Saturday 3rd October 2009
It was 1 o clock and we were finally packed and ready just one thing missing – the driver –who was still in work!
I finally escaped and made sure that we were all set for the journey, wife- Liz , dog- Ebonnie and sat nav Doris (who was to pay a major part in the afternoon proceedings)
As we travelled down the M1 all was joy and smiles (even if one of us was smiling just a little too much). There did not seem to be too much traffic on the road, which filled me with even more happiness, and the smile got bigger. We did the pit stop at the last services on the M1 parking next to another 90 who, as it turned out was not going to the L2B. This was also a chance to stop up on the obligatory Krispy kream donughts - a trip this long needed these.
We then hit the outskirts of London, this is when the fun really started. The traffic started to build up and we crawled through the centre of London. It was at this point that Doris (the mad sat nav) decided to take her revenge by sending us the wrong way but we made the best of this by sight seeing, we saw
1. Buckingham Palace
2. Constitution hill (we drove down this much to the annoyance of the cavalry officer)
3. The MI5 building (who were watching!!)
4. The London eye
Whilst waiting for the lights to change near Marble Arch we had a chat with a taxi driver who had driven his 90 through Morocco and wanted to know if we were interested in selling – the answer was definitely NO!!
Then out of the city centre, much to my delight, which soon stopped when we hit Brixton and the traffic started again. The smells got quite interesting on this road!! . Then we saw our first sign for Crystal Palace, (big cheer!) a few more miles and then we saw the telephone mast and knew we were close. A few more miles and we saw the entrance and the marshals waving at us like a idiots, (huge cheers!!!) After the journey it was great to see friendly faces.
He instructed us on where we had to go once inside and then we were told where to set up camp. Once this was done, we trundled up to the main arena tent to pick up instructions, the plaque and t shirts. On the way back to the tent we took some photos of - yes you guessed it land rovers which was a surprise as there was not that many to see!!.
We settled down to some MOD rations (yum yum). Once tea was over with we settled down to sleep it was only 8.30 but we had to be up early to get up early.
Sunday 4th October
We got up at 6.30 - some if us had had better nights that others Ebonnie had slept - nice and toasty unlike the rest of us. We decamped and got ready for the journey to Brighton.
The good thing about camping was that we got to leave before all the morning arrivals.
The journey to Brighton was pleasant and we managed to not get lost (Doris was turned off) we partly followed the directions in the book that we had been given but we mostly followed the land rovers that we knew had come from Crystal Palace
On arriving in Brighton, we parked on the sea front and watched as the land rovers kept on coming.
We walked up the sea front the see how many had turned up and there was a lot so we stopped counting. It was interesting to see how many different ways there are to alter a 90 or 110, discovery and range rover. The last land rover finally parked at about 1pm and we just walked up and down the sea front looking at them all. Some were in good condition and some seemed to make it on a wing and a lot of gaffer tape.
At 2.30 we had to say our goodbyes and make the long journey back home. This time Doris behaved and got us going in the right direction, the dreaded M25 was ok as well. The journey back was uneventful but long and we were all glad to get back home.
The trip did raise some questions though
Do the G4/ Camal Trophy lot all go to the toilet together? (They did everything else so it’s safe to assume)
Do the army land rovers have licences for the fake machine guns? (hope they were fake)
How many land rovers were actually there?
And will I be doing next year?
Yes, I will be doing it again next year. Hopefully with some of the other club members…