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What was your first long distance solo trip?


Eyersey1234

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Suzuki TS50ER aged 16

Needing a dechoke.  Top speed 30 on the flat, 10 mph uphill. 

Went From Liverpool to Grasmere in the lakes. Then to Keswick, Buttermere, across to Penrith, to Dufton, then Malham, and then home. 

I had to push the thing up any hill that was steeper than 1 in 7. 

Stayed in Youth Hostels. 7 nights. 

Alone. 

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Dad's 1.6 Sierra estate aged 17. Drove from Liverpool to Brunel University to pick up my sister after her exams.  Stayed in Banbury at my Grandparents on the way back. 

What parent would hand a 17 year old the keys to.their car and tell them to drive 450 miles around trip (half alone) to pick up thier 19 year old sister ? 

It didn't even have a radio. 

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A week after I passed my test, I drove from Gravesend to Hereford without using a motorway in my S-reg Ka.  Probably around 220 miles?

Many, many, many hours later I arrived at my Grandparents' house and reverse parked it beautifully into the slot in front of the caravan.  The next morning, I went to drive into Hereford, put my left hand down as I was driving out and BANG.  Put a big dent into the nearside rear quarter from the fence post.  The dent that all Kas seem to have...

This was the summer of 2006.  So when I came back a couple of weeks later, I got stuck on the M25 in about 33C for about three hours.  I've never been quite so stuck to my seat since.

Nowadays I don't really think much of getting in the car and driving to Northumberland.  It's all about staving off the boredom.

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I didn't go too far in my first car (1979 Mini) .

I did take my 2nd - 1986 Escort 1.4 GL for a blast from Norfolk down the A11/M11 towards London village. Got as far as Harlow, Essex (referenced as Harlow New Town in the 1972 album track 'Get them out by Friday' by Genesis), refuelled and went back to Norfolk. About 160 miles. I think this was 1998 or 1999 when I was a student and had a decent amount of spare time on my hands.

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Not long after passing my test I drove the Brown Nova from Stratford-on-Avon (my town of origin) up to Chester to see my primary school best mate who had moved there. Was a good learning curve!

At that point I had no idea that one day (6 years later) I’d end up living in Chester myself! 

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I passed my test in late February '88. In April I took my wholly inappropriate 1981 Datsun Cherry to a Custom Car show at the East of England Showground at Peterborough, apparently a journey of 80-90 miles.

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1981 Datsun Cherry and 1971(?) Oldsmobile Cutlass by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

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Custom Car Show 1988, Camping Area by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

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VW and Saab choptops and scallops (1988) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

I went on my own and remember having a bit of paper on which I'd scribbled down my directions.

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The nature of my hobbies (steam railway photography) means I rarely end up solo on long trips, but the first relatively long one I did was Woking-ish to Poole and back, not that far but I did it at a terrible time! A summer Friday rush hour through Ringwood meant 80 miles took 5 1/2 hours. Fun was what it wasn't. Done the length and width of England in the 18 months since though!

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In 2002, having passed my test 5 years earlier but having only just gone from a pushbike to a car, I drove my very rusty 1966 Morris minor from Leeds to London. It never missed a beat that car, although the brakes were never very good. I remember arriving at Piccadilly Circus and being both proud and relieved. 

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My first solo outing of any distance was from my home town of sittingbourne in Kent up to West Bridgeford in Nottingham for a training course.  That was approximately 180 miles each way mostly motorway.

In the days before sat nav was commonplace and you relied on a map. 

I made the journey in my 1989 AX 11TRE and remember feeling the relief when I turned into the road where the hotel I was staying in was situated.

I think I managed to do it without getting lost too is always relieving. 

I made that journey alone many more times in the 2 following years in much old chod.

Rover metro rio which I wrote off in a motorway collision on the way back, Lada Riva which went up twice despite the steering wheel having pretty much zero influence on the direction of travel, mk2 Nova merit plus 5dr, mk3 cavalier 1.4 and something else I can't remember.

Cheers

Ben 

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In mid September 1993  I bought my first car, a low mileage, one elderly owner from new and only ever used to pop down the shops once a week for years 1977 Mini Clubman Estate from Tolworth for £700 and drove it back the 30 odd miles to home in NE Kent along the southern bit of the M25. That wasn't it though. A few days later, after a quick check over by the local garage I popped as many of my personal belongings as I could fit into it, strapped my bike to the roof and headed north to start a course at University. In Aberdeen. 

  

1993 mini clubman estate 01.jpg

 

 

1993 mini clubman estate 02.jpg

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Not really a long distance, but I did a 60-mile-round trip from Eastry to Ashford and back in my dad's 1988 Fiesta Festival 2 the day after I passed my driving test in 1995, as I wanted to experience motorway driving for the first time, and the M20 was the nearest motorway to where I lived at the time :)

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Well, theday after I passed my test a few of us set off in convoy from Orrell, Wigan towards Windermere. The car that I had bought that very morning in December 1991 a  beige 1981 Talbot Sunbeam 950cc. We got on the M6 at J26 and my Talbot didn't make it any further than J27 before starting to knock it's plums out. Managed to limp it back home, Had the shame of telling everyone what a great purchase my very first car was! The next day I found a Hillman Avenger 1.6 in a local scrapyard and put the engine from that into the Talbot. the following day I  managed to mke it to Windermere 3 days later than the others!  We didn't have mobile phones then so no way to contact the others to let them know what had happened. I think it was about a week after the Windermere trip that I bought a CB.. oooh those were the days!

