Kentrebel

Late sat afternoon, green and ally heading towards Tow Law; first spot of the year for me

Personally I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with the Ferry Boat Inn on the lochside road. Peter, many happy hours will be spent over forthcoming winter nights perusing road maps and reflecting on advice from the wise sages of Blatchat, cheers for the info

Hi Rog, Steve and I did the NC500 last year and enjoyed the west coast but were underwhelmed by the east so decided to be more focussed this year. On previous visits peak midgy has tended to be mid June onwards and we had to balance bitten risk v frostbite risk as we are camping! BTW, neither of us has aeros and many thanks for the advice offers

Hi all, myself and GSK275 are going to Ullapool between 1st and 4th June this year and would be more than happy for any other 7s to join us. We will be camping at the loch side campsite in Ullapool though of course other accomodation options are available and aim to to a blat out each day from there eg Skye, Durness etc We will be heading up from the North East on the morning of the 1st (which is a monday) should anyone wish to come along Best wishes Kenty aka Mike

Red this lunchtime; I was having my lunch outside the chippy. Hope you enjoyed the roads

Went past my house this pm, towards Stanhope in Weardale; looked like a very unusual paint scheme!

Green car this lunchtime heading towards Alston.

Some thoughts and ideas after doing the 500 last week, hope it's of use:- 1. Don't do the single track roads (Applecross, Lochcarron, Kylesku to Tongue etc) in groups larger than 2 cars; the passing places accommodate 2/3 vehicles at best and you will be in a world of frustration if you run together in a group. 2. Other vehicles will let you overtake in the passing places but please do the same for others; the fastest car we met was an 04 plate PT cruiser driven by a local 3. Don't worry re fuel. We took spare cans and never got close to needing them filling just north of Inverness, Ullapool and Wick 4. Book accommodation early, we booked in Sept (even earlier than I had remembered) and places were filling up then 5.We went clockwise which was a good idea as we covering route in 2 days. This meant we had the hardest, most tiring bit first. If you do the same, make Ullapool your overnight; the east coast roads are much less demanding than the west 6. Lastly, food and drink prices are on a par with London, be prepared! 7. Enjoy it, the scenery is Lord of the Rings esque

Yes to both blats; Rellies visiting this week so cannot attend meeting and this sunday going to the Stanhope Vintage rally Kenty

Thanx for the picture Chrisr, I think it's a bit like the FIAT Multipla, so ugly it kind of looks cool (says a 50+ stale white male )

Full RR type treatment; just a thought but was it perhaps an ex hearse????????? We were going full chat in the opposite direction

Seen today between Middleton in Teesdale and Brough, a Allegro Vanden Plas estate, so ugly it was cool. Can't remember ever seeing one before

" Back to Barnard Castle" I've heard that there is quite a nice road between Penrith and Alston that could be taken in

2 of us are doing the NC500 this may and when we booked hotels in Nov they were already filling up. We are doing NE England to Inverness travelodge, then on to Tongue for the night, back to Inverness, then back home

Myself and GSK275 went this year and very much enjoyed it. We went with Scenic and Classic but took the budget option of staying in Liege, a very good move, as the £350 per head we saved paid for food, beer tokens and fuel. As others have said, you can sit wherever, go round all the car prep areas and do the "parade" laps which appeared to be more than a tad competitive! One thing that did surprise during planning was how far it was from Calais so we stayed overnight in Whitstable before crossing over but did do the 570 mile return trip to the NE in one hit