So we were heading south and home – first stop Inverness via the A9 – an interesting drive in places.
Inverness was much larger than I recall, but then it has been a while, I had to wander about a bit to get my bearings. We had lunch and then moved on as it was raining!
Sadly it was not the best day to see Loch Ness – on a good day it is a beautiful and in my view eerie place – today is was misty and the water choppy.
The road down the side of the Loch was not that busy, so I could take in the view, to a point. We missed the best lay-by’s which were at the northern end of the Loch. Whilst there were plenty of others, trees and vegetation prevented a good view.
We had driven around Fort William at the beginning of our journey, when we branched off to Mallaig. This time we decided to call in. A reasonably sized town with a fair bit going on – it actually had a Cinema. We had a standing joke all holiday that we would find a Cinema and catch the latest James Bond Movie, this was the first we had seen and it was showing. Not until later though and I suspect no tickets.
We had to back track a little towards Spean Bridge where we were staying. We had seen a Hotel and figured we could get a drink. There was a huge Car Park next the the Hotel with 3 or 4 coaches in the Car Park – and we wondered what could be that exiting.
It was not the Hotel – Closed.
It turned out to be a simple shop that was selling, well tourist tat – they were very busy though. It was the first proper commercial venture that we had seen on the trip.
Onto our accommodation for the night, which was disappointment to say the least. The host was to say the least, terse – answering the door and demanding the use sanitiser immediately. Without a word we were shown to our room which had no TV. Benita asked if there was a TV or one she could watch and the answer was “No”. Our host then whipped out a notepad and asked for our breakfast order – no menu. Very odd.
Luckily the internet was good and we could watch TV on my Laptop – the bed however was well past its best. The cocktail cabinet bag was pressed into service once more. We left as soon as we could the next day heading for our last stopover near to St Helens.
This part of the journey was uneventful, but took longer than expected to get to the border. This was the only part of the journey where I measured economy for just one section. Granted it was an easy drive at about 55 mph – but we did 30 mpg – I was surprised.
The Travelodge for the night was easy to find with a nearby Pub and petrol station.
We decided to re-fuel on arrival, rather than in the morning. I filled up as usual, jumped back into the drivers seat, turned the ignition key and – absolutely nothing.
I knew it had to be something simple, the first thing I tried was the battery isolator switch, we had left the key in it and it had simply vibrated towards to off position, choosing this moment to close the circuit completely!
The next day was again uneventful and we were back home by about 2.30pm.
So no, it didn’t need a breakdown truck!
Overall it was a good trip, the two issues, the injector pump adjuster and clutch were just things that could easily be fixed and were really minor irritations; even if they did not feel that was at the time.
Average fuel for the whole trip worked out at 24mpg over the 1900 miles which I consider reasonable, especially as a large part of the journey was stop start on small roads, the rest of the time pushing it a bit on Motorways.
The transmission was not as bad as I thought it would be, but the 65 mph and 3000 rpm is a little high and it would be more comfortable if this could be lower by 10% or so. Regular readers will know that this has been discussed before – but now something that will be tackled before any more long trips.
The fuse seems to have failed again on the cooling fan – obviously some sort of spike here when the fan turns on, so the fault needs to be located.
The mister fan also seems to have stopped working, i didn’t bother looking whilst we were away, but need to check this out as well.
The other annoyance was that the radio kept switching itself off. This seems to be a loose connection in the new fuse box – Hopefully i can fix this as i am loathed to swap out the whole box and there a 12 connections running through it.
Benita is also struggling to get in and out and had a painful hip by the end of the trip. I will have to figure a solution to this, maybe a folding step on the side step – we will see.
My left (clutch) leg had also started to hurt towards the end of the trip and seized up completely on our return. This was down to the high number of gear changes on the trip, not helped by the difficulties when the engine was running fast. I have not driven much over the last 18 months, so not match fit; so I blame the lockdown.
I plan to edit up a short video, once I have figured out how to do it and will post eventually, along with a link to few more Photographs.
Thanks for reading…..
Nigel & Benita
48 States of Gray 