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Morris Minor Owners Club 2005 John O'Groats to Land End Endurance Run

by John Cooper

Day 2 - Monday 20^th June 2005

Day 2 started with a fantastic breakfast at our B&B in Pitlochry. Over breakfast we discussed our adventure with the landlady and the cause we were trying to raise money for.

When it came time to check out, she very generously charged us a reduced rate and asked us to put the difference in our collection. I know that this gesture pleased dad who said it restored his faith in human nature, though why his faith in human nature was so low after just one day in the car with me I don’t really know!

We met the others and our convoy set off to the start line at John O’Groats.

This may sound extremely naïve to many of you, but throughout this journey I started to learn some of the hard realities of living with a convertible. The first lesson that I learned, courtesy of dad, was that if you simply throw the zip-off legs of your trousers onto the back seat, then when you get up to a fair speed, they’re simply going to fly out of the car. After having to double back to collect them we met the others in a lay-by to rapturous applause and much laughter. As I write this, we’re a month down the line and he’s still not lived this down.

One thing I haven’t yet mentioned is just how packed the car was. The boot was full of tools and spares, meaning that all of our personal luggage and food was on the backseat.

This is how I learned my second significant lesson. Having a convertible with valuables on the backseat and a dodgy roof means that you don’t feel safe leaving the car unattended. We stopped at Aviemore for lunch and whereas the others were able to take a stroll around the town, one of us at least had to remain with the car. No great hardship but another lesson learned.

The rest of the journey was going extremely well. We were going through some of the most beautiful countryside and the car was running extremely well. It was holding it’s own with the larger 1098 cars, the difference only really showing on the hills. The worst of these hills was 13% (about 1 in 8 in old money) with an almost 180 degree hairpin half way up it which caught me by surprise, not that I would have been able to do anything about it even if I had been expecting it. But the car didn’t let us down and we carried on.

It was as we were approaching Wick that I first got an inkling that something wasn’t quite right. I thought there was a feint smell of petrol, but when I asked dad he couldn’t smell it and it seemed to go away. But then it came back again. But just as quickly it went again. After about 5 minutes of this "is there", "isn’t there" we decided we’d better stop, so the convoy pulled over.

As was ritual at these stops, the smokers took the opportunity to light up. Dad got out and a small crowd gathered around the bonnet as I popped it open. There was then some urgent ushering away of the smokers as everyone saw that petrol was flooding out of the bottom of the carburettor and standing in a pool next to the hot engine.

The speed with which the smokers were ushered away was only surpassed by the speed with which one of our colleagues managed to produce a replacement petrol pump, just in case that was the problem!

Dad was quickly able to tighten up the bolt that had worked loose and conversation moved on to how surprised everyone was not to have been able to see a trail of petrol on the road given how fast it was leaking out.

Once the engine bay had been dried out we all set off again.

We’d gone maybe a quarter of a mile before the car started spluttering again. Yes, you’ve guessed it; we’d run out of petrol having left so much of it on the road.

We were naturally carrying a can of petrol and so we poured that in and were soon on our way again.

It was maybe another quarter of a mile before the car once again started spluttering and I had to pull over for a third time, by now on the outskirts of Wick. This time it wasn’t so obvious, but after a methodical process of elimination, dad tracked it down to a blocked filter in the fuel line. Running the tank to completely empty and then filling it up again had obviously stirred up dirt in the bottom of the tank that caused the problem.

When we set off again we headed straight to the first (and maybe only) petrol station we found in Wick and filled up again. By now we were naturally feeling a bit anxious and frantically hoped that bad luck does indeed come in threes and that we’d now had our full quota.

As it happened, it seemed that we had, and the rest of the journey to John O’Groats went by reassuringly uneventful. It was maybe from about Wick onwards that we’d started to see a few other Minors on the road obviously heading to exactly the same place as us. Whilst there were to be about 17 cars starting the run, only 4 of us were from the organising Barnsley branch so we didn’t recognise many of the others we saw.

John O’Groats is a small spread out place with 2 largish hotels facing each other where the majority of us were staying. As we pulled in to the car park we saw many more Minors.

The day ended with a group meal at the Sea View Hotel and then a stroll down to the pub near the harbour (where we were to start the next day) for a nightcap. To be honest, I don’t remember the name of the place but I’d hazard a guess it was called some like "The First and Last", just like the shop, the petrol station, ...

It was then to bed for an early night to get ready for the long 24 hours to come.

Day 2 statistics

From To Distance Time Average speed (MPH) Average consumption (MPG) Pitlochry Dalwhinnie 35 0:55 38.2 45.0 Dalwhinnie Aviemore 30 0:50 36.0 40.4 Aviemore Wick 148 4:45 31.16 40.4 Wick John O'Groats 17 0:20 51.0 38.2
	Average speed between stops
	Average fuel consumption between refuelling stops Note that the lower figures around Wick are due to us dumping fuel on the road! (see above)

Note: figures not adjusted for speedo inaccuracies.

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