Winter travel in UK
2009 sees another winter where the UK seemingly can’t cope.
For us, it started with an aborted attempt to spend the weekend in Brussels before Christmas. We were to take Herman on Le Shuttle and across through France and Belgium.
We got as far as Junction 8 on the M20 before Operation Stack kicked in and kept us there for several hours.
In this case, the snow had closed the ferry port in Dover (M20 feeds this) and in addition, the French weren’t letting trucks off the boats/shuttles onto their motorway system out of Calais.
Further, Eurostar’s trains encountered the wrong kind of snow and so Eurotunnel had to use Les Shuttles to rescue passengers.
The prospect of waiting up to a day to get to Brussels (which was in a blizzard) just for two nights stay was looking grim, so we bailed out and went back home.
My next journey was a few days later, driving up to Aberdeen.
This was surprisingly easy. M11, M25, M1, A50, M6 – completely fine. Stopped overnight in Preston, then onward the next day to Aberdeen.
This started out OK, but due to black ice and trucks jack knifing on the motorways, I was diverted across country (B roads then A71) and this was a bit hairy, with about 40 miles of untreated twisty country roads. Herman became a snow plough in places and nearly ended up in a ditch a couple of times – very slippery – but got through OK.
Aberdeenshire was supposed to be under 3 miles of snow, but the last leg up the east coast was actually fine, only thwarted by the last 100 metres by the slippery and steep untreated road up to my dad’s house.
Compared to a friend’s attempt to fly up to Edinburgh from Luton, my journey was really easy.
On the way home now. Last night I drove down from Aberdeen to South York, via Newcastle. Again, mostly easy, with only one scary high speed black ice bit on the A697 where Herman fortunately kept going in the same direction 
Side note – Coldstream is a very nice little town to stop for a break, as the parking was free and the toilets immaculately kept.
Just had breakfast and waiting for the sun to come up a bit for heading off for the final 3.5 hours.
Finger crossed it doesn’t all end in doom!
Update: arrived safely, and typically, it was just raining heavily for the last 20 miles to London.
So we went to Pirate’s Beach Club in Tekirova, Turkey for a bit of sun and to catch up with some of my in-laws.
Warning, the link above has very annoying background music – music they played a lot at the resort itself.
This beach resort is unsurprisingly themed on pirates, although thankfully more Long John Silver than Sumalian, and it’s not really in your face – just everyone wearing stripy shirts and a hanky on their heads.
The resort primarily caters for the Russian market and so everyone except me was Russian and all the staff speak Russian, although a few did speak a bit of English too.
This was fine for my family, but a bit weird for me, especially as all the events and activities were in Russian too (but very very good). Fortunately, the weather was nice, I had a good book and the bar was free.
Mostly, though, it was great to catch up with my sister-in-law, who I hadn’t seen in eight or nine years and her daughter who I’d never seen. I do quite like being an uncle.
Travel notes after the jump…
Last month, we took a break from the madness of work and headed over to mainland Europe with Herman for a two-week tour of seven countries.
It’s taken me a few weekends to sort out all the photos on Flickr, and whilst I’ve posted a few notes on Facebook, I’d thought I put up something here to round it off, mostly disconnected thoughts on travel related topics… Continue reading »
Over the last eight days, we and Herman have done 1206 miles, or over 150 miles per day.
That’s about a third of Herman’s total mileage now.
I’m tired, but happy to have done my first major road trip and a bit sad that I won’t be on the road every day for some time.
Herman survived the overnight stop in Pegwell bay unmolested! He still had all four wheels and no one had scratched the paintwork.
Hurrah!
The trip home via Canterbury was actually pleasing, what with the Blackwall Tunnel defying all odds and remaining open at the appropriate time.
Canterbury was lovely. The toilets at the cathedral were first class. I highly recommend them.
And I was particularly pleased with my parking in the Whitefriars long term car park.
Earlier this year, I broke twenty-three years of habit and bought a car, known as Herman.
Why did I choose this car? Well the main driver, if you’ll pardon the pun, was the gearbox. Audi call it “S-tronic“, but it’s essentially a dual-clutch semi-automatic gearbox generally known as DSG with variants used in the Bugatti Veyron and Nissan GT-R.
