Nothing is NORMAL.
I haven't had to work for month's.
I have been saying for a while now (since reading "on the road", I don't like Jack Kerouac but that's a different story) how I want to drive from John O Groats to Land's end in a day.
I always thought the whole trip would require over night stays at each end so I would need to plan it around time off work etc.
But now I don't have work so I decided on Sunday afternoon, that I would get up early Monday morning and DO it Do it without needing to worry how long it took.
I think doing it now during the corona virus had some advantages like the fact the roads are very quiet anyway, and when I got to both John O groats and Lands end there was hardly a soul in sight.
The main disadvantage though is of course nowhere is open, so that made it difficult to buy anything resembling a good meal, and also meant that I would have to sleep in the car if at all.
Sadly the famous SIGN at land's end is privately owned and because of the corona situation it was also CLOSED, and the owner removes the signs so my proof photograph is just me stood next to the pole that the signs should be attached too.
My main concern about doing this during the corona period is that the police could stop me and not be too impressed with this level on unnecessary travel and potentially even give me a fine and send me home. Also its all still very unclear what the rules are about travel between England and Scotland, so I didn't know if police would be waiting on the borders.
So I did the drive in my 2002 Audi A4 3.0 Petrol Quattro sport, the total round trip was 1725 miles and took me 41 hours.
My car definitely needs a service and the MOT expired during the trip, but due to corona virus guidelines it didn't matter.
Starting mileage was 138,589
Mileage at end was 140,314
I had to fill up petrol 6 times.
my car has poor fuel economy and only an average size tank meaning I had to fill up every 300 miles approx.
Total fuel cost came to £280, another advantage to the corona virus situation is that even though most of this was motorway services prices, fuel prices are lower than normal, so the six tanks cost me between £1-£1.20 per litre.
I also had to put about 1.5 litres of oil in over the course of the journey so perhaps I am losing a bit too much oil too.
Here is the time taken for each segment of the journey
Monday 15th June
4AM-Get in car in Witney and start driving to John O Groats
4PM-Arrive at John O groats
5PM- get back in car and start driving to Land's End.
Tuesday 16th June
3PM- arrive at Land's End.
4PM-start drive back to Oxford
9PM-fill up petrol at Tesco Cowley.
The weather for this whole trip was amazing for the most part, it stayed light till gone 10pm at night and was sunny all day, I had a small bit of rain driving out of Scotland but the real rain started when I got to Exeter, then throughout Cornwall and various parts of the drive home I experienced some of the worst rain I have ever driven in, people were parked on the side of the motorway to avoid driving in it.
