Our first drive of the year finally arrived. Route planned, cafe for breakfast confirmed by email. Neither route nor cafe had been checked this time around! So a wing and a prayer event.
Seven S2000s and ten people ready to leave Ringwood at 9.00 Overcast but dry, so hoods down (and they remained down all day, no rain at all).
Two hours to Cheddar Gorge, so a cafe was chosen roughly halfway at Henstridge Airfield. No one had actually been there before, but some of us had heard of it. The Airfield is home to the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, so it should be a great place for breakfast!
After a good run including our own hairpin bends - zig zag hill we arrive at Henstridge Airfield. We then have a half mile slow drive on a dirt track on a road to nowhere.
We park up and walk into the twilight zone!! Bank Holiday, and there are no customers. We are met by what I would call a Jack Nicholson (eccentric/frightening) character. We order breakfast and are given a pound to get a cup of coffee/tea from a 1960s vending machine. We could have been on Route 66. A superb big breakfast later, we are ready to roll on to the Gorge, minus one S2K who went home because of the lack of Earl Grey tea.
So we head through the Gorge at probably the slowest pace we have ever done. Cheddar was rammed, but we were passing through on the way to the Somerset coast. Coming the other way, we met four of the Bristol and Somerset group who had been tracking our progress. Also one new potential member who happened to be in the gorge too! They soon turned around and caught us up in a lay-by where we had pulled in. So now we are ten S2Ks heading to Burnham-on-Sea. Up until Cheddar the roads had been unusually quiet. Now completely Bank Holiday traffic, so we got split up frequently. Dave from Bristol led us to a carpark where we managed to park after we had a customary photograph; Jo risking her life lining us up in a staggered line.
A few drinks and an ice cream later, we head off on our circular trip home via Bridgewater. Now the route on the SatNav had decided to change from the initial plan. I should have stopped and reprogrammed it. It is like stopping and asking for directions- never going to happen.
Heading home we managed to find a few empty, twisty roads with the national speed limit where we could do what any S2K driver would do and use as much of 9K revs as possible.
Slowly, cars began to drift away from the convoy as they turned for home.
A great day's driving on a route which turned out to be excellent, in good company and bone-dry weather. Never believe in the weather forecast. In Wessex the Gods are with us.
As for the cafe, we could have seated 78 S2Ks at once. No wonder the email reply I received from the Airfield said, "We will be happy to see you, how soon can you get here?"
