 'Event Car Park' next to a pre-war Rolls-Royce. You should have seen the faces of the R-R Owners Club when I casually locked my car and strolled towards the museum.

Mine wasn't the only plebs' motor in the Event Car Park though. Parked the other side of the Roller from mine was this. This was one of a trio, but crap camera skillz resulted in this being the only decent photey.

This saucy wee number was parked opposite me as well. There was also E-types and such.

Inside the museum now, and near the entrance was this 800 with Manx plates.

A symphony in beige. And a Manta.

One of dozens of jam packed cabinets offering chod spotting opportunities in miniature. Spot the Celeste.

A shockingly bad photo of some of BL's finest.

Eddie inspecting some exhibits closely.

On my way back to my car I spotted this had arrived in the Event Car Park

As had this.

The bonnet was up on this too, revealing (I think) a throbbing 1.3 litres of Kent POWAR!!!

 

So on my way home then, but I managed to do a bit of light spotting on the way.

Ex-Pickfords Scammel recovery truck languishing beside the main road at Foxfield.

Bedford TK Fire engine next to the road up to Ulpha. I thought I'd take a short cut home over one of the fell roads.

I decided not to bother though when I saw this sign. As there was still odd bits of snow next to the A595, at just above sea level, going up here seemed a bit risky.

Fairly solid looking Ovlov parked in a hedge just next to the A595 at the end of Whicham Valley.

This little beauty was parked up at a garage on the A595, in Holmrook.

A Pink Panther special edition, by the looks of it. The car looked minty fresh, particularly for something '80s FIAT based.

And finally, my car tucked up in its lock-up.

[gdhaydock]

An epic day.

 

Nice to meet everyone who was there and good to put faces to names. Thanks to Eddy for arranging and providing cake & coffee.

 

Just got home now. No doubt someone will be along soon to explain how my calibra disgraced itself *trying* to ascend hard knott pass this afternoon

[Cavcraft]

Four Cavaliers-in-shell-suits?

 

Now that's what I call a meeting!

[mouseflakes]

Sorry I had to scoot off early from this (sudden attack of guilt as I really should have been at home beating my son into doing some revision for his exams).

 

Thanks for organising it Eddy - it was good to see a few folks in the (cold, wet) flesh.

 

I hope Joe managed to get the Samara home afterwards or is it still in a lay-by? If it's near South Kendal and you need a safe port (or cup of tea) nearby while retrieving it, give me a shout.

[eddyramrod]

Just remembered, someone wanted my email address... and was going to write it down, with an actual pen on actual paper! Except, we forgot to do that and I've just remembered now. Who was it? Shout up and I'll PM you.

[John F]

An epic day.

 

Yes it was, not spoilt by a bit of early morning drizzle*

 

Nice to meet everyone who was there and good to put faces to names. Thanks to Eddy for arranging and providing cake & coffee.

 

+1 on that, great to see you all today and thanks Eddy for organising the event (and the cake).

 

No doubt someone will be along soon to explain how my calibra disgraced itself *trying* to ascend hard knott pass this afternoon

 

Perhaps a bit of background on this would be helpful... we decided to have a "hill climb time trial" up Hardknott pass from the bridge at the bottom. This started out very well, with four out of the five contestants registering respectable times. The final car was the POWAH daddy of the group, GDH's 3.0 V6 Calibra.

 

Unfortunately (especially as it's a very steep single-track road full of hairpin bends with very few options for turning round) it 'failed to proceed' half way up with suspected ignition / fuelling issues.

 

After A LOT of dicking about, we got it turned round & coasted it back down to the starting line (with no brake servo or power steering), whereupon we eventually worked out it had decided to reject its recent lambda sensor transplant (see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16271&start=45 for more details). Simply unplugging the duff sensor got the car up & running again.

 

This was Very Good News, as another feature of our chosen time trial venue was "absolutely feck-all mobile phone signal" so arranging for recovery would probably have been a biatch. Of course, none of us had anything as useful as a tow rope and KruJoe had used his last bit of barbed wire fence to fix* Eddy's exhaust

[KruJoe]

Erm, we're home. At five past bloody eleven o'clock!

Ladas, don't you just love 'em? More of that later.

Anyhoo, a good time was had by all. Thank you so much Eddy, 'twas a grand day out. Did Mrs RR make the cake? It was top flight gear! I was gonna take your email address by the way, on the special page in my diary. Send us a pm old bean, I'll clear some space for it. Ta!

[SambaS]

Aye thanks for organising Eddy, I just wish I'd managed more that a couple hours sleep the night before. Even still really enjoyed it. I often visit Ullswater, I had forgotten all about the South Lakes but will be back sooner rather than later I think; there were some amazing vistas! And the Samba took Hardknott Pass in it's stride, infact I kicked it's head in up Hardknott Pass. Very good fun!

[SambaS]

Oh dear Joe! I pulled in for a sleep in Sedburgh and still made it home for 8.30

[eddyramrod]

Eddie inspecting some exhibits closely.

