This Ain't No Holiday

Trip on hold until we're 23

Unfortunately due to problems with car insurance we’re going to have to put our trip on hold until we both turn 23.

Andy Squire could drive the whole trip himself, with me navigating, but due to safety concerns we’ve decided to abandon this method as Squire may crash into something - due to not being able to keep his eyes open. Plus we’d rather share the driving.

We wanted to hire a car, sharing the driving and potentially taking a third driver to share the driving load even more - and allowing more time for each of us to get some kip with another person to help navigate. However, to hire a car you need to be 23. Us young male drivers, we’re such a risk.

Fortunately, Squire turns 23 this coming weekend and I’m 23 in July. So come July 10th 2009, it’s game on. We’ll keep you updated, putting all the pins into a map shall not be in vain!

Insurance policy adds difficulty

With the intention to take the Golf and split the driving, I called my insurance company to question the technicalities of my policy. Two things were on my mind:

1. Can I add Ed to my policy without affecting my no-claims discount if his driving results in a claim?

2. If not, can Ed take out another policy on my vehicle?

This isn’t really the fun part of the trip, but as I’m in my fourth year of having no claims, I don’t really fancy opening up my policy to damage for something that isn’t my fault.

The answer to both was a firm “no.”

As it stands, the only way we can now proceed is to either rent a car (expensive with a capital ‘E’), risk the policy and go with it, or for me to drive every inch of the way. An average of 300 miles of local roads every day for 10 days.

Squire.

Official list of county towns is confirmed

Peter Boyce, chairman of the Association of British Counties, got back to me about the list of British county towns that is on Wikipedia. ABC are the authority, so we’ll be taking their word for it. The ABC have also put a link to this blog on their site, massive win for that!

If you’ve got a query and think we’re missing somewhere, let us know via twitter - ed_walker86 or andysquire or drop me an email at edward_walker86@hotmail.co.uk

This is what Mr Boyce (we’ll try and stop off at their HQ in Glamorgan to have a chat with them) said:

Wikipedia’s view of what is a county town and what they are seems reasonable to me. Its one of these popular concepts which has never been defined in law etc. and I don’t think you could ever come up with a single, unchallenged list of county towns for every county.

3,500 miles, 95 hours

We’ve been working on our route, this involved sticking pins in a map and then studying it to see what was the fastest route. It’s a long, long, way. According to Google maps we have 3,500 miles to go and it will take us 95 hours if we drove it in one go.

To be safe I think we should double the hours. We have 10 days, that’s 240 hours.

It’s possible. It’ll be a close call. But we’re getting ready.

Dates, still to be confirmed, but it looks like we’ll leave Preston on Friday 15th May and we have to be finished by Monday May 25th.

Clutch fixed and cheap insurance

The clutch has been fixed in the Ford Ka. A stray piece of metal in the gearbox apparently managed to puncture a hydraulic cylinder - causing all kinds of mayhem.

Just over £300 later and the Ford Ka is patched up and driving like a dream. But, safety first, we’re going to be taking Squire’s Golf on the trip instead. 1.9litre turbo is going to be in order if we’re to make it in our challenge.

Now to the scary bit. As a 22-year-old male driver, with not even a year under my belt, you’d think that to get me insured as a second driver would be expensive on another young males insurances on a car with a reasonably large engine. But no, £27.50 for a month. Massive win.

So, we’ll have the power, we’ll have the insurance. Now what we need is the route. In the next few weeks we’re going to be having a planning evening/day and figure out our route and when we’re going. We’ll keep you posted.

Clutch control: A re-think on the choice of car

Today was not fun. While trundling along on a sunny Sunday morning to collect the key to my new house - the clutch went on my Ford Ka!

Trying to go from second to third gear on North Road, it decided to give up. Stuck in neutral I had no choice by to hit the hazards and dive left down the slope towards the B&Q car park. Freewheeling down the hill, shouting at a silly woman who tried to pull out in front of me, was probably the scariest moment of my short life.

Fortunate it happened when it did otherwise Preston’s Ringway would have got me stuck in the middle of a box junction with no drive to speak of.

Squire came to the rescue, with his Golf and a hastily bought tow rope from Halfords.

I’ve never been towed before. Squire had never been a tower. It was a weird experience, all 1.9litre turbo revving to get me and the Ford Ka to Kwik-Fit. The very unhelpful man said the fateful words “We don’t do clutches”. What kind of a garage ‘doesn’t do clutches?’.

A tow later and we made our way to Nationwide Autocare (that five days ago put the Ka through its MOT) and left the Ka there.

So, in terms of our trip, I think the Ford Ka may be left minding its own business for 10 days and I’ll get insured on the Golf. I don’t fancy not having a clutch when stuck in the back roads of some county in Scotland!

Not capitals but county towns

Thanks to our friends on Twitter, the list is becoming populated. crowsond was on hand to link off to Wikipedia that has a list of all the counties and their ‘county town’. I knew that capitals was the wrong word, bloody Americans, the county town is what we’re after.

So if the Association of British Counties confirms that the Wikipedia is correct then we have our starting point.

Next I need to buy a good map.

A list of counties in England, Scotland and Wales

God bless Google. Here is a full list of counties but is the first place in each the ‘capital’?

There’s 86 counties altogether, we’re going to be hard pushed to do this. I have a feeling this is going to turn into a bizarre top gear challenge.

I’m going to drop an email to the Association of British Counties - I had no idea that existed either - and see if they can help us.