Ekona

Day 11 The end of the trip. As disappointed as I was to have reached the end of my adventure, I couldn't have wished for a better end. My hotel in Caen put me within perfect distance to visit the Normandy D-Day beaches in the morning, a place I'd been before but had always promised myself I'd go back to as there is so much to see and do. Five years ago I managed to see Utah, Omaha and Gold beaches, so I'd already made up my mind to go see Juno and Sword today. First off though, I had to go back to Omaha. The two pics above are from the Omaha Museum and the beach monument respectively. This was another museum, found on the way to American War Cemetery. The cemetery itself. Due to the recent rainfall the plots were closed so I couldn't really get any more decent images, but the scale of the place is immense. I make no apologies for having precious little to say about these beaches, museums and cemeteries, but only because words can never do them justice. The whole area of Normandy encompassing all the varies beaches and visitor spots is one huge monument to the appreciation and gratitude that still exists from the French to the Allies for their efforts and losses on 6th June, 1944. Flags fly everywhere, and wherever there is a Tricolore there is a Union Flag or a Stars And Stripes to accompany it. Forget everything you ever thought you knew about how the three nations have a mocking grudge for each other: That goes all out the window in Normandy. I challenge anyone to visit the area and not feel an incredible emotional attachment to the place, and what happened there. To say I had a lump in my throat at times during both visits is an understatement. It's a very powerful place, and one I would encourage everyone to visit at least once. Anyway, after a brief visit to Omaha and the cemetery I went in search of Juno and Sword. Juno was fairly easy to find, being as it is right on Courseulles-sur-Mer front and well signposted. There's not much there to tell the truth, but again I felt it should be a place I should go to. Sword was a little trickier to find, as it's a massive beach split into various towns. I stumbled across the second most westerly town, Langrune-sur-Mer, by accident. A pleasant enough place, but again not much there. Time was against me at this point, however I decided to press on and see if there was anything at the easterly most village, Ouistreham. I am so very, very glad I did. As I turned down a random street towards the beach, I saw a huge throng of a couple of thousand people in the town square, so I abandoned the car and set back to see what was happening. It turned out that as part of the 69th anniversary celebrations, they had invited all the Scots regiments piper and drumming bands over, along with some Swiss and other nations who I didn't catch. They were playing God Save The Queen as I walked up, then La Marseillaise, and then finally Flower Of Scotland. There were a few veterans milling around too, some in wheelchairs and some still quite nimble of foot, all proudly displaying their medals. After the anthems, and a few words from the organiser, we had this: A Spitfire did a fly-by and looped four times over us. Given the location, and the occasion, truly a lump-in-throat moment for all attending. If at any point I'd got lost in traffic, or stuck around somewhere else for a bit, or even stopped for a quick toilet break, I'd have missed all this. If really did feel like fate was on my side today. The final monument I saw, at Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, where 48th Royal Marines landed first to take the western side of Sword. Really makes you proud to be British, standing there in the footsteps of heroes that have gone before. And so gentle reader, that was the last great event of my trip. I got back home at about 7pm, and have yet to properly unpack or think about washing the car. I also have more footage that needs editing, along with some pictures, into a short 2 min brief of the trip which I'm hoping to do either tomorrow or Monday. I really hope that you've enjoyed reading about this little adventure, warts and all, and I can honestly say that having this place as a sounding board to post up has really kept the loneliness at bay, so thank you. If you've enjoyed reading any of this, I'd really appreciate it if you could 'like' this last entry as it would really mean a lot to me. Hopefully it may inspire someone else to get in a car and do a silly long road trip of their own one day. I'll leave you with one final picture, that says it all.

Depends on tyres. Higher for soft sidewalls, lower for stiff ones. 35 is a good place to start regardless though.

Shocking stuff. Just glad you're alright matey, that could've been seriously nasty.

Day 10 Blimey, day ten already. Seriously, where has the time gone? It was my last day in Spain today, but because of the altered route it took me less than 90mins to leave the country and it was a lot less exciting than entering, on account of having 100% less snow! I do believe someone may have mentioned that I seem have encountered most conditions on this trip. Well, I didn't get a sand storm, but to prove how quickly it can change check this out: Ridiculous, isn't it? I'm not sure if it's me that jinxed, but just as I came out of the tunnel the visibilty was near zero and probably worse in real life than the video makes out. Bizarrely once I'd cleared that little section I had gorgeous sunshine the rest of the way up, and I mean proper 100% sun with zero clouds. It was lovely, temps peaked at 31c which is the hottest I've seen all trip. Sod's law on the last day though. I made good time on the motorways due to being able to cruise at 140kph indicated, so about 135kph in real terms. Limit is 130kph, but you're never going to get flashed or pulled for doing 5kph over the limit and it's surprising just how much that little bit extra makes to good progress and not getting stuck behind things. I know for a fact you won't get a tug for those speeds as I had a Renault 3-up with gendarmes come steaming up behind me as I was mid-overtake, and I'll be damned if I was going to speed up just in case they were looking for an easy Rosbif target so I left my speed as it was, and they flew past me when I pulled in. Didn't sotp my heart rate increasing significantly though, remembering the last time I had a bunch of French police come flying up behind me in France...! (For those unaware, I lost my licence and got fined 750EU almost 4 years ago to the day at Le Mans). Anyway, I pressed on and took a detour to Le Mans itself, coming in via Ecommoy and through Mulsanne. Tour guide video below Managed to sneak a quick photo too, and I do mean quick as there was a tractor doing the grass cutting waiting for me to get out of the way! Left LM and headed straight for the Ibis I'd booked in Caen. Found it first time, rocked up and was promptly told that I had no booking I said I did, and that I'd had the confirmation email from Expedia. I was then told that they don't deal with Expedia, so I showed him the email. Turns out I was trying to check into the Ibis Budget, and that the Ibis Regular was literally right behind the cheaper one Ah well, at least I got the better end of that deal! I'll leave you tonight with a couple of pics I took a couple of days back at the posh spa hotel that I've found that I really like. I may get one of these blown up into a poster for the garage. Final day tomorrow, and my update will be done from my house

Sounds like fun, glad all three of you made it back home safely I love going out when it rains at trackdays, as that's when everyone else comes in and you have the whole track to yourself pretty much. It's also the best time to push the car, as everything happens at far lower speeds.