Many cars have this transmission (eg Golf), but other factors (wife, style, etc) brought us to the S-Line A3 2.0 TFSI.
Anyways, said transmission gives you all the usual benefits of an auto, but also better fuel economy and better performance, but you do lose a certain element of control.
So today, when I popped out to get a mop and bucket (as you do), I went on a 86 mile round trip finding roads that might make a full auto a bit boring, and to see how Herman and I cope when keeping it in manual.
These were my concerns:
- Being effectively sequential, it will be difficult to shift down from 4th to 1st quickly enough when approaching a hairpin.Well, it turns out, in manual mode, you can shift quickly down through multiple gears if you get the timing right on the steering wheel paddles. Think about single click vs double click on your mouse.
- When slowing for a junction/corner, the gearbox will decide to shift down, just at the point you need power.This happens a lot when in full auto sport mode, but doesn’t in manual, so that’s good. Although it does if it’s about to stall, also good.
- With preselected next gear change in a few milliseconds, you can’t change gear slowly.True, but I don’t think it’s that bad, you can change up and power off at the same time, which is effectively the same thing.
- Without manual control of the clutch, you can’t get optimal control in a fast start.True, but I doubt I could do a better job that Herman anyway, and the Launch Control feature is an absolute hoot.
- Changing gear with steering wheel paddles might make you think you playing a game.Yea, but games are fun, right?
So my nagging fears over whether this is the right gearbox for me have been allayed. Hurrah!
Update: in answer to the question posted in the title: Yes, I think you are in control, if you want to be. In fact, because of preselection, you probably have more control as you don’t have to wonder when the gear will actually engage as you would with a manual.
Went to visit Dom in Colchester today for a curry at lunchtime. Sadly, both primary and backup curry facilities were closed, so had to make do with a(nother) Thai green curry, although it was quite good.
Also went to pub where CBT can be found and had a wander through the woods.
Most pleasing day.
And Herman enjoyed a zoom aboot.
And Dom gave me a few glow stick items to play with
I’ve been using ‘regular’ unleaded in Herman so far which is 95 RON, however, I read that the larger capacity TFSI engines are designed for higher octane ’super’ unleaded of 97 or 98 RON.
According to Audi forums, it would seem that the engine is quite capable of using a smaller RON but would be less efficient and produce lower power.
I checked the manual/fuel guide and it says “95 or higher,” so I think I might try a few tankfuls of ’super.’
Will see if it makes a difference.
As predicted, Herman hit 1000 miles somewhere north of Birmingham on the M6, although I missed the actual event, so being a bit techie, observed 1024 miles instead.
So Herman’s engine is fully run in and we’re now in the Lake District where the roads are most pleasing
Yesterday, we went out for a trip in Herman, the intention, to head toward the coast somewhere, potter about, find some nice driving roads and come back and watch the second half of the FA Cup.
I thought Hastings, maybe, then west to Beachy Head (not jump off) then back up to London.
It was raining when we left London, so chances of pottering around were reduced and somewhere on A21 going south, there was an accident, completely blocking up the traffic. Turned out to be a bit of a blessing, as heading west, we found some really rather nice twisty roads, and eventually found our way to Beachy Head…. and just in time as we both needed a wee.
It was around this time that Herman hit 1000 KM. According to the car’s manual: keep below about two-thirds engine power in the first 1000 KM. Hurrah!
So, armed with lots of sea air, a good lunch from the Birling Gap Hotel, and a mostly run-in engine, we head off home, due north and discovered the awesome A267. Lots of ups and downs and blind bits and tightening corners and single track bits. On balance, I’d say this road (and an interesting one we discovered on the way down) are more fun that the roads in Gloucestershire where I grew up.
The day was slightly spoiled by the Blackwall Tunnel southern approach being closed due to an accident just as we were getting to the Sun in the Sands junction. Blimey, I don’t know how many hours we got stuck in traffic trying to go west toward the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
Needless to say, we missed the second half of the FA Cup.
Update: some pics here
