Nice places to stop off at.....

[NewcastleFalcon]

Could have gone in a few threads but this is probably the most approriate. A surprising location that you wouldn't realise was there or what a story there is surrounding it. The Pickled Egg library has of course has an article and book about it.

http://www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

That's got to go on the 2017 visit list Neil

An excellent find!

[NewcastleFalcon]

If you are travelling on the M6 rather than habitually stopping off at your favourite soulless rip-off, but apparently convenient, service station stop point, why not give Penrith a try. Junction 40.

It's right at the town. Head into town and you have the wonderful Booths independant supermarket with cafe upstairs and car park. Morrisons just opposite cheap fuel and currently by miles the best £3 meal deals of all the supermarkets (class innocent smoothies as part of the drink element). Walk over to the Park next to the castle to relax and enjoy your supermarket picnic alfresco.

Then there's Rheghed if you turn left off the M6 just literally 1/4 mile along A66 West and pull over there. Even has an EV Charging point or 2, Esso Petrol and an unusual design, shops cafes, cinema, and play areas and activities for children.

Thumbs up from me!

Regards Neil

[van ordinaire]

Sounds like a plan - mind you, I never stop at Mway Services (except to use the toilets), but then I try to avoid Mways - although there is one a long way up the M6 which isn't like a Services at all.

Somewhere I have a book called "How to Avoid Motorway Holdups" which would direct you from any junction to the next one but, very usefully, it also listed the nearest, petrol station, hotel & cafe/restaurant at each junction. In the day, a useful travelling companion. Mine's well out-of-date, of course, it's probably out of print & eclipsed by the inevitable SatNav.

[CitroJim]

Sounds like a plan - mind you, I never stop at Mway Services (except to use the toilets), but then I try to avoid Mways

Ditto!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Have to say, I have always known that North Yorkshire is gorgeous, but ended up on a satnav wild goose chase from Richmond down to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens near Ripon through the twistyness of narrow country lanes and little villages, and bit larger places like Leyburn, Masham, and Middleham. Now I rate it as absolutely gorgeous.

Having just joined the NT felt like we got in for nothing, and Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is just lovely.

Course its a case of "smelling the flowers" other people stuck in the usual tailbacks for miles on the A1 North and South in the vicinity of Scotch Corner (including us on the way home) would have travelled through a very tiny corridor of North Yorkshire tarmac, and maybe left with a different impresssion of the place.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

This is a lovely place to visit

Photo courtesy of David Iliff - Creative Commons

Clue - I rode my bike up it yesterday

[van ordinaire]

Cheddar Gorge?

[CitroJim]

Cheddar Gorge?

It certainly is

[NewcastleFalcon]

Had a look at your TOW, quite an achievement Jim. Recognised Cheddar Gorge without looking it up, direct from some 1970's memories of holidays to Wells.

I always find the old photos interesting

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FJ0RqfoO3hM/V ... 51008f.jpg

might even have been snapped with one of these

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A5JjLi8wSiA/V ... 51008l.jpg

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

That's a cracking photo of the 60s stuff Neil

HA Viva - Dad had one... Corsair, P6, Austin/Morris 1100, Anglia....

And that's only a quick examination...

Blissful magic! The Gorge looks more or less unchanged though... It's still gorgeous!

[van ordinaire]

I also recognised it from some distant childhood memory (view from a 100E Prefect I suspect), which sort of comes back to me everytime I pass that ad. for Wookey Hole on the 303.

I had an HA Viva, bought one lunchtime, for £17.50 i seem to recall, so I could get home from work during a railstrike.

Kept it for years, it was everybody's spare car, didn't matter how long it'd been standing, it'd always start & do whatever was asked of it. Ended up as my one & only restoration project, as a present for my then girlfriend on passing her test. Got home from her test, grabbed the Viva keys, jumped in it - wouldn't start! She was soooooh disappointed & I was absolutely mortified.

[CitroJim]

I had an HC Viva Van, worst car I ever had the displeasure to own by far

Hateful bloody thing... Shame really as it looked good but not half as good as the HB Viva did... Shame was they could rust like an F-Type Victor

[NewcastleFalcon]

No reminiscences about the instamatic camera.

Getting pictures in the old days involved finishing off the entire film, and a trip to the chemists, and a few days later picking up your photographs in a little folder, with the negatives, and a lottery as to whether you had blurred over or underexposed them, or whether the flash had activated or not.

Instant gratification it was not,

regards Neil
,

[CitroJim]

No reminiscences about the instamatic camera.

Never had one... Went from nothing to a cheap old Praktika SLR and did my own monochrome processing... That was fun...

I was, and remain, a crap photographer but I loved the technical side of processing film and printing the pictures...