Unless they're stupid enough to admit to driving the car to the copper, nothing will happen. No proof at all unless someone had a camera Stuff like this really boils my p*ss. New laws for MLM'ing is pointless when this kinda stuff still happens and leaves someone in a financial loss. There has to be a way of sorting this!

Damn right they are. It's called a waftmobile, not a runaround.

Why am I not surprised. Gutting mate, absolutely gutting.

Wasn't sure that was going to be worth waiting for, but it really was! :lol: Cupid stunts.

Sorry, but this is a non-story. The moulds for the original cars have been destroyed (I saw them getting 'loaded' onto a van in Bishop's Stortford a year or so back, was heartbraking to see) so you'll never get a continuation, and it'll cost so much to create a new car that the end product will be easy £150K+, probably more like £200K. No-one is going to buy a Tiv for that money. Ever. Even if they did make it, it'd have the LSx from a Corvette but look no better than the current Vette and at 4x the cost, so why would you bother? Unlikely to be made in RHD either as the market is too small, so it would be LHD or nothing. Still excited, or shall I stop p*ssing on people's chips now?

On the other hand, the fact that many people are still using phones when driving and managing to not stick the car into a ditch proves that some people are actually capable of doing more than one thing at a time. I'm allowed to fiddle with the stereo whilst telling the kids in the back seats to stop bickering, whilst the wife reads out directions from a map to me, but I can't hold a phone? Ridiculous.

Congratulations on your first marriage, the second most expensive day of your life. The most expensive is, of course, the day you get divorced. Hope you're both having a great day, try to remember as much as you can (i.e. stay vaguely sober) as it flys by so very quickly.

Epic, pinched the cat one for FB

I was, and only took her off the market last week. I've discovered that I've a bit more equity in the house than I thought (never was any good at maths) so the need to sell to fund the house move has pretty much disappeared overnight. I'm also very much aware that I've now had her for almost three years, which is the longest I've ever kept a car and I've not really seen anything 'better' that has caught my eye. I don't want to jinx things, but I may have found a keeper at last! A Zed may still be inbound to the household though later this year, watch this space Anyhoo, just at the hotel in Caen now uploading the vids & pics from today. Update soon!

And...?

Oh Ian, that's bloody horrendous mate Fingers crossed the other guy is insured too.

Oh trust me, I know exactly how stringent Porsche can be with their warranty stuff, there's not a single non-OEM thing on mine apart from the PH smiley on the back window, It's why I had to cough up over £2K for the exhaust rather than a quarter of that, although I have to admit it is a decent bit of kit. I'm giving serious thought to not renewing the warranty this year though so I can fit various other odds and sods (mostly suspension bits, ironically OEM off a GT3), but I'm still not sure on that yet.

facepalm.jpg

I've pretty much had all four seasons in the one week I've also discovered Mahou beer, which is pretty damn tasty. It's a lager but quite a smooth and creamy one, almost like a Caffreys or similar.

Did the great big sticker saying '98RON ONLY' by the fuel cap not give you a hint?! Regardless, I wouldn't fret over anything now, just stick with 98 from now on and whatever will be, will be. Nothing you can do about it either way, so no point in worrying

If you remove it you make the rear lighter, which is going to increase oversteer. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on what you're trying to achieve. I used to remove mine on trackdays, but as the car was 80% road based I had the geo done with it in. Suspension settings won't really be altered by anything worth worrying about either with it in or out, so just go with whatever's easier.

Day 9 Upon waking this fine morning, I peered out of the bedroom window to gaze upon the mountain tops opposite, but alas could not see them. This was because they were covered in fog! Despite yesterday, I was still going to carry on with my route but this new development meant that any kind of fun driving on roads where you can't see more than 2ft in front of you just isn't a good idea. As such, I carried on with the coastal road instead. T'was a nice drive, although even at just 100m above sea level the fog was definitely noticeable so I'm very glad I didn't bother trying to venture any further up. I did find one bit of road which was quite high and open, nothing like yesterday but it still made me feel a bit odd, but I pushed through and was determined to drive it as hard as I normally would. I did too, so I felt like that was a little bit of success for the day Found a nice little beach as well where I stopped off to take some pictures, althbough I didn't hang around for too long: The beach was invaded by a group of school kids, guessing 12-13 years old, and a single bloke hanging around such an area with a flipping great camera taking photos was probably not such a good idea, so I left rather sharpish! Before I headed for the hotel, I had a plan... Slightly longer video than usual due to decent upload speeds for a change. Best laid plans and all that! Am at my final Spanish hotel now, and will pop down for some grub in a bit. I'm going to miss Spain as I've really enjoyed my time here, and heading back into France is really going to make the holiday feel like it's almost over.

Pfft, excuses excuses!

That my good lady is absolute slander Can't be as it's been written down, not spoken

1. More than likely. If not, they can get it made. 2. Nope, not in a wrap and not on a Zed. 3. Very mid-90s. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on your viewpoint.