 

Probably the best view of me! There've been plenty glad to see this angle...

 

Okay, what you really want is the proper Event Report, isn't it? (Say yes...)

So, I turned up at the meeting point in good time, about half an hour before anyone else.

I'd bought a couple of cakes from work, given the significance of the date; these had been made freshly for Saturday morning's deliveries, and being the bloke who carries them into the shop means I can have my pick. Still had to pay for them though, but I do get a discount. I sat in my car hiding from the horizontal rain, carefully plating-up the cake portions on paper plates. Those who sampled appeared to enjoy them.

First to arrive was a delegation from the Calibra Club, at least that's what it looked like!

Swiftly followed by FormulaAutos in the Cougar, and CMS206 in the famous Council Estate.

Tea Fund vouchers were distributed and redeemed and people seemed to be having a jolly time, even if the weather was doing its best to live up to the group name. My cap blew off several times! We agreed this was going to become a running theme for the day.

Pete-M arrived and promptly parked in the opposite direction to everyone else...

but he did turn it round later. Pete and CMS were telling tales of passing an MR2 and a Samba, which didn't sound very promising, but they made it, hello Joe, Will and Edd!

The Samara had apparently decided it didn't want to join us... about 20 miles after setting off. So they abandoned it and got here in what they had.

The yellow Skoda was a guest invited by me, as we've been talking on Facebook for months and he does love old cars. He did actually register here, but it was a long time ago and he can't remember his username or password. And the site won't let him register a new username to the email address it has on file for him. So he keeps an eye on us through me and FB.

And the blue Citroen was mouseflakes, completing the lineup.

At this point, I just want to thank everyone for turning up at all. The weather was totally hostile so I wouldn't have blamed anyone for staying in bed.

11.30 rolled around and we decided nobody else was coming, so we set off in convoy for the Lakeland Motor Museum. Naturally we got split up, so after a couple of miles I pulled into a suitable layby to let everyone catch up. We continued to the Museum where the parking warden, after conferring with the Calibra ahead of me and seeing some behind, asked me "are you all Vauxhalls then?" I'm driving a Peugeot....... I showed him one of the Autoshite Tea Fund vouchers I'd printed off, so he classed us as "a car club" and found us a space in another parking area across the road. Fine, good enough for us. One or two decided to park elsewhere, which was also fine by us. Once we parked Joe and Will (KruJoe and explosive-cabbage) took great interest in the back of my car, as they thought it was sounding a bit sporty. Will got underneath and found my back-box hanging by a thread. After an abortive attempt to fix it in true Shite style, with inadequate tools and no spare parts, it was decided that I could manage without it for the rest of the day. Will detached it and it's now in my boot.

As soon as I've finished here I'll be on the phone to my garage about that. Will, thank you for leaping in (unbidden, I have to add!) and trying to bodge a repair.

This is what was around us...

Before setting foot in the actual Museum, we thought we'd have a look at the other car parks.

This green Victor lives locally. I've seen it a few times now but this was the first time I'd been able to photograph it. It's bloody gorgeous.

So, into the Museum now, and a spot of low-level Woollarding with a 30s Buick.

A few of the exhibits that caught my eye...

^How mad is that? Straight six, DOHC, air-cooled, one litre capacity, across a motorbike! I'm thinking it would be a lot of fun across the back of an old Fiat 500....

As you can see, it's quite tightly-packed in there. There's a lot of stuff I haven't shown you. Some of it because I couldn't get a shot, some because my flash wasn't good enough and the shot I did get was dark. If you get the chance, visit.

So we came out of the main building and had a look at the Campbell exhibition in another shed...

Yes, those Campbells. Donald and his dad, Sir Malcolm. This ^ is a replica of the Bluebird that crashed at Coniston in January 1967, killing Donald. It was built for a BBC film of the attempt, "Across The Lake" (1989) which starred Anthony Hopkins.

Outside they have a couple of elderly caravans, which are interesting. They seem quite spacious in relation to modern vans.

Some last-minute car park pics...

This is probably the best angle, because if you go round the back....

Luke, are you any good at bodywork?

Roger (yellow Skoda) and I were the last of the group to leave the Museum, so we thought we'd slip along to the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, which is only up the road; we'd passed it in our convoy. Roger found a friend...

You can wander around the engine shed, as well as the handful of static exhibits they have outside...

And finally, we watched one of their steam trains arrive and depart...

 

To those who turned up at all, thank you. I was pleased to be able to operate the Tea Fund as intended, and just to meet a bunch of people I've only spoken to here. Several were younger than I imagined, which is a good thing, I love to see the younger guys appreciating the older cars. I think it was a damn good day overall, despite the weather and my exhaust. Maybe I should be looking for more destinations, for this time next year. Yes?

[Pete-M]

Definitely. Was a goodly meet.

 

I'd have gone to have a look at those trains, but had to be elsewhere in the evening. My fault, another timetable fail from me.