Lurch becomes Monty

You might recall that whenever I lifted off the gas, particularly when going downhill, my Discovery would gently weave from side to side in a slightly scary way.....and that was why we called him Lurch.  But the other day I invested the huge sum of £35 and purchased two quality rear shock absorbers (even including courier delivery!) which my navigator Neil and I decided to try and fit ourselves. I googled and found a really good set of instructions complete with photos and at 0930am on a fine day last week we started. Unbelievably the old shocks came off easily, and the new ones fitted straight on. We were celebrating in Costa Coffee just after 11am, and I even bought Neil a huge scone (but no jam, I'm not made of money) which he was able to eat whilst simultaneously complaining about the various muscles he had damaged taking the heavy wheels off. We had to use a very big wheel wrench with a piece of scaffolding pole slid on it to get enough leverage to remove the nuts. I reckon I saved over £100 by not having a garage do it, so I was very happy. Almost deliriously so in fact, which manifested itself later on when I found myself paying for lunch at the Otterburn Mill. We had driven there despite heavy rain to test the new shocks and see if the weave had gone....it had! I had never really gelled with the name Lurch, despite loving the Addams Family, and now that he didn't do it, I wanted a new name.

Before travelling to Normandy I had put two military stickers on with the insignia of  XXX Corp who were under the command of General Montgomery during WW2 so I decided that Monty should become the new name of the vehicle formerly known as Lurch. I actually wanted to call him Rommel after the German general but as he is a British built Land Rover I didn't think a German name was very apt. 
After we had consumed two all day breakfasts and toyed with the idea of trying to fit puddings into the restricted space available in our, how shall I put it, ........ample stomachs, we headed onto the Otterburn military ranges, which you are allowed to explore so long as a large red flag is not flying.  If you do see one then do NOT enter or you may never leave, well not in one piece anyway!
We came across an airstrip where I attempted to take off in Monty but I think you have to go faster than 45mph to achieve flight. Even shouting V1, V2......rotate didn't help. You can see the video on Youtube.  I think the airstrip was used to put targets on, rather than land planes as it is quite short.       

               

 The scenery there is stunning even when it's raining, and you could spend hours looking around but we needed to get back. On the way I tried to turn right onto the A68 but a police car was blocking the way so I drove down to Otterburn village and turned right there, but it didn't help as we soon came upon the emergency services dealing with a three car accident and we had to detour via Bellingham.

I hope the people in the cars were OK. It was a sad end to a good trip out though.  





 



Goodbye Brian!

I got married to Amy at Langley Castle near Hexham  on 1st August 2012 and we used my Land Rover 110 ( built before they came up with the name Defender) who was known as Brian, in tribute to the alcoholic talking dog from Family Guy, as our honeymoon transport. I discovered there were some nice green lanes near the castle but as I was a tiny bit busy on that day I didn't get a chance to explore until nearly a year later.

 

All the lanes are legal to drive, and if I encounter other people then I always wave, say thank you if they step out of the way - and if they are on horseback I switch off and let them pass. I have read stories of furious walkers shouting abuse at people in 4X4's but, touch wood, I have never experienced it.

 

I think possibly it's because they see my lilywhite legs dangling beneath my shorts and feel sorry for them. After all, my legs have to support the rest of me which can't be easy given my predilection for pies of any kind - steak and black pudding from Rothbury is highly recommended!
You can see that Brian was a great vehicle and he took us all over the UK and around France. He only ever failed to start twice, once in a McDonalds car park and the other time in a layby next to a catering van. The RAC fixed him both times and I thanked them with a burger! Amy said that when we went on holiday in him, it was like taking a bit of home with us.
Not long after this picture was taken my wife opened the upstairs curtains and asked me where I had parked Brian. I had left him right outside our house, and being bright red with a union flag on the side, he shouldn't have been hard to see! But he was hard to see because somebody else obviously thought he was great too and had stolen him during the night. All that remained was an oil stain on the road. We were going away for a weekend in Scarborough and I had packed things like tools, brollies, picnic chairs, kites, binoculars etc so all that was gone too. It wasn't the same doing the trip in my wife's rusty 13 year old Fiesta, I can tell you! I had planned to keep him forever and I still miss him to this day.

I really want another Defender but apparently once you've had one stolen the thieves keep checking to see if you buy another one, then take that too! So I decided to wait long enough for some bad karma to happen to them- I really do believe you get what you deserve- before I looked for Brian 2, the sequel. 

I was going to write about green laning but I am running out of time so I will leave you with a photo showing me and Brian tackling a river that was almost 3 inches deep! You really can go anywhere in a Land Rover!

  



 

 

 

 



  

Lake District Old Coach Road on a very hot day!

If you drive along the A66 West towards Keswick, somewhere near Threkeld, and look to your left you will see what looks like a big lonely grassy hill. There is no trace of any buildings and it looks quite remote - but there is an ancient road running through it and if you have any kind of 4x4 then you can drive it.
Neil, Skye and me had a great cup of coffee in Granny Dowbekin's at  Pooley Bridge in the garden overlooking the river. Actually, I decided Skye couldn't have coffee as I was certain it would make her even more hyper than watching two young Labradors splashing about in the river. She kept trying to jump over the café garden wall to join them and I had to multi task, drinking coffee, eating millionaires shortcake and holding her back. As any lady ( including my wife) will tell you, men cannot multi task and so it was that some parts of my t-shirt did absorb a few droplets of flying coffee. We took Skye down to the riverside and threw twigs in for her to fetch, then she played 'chase me' with the Labs until the welfare of several small children seemed threatened by the dogs running ever closer, ever faster. 

 

Leaving the café we travelled  along the side of Ullswater, then turned up to Dock Ray where we joined the start of the 5 mile track -The Old Coach Road. I don't know whether it is an old road, or was used by old coaches - probably a combination of both, but it is a good hard surfaced track with no obvious obstacles. It was very peaceful making our way through the landscape with large hills and blue skies all around .

 



I was only slightly worried by the temperature gauge which was reading rather high - no doubt due to being constantly in a low gear on a baking hot day- but we kept stopping to take photos so I didn't see any steam. In the distance I could see an old railway wagon which had been used as storage for the farmer, but now looked distinctly worn out. I noticed movement inside and as we got closer I saw several cyclists taking shelter from the sun. They looked a bit nervous as we approached, maybe thinking we were the farmer coming to evict them, but as I passed I waved and shouted hello.
The track continued and we came upon a disused quarry where I was able to practise hill climbs and descents. I found that the Discovery bonnet sticks out a long way making it difficult to see when you are teetering on the edge of a steep slope!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxCU9HMPCb4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFTyL0nOVXM followed by http://youtu.be/m4VrJiZM9cw
  are the Youtube links in case you haven't seen them on my profile page.

As I was creeping over the edge the back of the vehicle stepped out slightly to the right, which you can hardly see on the video, but I felt it inside! I think Skye was a bit worried I was going to leave her but she did as Neil told her, and I had eyes on her the whole time. She was definitely better off not being in the back of the vehicle. Leaving the track we had a very pleasant run along to Ambleside then up The Struggle for a pint at the Kirkstone Pass Inn. The engine did get very hot on the way home, I even discovered a red flashing warning light on the dash so I immediately pulled over and gave him 30 mins to cool down. I have since found out that the fan isn't working properly so I am waiting for a new viscous coupling to arrive which I hope my DIY skills can cope with! 5 bolts in total, should be easy. Bet it's not though!