BMW Car Magazine Forum Lake District Winter Challenge - January 2003 Stage 5: The dealers back to Bowness via England's best roads

We managed to get 8 cars to meet at the somewhat confused dealers at midday on the saturday. And before you all ask, the seven series below belonged to the dealer, not one of us. Once again Ben Luker had a lovely route planned for us. He announced that he'd take us on a two hour trip to a pub for lunch, and then bring us back to Bowness via different scenery. But before we could begin, a short but comical convoy to a petrol station, all filmed by Mad Robin poking his head out of Ben's sunroof. Above is Paul's 330d, Kilo's 328i, Jeff Spangle's 318i Above is Paul's 330d, Kilo's 328i, Jeff Spangle's 318i, Gromit's 325i Jimmy's M5, phat206's M3, M3Bobby's M3 At this point we stopped at a quaint spot called Skelwith Bridge to wait for Woody. The above picture shows Gromit's 325i, Paul's 330d and the back of Jimmy's E34 M5. People from left to right: BenLuker, Kilo, M3Bobby's misses (Alison?), Spangles, Gromit, Phat 206's misses, Jimmy and his son. Above and below, you can see a stream winding down the valley on the left, and our road doing the same down the right. These roads are as steep as 1 in 3 and really bendy, and those girly enough to have DSC found that they had to switch it off, because it kept cutting all their power! We stopped here for the "people" group photo, shown below. (sorry Jimmy I've nicked this from you because Robin's one turned out blurred, hope this is okay) From left to right, the Spangles, Woody, Gromit, Woody's brother, BenLuker, Kilo, Paul, M3Bobby and partner, phat206 and partner. Now, remember I remarked that Gromit had cleaned his car. Well, quite accidentally (although I know I'll never be believed), when we parked for this photo I parked the left side of the car on the verge. When the time came to pull away, I'd forgotten about this, and so gave it a bit of stick. Of course, it wheelspan, and the child in me thought "hooray, wheel spin!" until I glanced up in the mirror and noticed the mud shower decending on Gromit's sparkling motor. I got into trouble for this: I would have been proud! Anyway, we continued under the heroic leadership of BenLuker who successfully navigated us into a flood! Fortunately Jimmy was quick enough with the camera to capture this quality moment: 1) Why take two bottles into the shower? I just wash and go. 2) BMW Z3 - because.... you're worth it! A complete route plan of the afternoon can be seen here. Back to Saturday morning or on to Kilo's Final Thoughts