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1 hour ago, Crackers said:

The nature of my hobbies (steam railway photography) means I rarely end up solo on long trips, but the first relatively long one I did was Woking-ish to Poole and back, not that far but I did it at a terrible time! A summer Friday rush hour through Ringwood meant 80 miles took 5 1/2 hours. Fun was what it wasn't. Done the length and width of England in the 18 months since though!

I do quite a bit of photography myself and also volunteer at a preserved railway, if you're ever up in Yorkshire give me a shout, you'd be welcome to have a look round our little line. We don't currently use steam though. 

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'Twas August 1978, maybe 6-7 weeks after passing my test.  I got my hands on a borrowed 1971 Hillman Avenger and drove from Southport to Leeds to visit the famous Cruise.  I tried it again a couple of months later in the 1960 Austin A40 that I'd picked up as a freebie between times.  The poor A40 didn't survive, I saw off the head gasket on the return leg and the car was never the same.

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4 hours ago, New POD said:

Suzuki TS50ER aged 16

Needing a dechoke.  Top speed 30 on the flat, 10 mph uphill. 

Went From Liverpool to Grasmere in the lakes. Then to Keswick, Buttermere, across to Penrith, to Dufton, then Malham, and then home. 

I had to push the thing up any hill that was steeper than 1 in 7. 

Stayed in Youth Hostels. 7 nights. 

Alone. 

Aged 18, on my mid-week days off from work in a hotel, I rode my 1987 Peugeot Premier, from Clydeside via Stirling to SYHA Glen Devon, the next day to SYHA Killin, and the last day from Killin back down the old ultra-twisty A82 (there was one bit that was known in our family as "bum-hole-bend" because it went on for so long that it felt like you were going back on yourself) and from then onto a backshift finishing at midnight.

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34 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

I do quite a bit of photography myself and also volunteer at a preserved railway, if you're ever up in Yorkshire give me a shout, you'd be welcome to have a look round our little line. We don't currently use steam though. 

Which railway is that? Probably won't be up north again until the summer comes around next year, but I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the offer.

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Jumping on the coach from Aberdeen, leaving at Hell o'clock in the morning, all the way down to Birmingham, to meet the seller of a car I'd never seen but in a few eBay photos, then driving off in the dark to head home!

DSCI0052.thumb.JPG.046facd5cb470d34c587bbadbb096ff3.JPG

That was the point at which I realised that the Skoda 130GL had the dash out of the Rapid rather than the standard Estelle...so none of the (non illuminated!) controls were where I expected them to be.  Cue frantic flailing in the dark trying to get the windows to demist (it was tipping it down with rain too) - about the same point that I discovered the interior light didn't work...which made reading the map tricky too.

That aside, the car didn't miss a beat on the way home.

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1 hour ago, Crackers said:

Which railway is that? Probably won't be up north again until the summer comes around next year, but I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the offer.

Yorkshire Wolds Railway, we're open Sundays and Bank Holidays from Easter to the end of September. 

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Having passed my test in April 1998, I only managed to drive my dad's Sierra estate on local jaunts as far as Belfast (9 miles) since I couldn't scrape enough cash together to insure my 1973 Viva HC.

But after quitting my job in the model shop and putting away some of my Halfords wages, I was able to finally tax and insure it in February 1999. I was now fully mobile.

A few weeks later, in April, I headed up to Portrush on the North Coast with three other chums, to visit some ex-school friends who were now at the University of Ulster - about 70 miles distant.

It was one of those weekends that could have been scripted by a diabolic mashup of John Hughes, Kevin Smith and Danny Boyle, containing as it did vast amounts of beer (and, unwisely, Baileys), unexpected Happy Hardcore clubbing, indiscreet casual sex (not me), heartbreaking revelations (again, not me), and wandering through a derelict Bishop's palace on a clifftop while desperately hungover and trying to find somewhere selling Coco Pops (yes, that one was me).

That was also the weekend I came off my R-plates as by then I'd held my full licence for a year - so while I had to crawl up to the North Coast at the legally-mandated 45mph limit, on the way back I was able to peel the hated orange plates off the front and rear glass, cut loose and blast down the M2 at 70mph. Yeehaw.

Later that week, after a few pints with some pals, I ventured that since the Portrush trip had gone so well, it would be a cracking idea to drive the Viva from Belfast to the south of France...

...so we did.

But that's a whole nuther story...

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Boxing Day many many moons ago . Redruth, Cornwall to Ellon , Aberdeenshire . About 750 miles door to door in a moss green Skoda 130 Estelle .

Main highlights were breaking the sun visor about 10 miles in ( thought it hinges to the side - it doesn’t ) 

Odometer packing up 

Falling out of the thing at a services because my leg had gone numb due to the offset pedals 

But that car did over 40mpg over 3000 miles that week and was bloody awesome in the snow and ice . Even with a stupid 17 year old at the wheel 

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