Wednesday 3rd August 2011
Phew, what a day!
If it could go wrong it did. W started knowing that we'd overloaded the auxiliary electrical circuit yesterday and that I'd have to add a temporary supply for the cool box if all our supplies weren't to perish. Unfortunately in planning to get up, have breakfast, get on with the wiring whilst The Nutty Navigator washed up and started packing the camping gear I didn't account for the effects of him being a teenager! Needless to say, he took more than a little while to get up and get started.
The short and the long of it is that we didn't get away from the Camping and Caravanning Club site at Sandringham until about 12:15 hrs. Things then seemed to be going well until we stopped for lunch. The camcorder was refusing to work saying it's memory was full so we'd set it downloading it's footage to the notepad whilst we had a bite to eat. It was taking a while to download nearly 20 GB, we'd finished eating and so The Nutty Navigator struck again! Aaron's impatience to get going led him to flick up the route on Memory Map (our main means of navigating the route), Only trouble is he clicked 'close' instead of 'maximize'. This wouldn't normally be too much of a problem but with a little notepad trying to reload a considerable size program at the same time as downloading 20 GB of video everything just ground to a halt. So the decision was taken to continue with Aaron navigating from the maps of the route we'd had the foresight to print off before leaving home.
Everything was going well again until I tried to question Aaron's map reading (wrongly of course). As a result of the confusion I'd managed to interject we missed a couple of the lanes planned and we were left trying to regain our bearings for a while. Then we came across a part of Pedders Way that had been partially blocked with a section of tree trunk so we decided that as time was marching on we'd best head for the two most important way points on the route (the Real Ale shop at Wells Next To The Sea & The Walsingham Farms Shop) before heading for The Camping and Caravanning Club site at Thetford.
This was great as we secured a couple of bottles of specialty beers and some fresh marinated pork chops for our supper but Aaron was keen to have some chicken for the BBQ as well so we headed for Fakenham as the most on route supermarket, time was pressing on towards our 18:00 hrs deadline for booking in at the campsite.
On exiting the supermarket I was confronted by one of the most torrential downpours I've ever seen, there was thunder, sheet and forked lightening. I got totally soaked getting back to DVO only to find Aaron trying to cover up the now working notepad to protect it from the water starting to find it's way through the canvas hood.
Time being of the essence we pressed on in the extreme weather only to run into a flash flood just a bit down the road. We hit it at about 40 mph which proved just too much for the ageing exhaust which decided to part company just in front of the silencer. With just over 20 miles to go we pressed on in the torrential rain, engine roaring like a chieftain tank. Having 'phoned on route to say we'd been delayed the site warden was waiting to greet us at around 18:30 hrs. as we arrived the rain stopped which allowed us to pitch our tent and have our barbecued tea. The evening was concluded with spectacular electrical storms in the distance with just the odd spot of rain.
Well we settled down for a good night's sleep which we'd need as we'd got to repair the exhaust before we could continue with our little adventure and see what tomorrow held.
The final statistics for day 2 are:-
82 miles covered,
5 hours 22 minutes from departure to finish (this includes a short lunch stop & 3 shop Maximum speed 51.6 mph, visits),
Average speed 17.2 mph,
5/16 lanes driven,
0/2 fords driven.
Click here to go to day 3 of this trip....