Scottish Roadtrip Day 1: The M6 Carpark

Posted on 17th August 2012 by Lewis

The MX-5 is loaded up and we’re heading to Scotland! The mk3 MX-5 has a deceptively big boot for a car so small, we’ve managed to fit in both our clothes for a 10 day trip (including a very restrained 5 pairs of shoes for Jen) and my camera kit with room to spare.

I’ve been wanting to go to the Isle of Lewis for years, last year I got a car suitable for the roadtrip and for Christmas my parents bought us an island hopper ferry ticket with Caledonian MacBrayne and booked us some hotels, it was going to happen this year! Even before we went to Costa Rica we’d planned our itinerary and booked the remaining hotels and now we’re on our way up!

The worst thing about going to Scotland is always the slog up the M6 (although I still prefer it to flying or taking the train), but even before that we had a day at work to get through, which seemed to drag. After the out of offices had been set and the MX-5 brimmed with fuel I pointed it towards the M6 toll road to avoid as much of the V Festival traffic as possible, unfortunately we had to have the roof up due to the rain.

The M6 toll was great and we were making good time, until we hit the M6 which was a car park all the way up to Manchester. Jen took over the driving duties doing really well in the traffic and rubbish weather, despite being nervous having only driven the MX-5 a handful of times. I’ll take over the driving again at Carlisle and drive through to my parents flat in Perth where we will be spending our first few nights.

Mileage so far: 185

Rugby Cement Works

Posted on 3rd August 2012 by Lewis

These cement works dominate the skyline of Rugby and over the four years I’ve lived here I’ve grown to like them, when returning from a long journey, seeing them on the horizon is a sign I’m nearly home.

I can see the cement works from my kitchen window and had been wanting to take a long exposure photo of them lit up at night for quite some time, but as it is so near to home I was waiting for the perfect sky, (slightly lighter and less cloudy than in this image) but sometimes you just have to go for it! I’m glad I did as I am pleased with the result and will certainly have a print of it on my wall when I move away from Rugby!

Rally of the Midlands 2012: Escort mk1

Posted on 16th July 2012 by Lewis

Finally, on the third year of meaning to go, I managed to keep the weekend free and made it to the Rally of the Midlands. Having grown up in the McRae/Burns era rallying is probably my favourite form of motorsport, so it’s a bit rubbish that I haven’t been to many rallies. I’d decided to go to the Merevale Hall stage, as the only other Saturday stage open to the public was at Mallory Park and I’ve shot there before, upon arriving at the stage the first thing that struck me, as someone who has spent a lot of time at race circuits, was the lack of barriers, although there were some in the main spectator areas, most of the time the only thing between spectators and cars was common sense! The stage was run twice, once in each direction, my favourite angle was from the afternoon run, where a hay bale chicane had been placed infront of the main door to the hall, the gravelly surface allowed the cars break traction and the cars were running towards me, perfect!

Cholmondeley Pageant of Power: Vintage Motocross

Posted on 26th June 2012 by Lewis

It wasn’t just cars at Cholmondeley, there were boats, planes and bikes too. During a break in the track action we wondered over to the vintage motocross circuit, which actually looked like organised chaos, but was fun to watch. The rider above caught my eye, he wasn’t the fastest there (possibly due to not wearing goggles!!!) but his look and demeanour in the pits gave off the impression of a lifelong passion for motocross.

While I was writing this post I also came across this vintage motocross video on the Drive Network on YouTube, which is a must subscribe for petrol heads, it’s like Top Gear, but with the banter to cars ratio reversed, so it is a lot more car focussed!

Cholmondeley Pageant of Power: Works Mini

Posted on 25th June 2012 by Lewis

For Father’s Day I took my Dad to the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power in Cheshire which is a similar event to the Festival of Speed, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. In amongst the modern supercars and aero engined racecars from the 1930s (42 litre V24 engines!!!) my favourite car of the event was this little Mini Cooper which was driven by Paddy Hopkirk in the mid 1960s. Unlike a lot of the other historic vehicles there which looked like they had come straight out of a museum, with spotless engine bays, this Mini looked like it had been driven hard, the engine bay was suitable oily and the block painted in the original British Leyland green.

Other highlights were Bentley demonstrating the smoothness of their engine, by balancing coins on the rocker cover and the drive there and back with my Dad, we were in his Porsche Boxster with the roof down, managed to avoid motorways for both journeys and stopped for an Olympic Breakfast at the Little Chef on the way there, all ingredients for a good road trip!

