#9 - The Wilderness Adjustment
a tale of German racing cars, tick attacks and Austrian Rarebit...
INTRO
Hey, my newsletter is late again! Most of the school summer holiday has been spent in skateparks, country parks, mountains and beside lakes. It has been about youth football, websites, food, medical centres, membership fees, budgeting and long-distance driving.
So, without further ado, let's get into it.
AUTO
Our Skoda CitiGo has racked up just under 70,000 miles. The little car, complete with roof box, has conveyed my family up and down the UK over the summer, and not missed a beat. We managed to stuff our camping gear into the car, and still had room for 2.75 adults, thanks to the 60/40 split rear seats. The best fuel economy came on our journey to North Wales from Kent, averaging just under 70 mpg and getting 500 miles from a tank of fuel (45 litres). By my calculations, that works out at around 10p per mile.
The only blip of car trouble was a blown side-light bulb and an easily repairable puncture. The next long-distance trip will be to Milan in November when I am due to visit EICMA, the vast Italian motorcycle show.
The World Endurance Championship (WEC) returned with an emphatic win at the first round at the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire. Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz crossed the finish line first in the #91 car, with the reigning world champions Michael Christensen and Kévin Estre claiming second place in the #92 sister car.
After a mediocre qualifying performance, the two Porsche 911 RSRs run by the factory squad took up the four-hour race from fourth and sixth on the grid. In sunny conditions, the two new GTE racers from Weissach initially made up very little ground. A heavy shower after around 90 minutes of racing changed the situation significantly. In contrast to their rivals, the Porsche GT Team opted for rain tyres. The drivers made perfect use of the improved tyre grip on the wet track and managed to pull well clear of the field in the new 911 RSR. This impressive gap, however, disappeared when the safety car was deployed after two hours of racing. In the remaining two hours, the drivers staved off attacks from the competition on a drying track and crossed the finish line in first and second place, separated by 3.802 seconds.
In the GTE-Am class, the best-placed Porsche 911 RSR achieved fourth place. Right up until the final pit stop, the all-British driver line-up of Michael Wainwright, Ben Barker and Andrew Watson were on course for a podium result in the #86 Gulf Racing 911. Fifth place went to the #77 car run by Dempsey-Proton Racing and driven by Matt Campbell, Christian Ried and Riccardo Pera. The #88 sister car finished in eleventh. The two Porsche 911s campaigned by Project 1 came home in sixth and tenth.
MOTO
So, the British Motorcycle Grand Prix happened, here's a video.
WATCHLIST
We've watched a lot of movies over the summer; among my favourites this time around was Hell Boy, Long Shot, Aladdin, John Wick 3 and Dark Phoenix. I finally managed to finish watching the Twilight Zone reboot, it's really very good.
HARK
There are a few tunes that are worth a mention this week. Highway Tune by Greta Van Fleet is fucking awesome and reminds me of Led Zeppelin. Modern Kosmology by Jane Weaver is quite hypnotic, it really does take me away for five minutes or so. Lastly, I've spent a lot of time listening to Remain In Light by Talking Heads. I think I wore out my Walkman tape deck with this album back in the day. All of these tracks have been added to my Spotify Playlist.
APEX
On our recent trip to a Welsh campsite, I purchased perhaps the most essential piece of kit for a stress-free camping experience, a pair of foam earplugs. Despite the wind, rain, noisy neighbours and assorted wildlife noises, the earplugs provided me with a level of silence that was bordering on bliss. Being able to focus on the sounds of my breath as I drifted off to sleep was a revelation. They were comfortable, easy to fit, remove and store. The really cool thing is that they can be bought in bulk for not a considerable amount of money, so you can have year's supply on hand for shutting out the world for a while.
ROAM
Back to Wales, we headed to the southern end of the Snowdonia National Park and a campsite near the village of Llanbedr. We arrived quite late in the day, and in a break in the weather, we pitched our tent and awning. We had just finished setting everything up as the rain started to fall once again. Following a quick trip to the supermarket in Porthmadog, we set about cooking up some food before retiring. Karta found some kids to play with, while Rhona and I sat and chatted.
The next morning we were up early and heading twenty miles or so to Betws-y-Coed and Zip World Fforest. This sprawling site in the forest features tree-top nets, a toboggan run, a huge swing and much more. Karta and Rhona booked in and went off to play amongst the trees, while I sat and nursed an excellent cup of coffee. Because I am too heavy for the nets, I had time to take a few photos of la Familia as they bounced around like idiots. The Zip World brand seems to be getting stronger, every time we visit Wales we see more and more about their various facilities dotted around the National Park; we can highly recommend checking them out if you're in the area.
We headed back into the village and enjoyed lunch at the Y Stablau, then went for a mooch around the climbing shops. Karta wanted to visit the falls nearby, so we obliged him and enjoyed watching him climb on the rocks next to the river.
That evening, back at the campsite, Karta managed to pick up an invader in the shape of a tick that had burrowed into his right arm. Not having dealt with something like this before, we tried to remove the critter, but only managed to remove 80% of it. Karta, by now, had freaked out and was panicking. We reassured him that everything was going to be okay and settled him for the night. The next morning, in driving rain, we headed for the nearest medical centre; the nurses had seen it all before and took great care to look after Karta as they removed the rest of the tick. With a dressing applied and a box of antibiotics in hand, we thanked the staff and left. We had lunch at the impressive Snowdonia National Park Study Centre. With the rain showing no sign of stopping, we decided to end our trip a little earlier than planned.
CONSUME
There is a brilliant café just along the A5 near Capel Curig in the Snowdonia National Park. We discovered Café Moel Siabod after years of driving past it on the way to Llanberis from Betws-y-Coed. The food here is fantastic, and during our latest trip to Wales, we dropped in once again. Rhona had a large bowl of Goulash and what seemed like half a loaf of bread, while Karta and I opted for Austrian Rarebit. The Rarebit was probably the best cheese and bacon toasted/fried sandwich that I have ever eaten, it was sublime. Karta struggled to eat all of his food (it was a significant portion), so I kind of ate one and a half of them that day!
INTERWEB
If you're looking for a great software uninstaller, have a look at Wise Program Uninstaller. It is an excellent alternative to the windows uninstaller and, as I discovered recently, is handy for removing other uninstaller software that has crashed and won't start.
OUTRO
So, with my son back at school, I am putting together plans for the trip to Milan and a visit to Germany for Christmas markets. The new youth football season is about to start, so I have a few more days of preparations ahead of that. The good news is that I can get back on track with this newsletter, hopefully publishing it weekly once again.
Here is a list of events that I will be attempting to watch over the weekend.
British Superbike Championship - Oulton Park
Formula 1 - Italian Grand Prix
Until next time, adieu.