4) Roadtrippin'

September has come around again meaning one thing: My holiday!

This year due to COVID we decided to stay within the confines of the UK and rented a cottage in the Lake District. We drove up to Stoke-on-Trent and stayed two nights with friends that we knew from China and then up to the Lakes for 7 nights. My brother lives in the Lakes, so he was our guide for a couple of days. We did the usual Wrynose and Hardknott passes (among others), but we also saw a few new things such as Cathedral cavern, Honister pass and Windlatter forest.

The car was great, comfortable on the drive up. It was fun around the lakes, however the roads are so narrow that you can't really fully enjoy the car! The drive back was in one hit (one pee stop), 350 miles in 7 hours & 10 minutes. I broke a personal record twice as well: None of my previous cars have ever managed to get more than 300 miles out of a single tank (says a lot about my previous cars!). This car broke that twice: 350 miles on the way up and 331 (with 1/4 tank left) on the way down! I have found I am growing to the autobox, it pulls well and its comfortable on long journey, especially when setting the cruise control, however when I did manage to let the cars hair down, I really missed the manual box; holding the car in a gear for bends, double declutch downshifting and generally just making more noise! I won't be converting it until the auto box dies, but when it comes to manual boxes, you don't know what you have lost until its gone...

One last thing: @AndrewG check out the rear wheels... ?