A39 Road Trip

Posted on 10th June 2012 by Lewis

This is my friend Ali’s BMW Z4, the photo was captured near Porlock on Exmoor whilst we were on a road trip.

A group of us were renting a house in Croyde, which I’d spotted last time I was there and after spending a week living in it, it is still my dream house. The plan had been to get a lot of surfing done, but mother nature had other ideas, and there weren’t any waves the whole time we were there. After being shown an article about the A39 on the Greatest Driving Roads website about how despite being named as a major road the A39 from Barnstaple to Minehead was in places just a single lane and had 1 in 4 gradient hills up onto Exmoor, a road trip was needed!

Unfortunately, as we are taking my MX-5 to the Western Isles later in the year, I was driving Jen’s 500, Ali & his girlfriend, also called Jen, joined us in Ali’s Z4. The 500 coped surprisingly well with the hills and the views over Exmoor and over the Bristol channel to Wales were great, Minehead was less so, my advice to anyone doing this road trip would be to stop at Porlock, which seemed much nicer than Minehead and the last part of the A39 wasn’t anything special. On the return journey we stopped at the top of Porlock Hill and I asked Ali to drive the section of road a couple of times so I could take some photographs. I’m quite pleased with the final result, I’d wanted to capture the sort of image that is used in Evo magazine which I think I managed, the only thing I don’t like about the image is that the roof is up!

After the photoshoot we went to Lynmouth for a cream tea and walk along the harbour, before heading back to Croyde. So even though we didn’t get to surf a road trip to Minehead was a great way to spend the day!

Fiat 500 Demo Car

Posted on 9th May 2012 by Lewis

Through my day job I managed to get access to this Fiat 500 demo car on my lunch break, the matte black wrap made it look moodier than normal Bossa Nova White Fiat 500s (such as Jen’s, previously featured on this blog) so that was the feel I tried to go for with the shoot. Other than the wrap/wheels/body kit, it has a custom interior, including remodeling of the dash and custom Recaro seats with the backs painted to match the car, but the Alpine audio system is really the centre piece, with so much equipment in the back that it makes my MX-5 look practical.

Costa Rica: Hoffmann’s Woodpecker

Posted on 26th April 2012 by Lewis

When we were in Santa Teresa our afternoon usually consisted of chilling out on the veranda of our cabin, one afternoon I was woken up from a nap in the hammock by a tapping noise, which turned out to be this Hoffmann’s Woodpecker on the tree next to our cabin. I don’t normally take photographs of wildlife, but I was able to get my camera and grab a few frames, including this one which I am quite pleased with, especially as it was taken on a relatively short 200mm lens.

As mentioned in my posts from Costa Rica, we actually managed to see more wildlife in the grounds of the Funky Monkey Lodge, where we stayed in Santa Teresa, than on some of our wildlife excursions. I think the relaxed vibe in Santa Teresa must have affected the local animals too.

Costa Rica: Tamarindo Sunset

Posted on 19th April 2012 by Lewis

I’m still working through images from my trip to Costa Rica (renovating a house, is taking up most of my free time at the moment), but I’m getting there! This sunset was captured in Tamarindo, the last place we stayed and there’s just something I really like about it, so I thought it was worth blogging. The photo isn’t technically perfect, in fact it was taken on my Canon Powershot S90 compact camera, but I really like the colours of the sea and the sky (I did accentuate them a bit when processing the raw file) and it just makes me want to be back in Costa Rica on the beach at sunset.

Southwold Road Trip

Posted on 8th April 2012 by Lewis

This picture was taken at Southwold in Suffolk, the destination of the 2012 “Fish and Chip Run” an annual event of the MX-5 Owners Club Northamptonshire Area.

The day started off with an early start and a dash to the layby on the A14, where we would be joining the convoy, which was already at least 30 strong, increasing to over 100 cars as we headed east towards the Suffolk coast.

When we got to the harbour at Southwold we parked up and headed straight to Mrs T’s Fish and Chip Emporium, to get what is probably the best fish and chips I’ve ever had!

It was with fully bellies that we took a stroll down to the beach, dodging the MX-5s that had taken over the whole harbour area. Just before we left I was able to pull my car out in front of some boats and take this photo, without causing too much of a traffic jam!

The drive home, via meeting up with one of Jen’s friends near Thetford and the B664 (Uppingham to Market Harborough) was one of my favourite drives of the year, with flowing roads, hardly any traffic and perfect weather!

Lewis Craik

Author Archives: Lewis