Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019

Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019
On the Archduke's Path in Mallorca

Sunday 28 November 2010

An Epic Journey - Phase 1

I knew it wouldn't be easy to get home, but going to Poolewe may have been easier than this.

Thanks go to the XXL Club for a great evening, followed by enthusiastic shoveling that facilitated my escape from Braemar by 10.45am.

The Glenshee road was closed, so a route via Aberdeen was chosen. Aberdeen was Relatively (and I use that word advisedly) free of snow. I was there by 1pm.

Another three hours got me to Dundee. It was stop/start, mainly the former, during one of which today's picture was taken.

Plans of going up Lendrick Hill today, to break the journey to Manchester, proved mildly optimistic.

The journey from Dundee to Perth was blighted by rather poor road conditions and a rash of skidding lorries. It took six hours. Not bad for a journey of little more than 20 miles!

There's no way of getting south of Perth just now (10.30pm on Sunday evening), and with snowdrifts everywhere, finding somewhere safe to park was tricky.

I finally pulled into a Morrisons car park and promptly got stuck. I may be here for some time. Any readers in Perth are welcome to visit me in the campervan disguised as a Peugeot 206.

Ho ho, what fun - I hope Morrisons has a coffee shop!

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

6 comments:

Jamie Bassnett said...

WOW! Hope you survive!! ;-)

afootinthehills said...

I'd pop up and visit you Martin but can't get out of our drive/road/village at present!

_ said...

Hope you're making some progress today Martin, and weren't too cold last night (or made it to the "Emergency Rest Centre" they set up just outside Perth!). Come to think of it, I reckon you're much too hard to be having anything to do with emergency rest centres... :-)

You're right in the thick of it there -- the state of the A9 between Perth and Dunblane was headline news last night, and I've just read that the A1's currently blocked by snow at Berwick.

John J said...

Just calling in to see how Phase 2 is developing - better than Phase 1 I hope!

JJ

Louise said...

Thought you'd try to escape eh? This scottish snow is serious stuff, don't ya know...

Phreerunner said...

Thanks, everyone. You bet, Louise, I just couldn't take the pace, as you can see. Amazing that I made it to Perth last night, I don't quite know how the authorities managed to keep the traffic flowing at all (I think they did a lot of towing), given the conditions. Any criticism of them is quite wrong, it's impossible to keep roads open in such snow and ice.