June 18th

First day of the trip basically spent driving up from London to Edinburgh, roughly 400 miles that took most of the day to cover.

Day started with picking up the car from Avis at our local airport, which during the COVID era was surprisingly smooth experience. Having booked directly online with them, and apparently picking the right options, I only needed to present my drivers license and have them run a check on my address. Less then 10 minutes until I had the key in my hand and the paperwork straight on my email. Can’t really fault their service.

The car lottery landed us with a Peugeot 3008 with a petrol engine that has some very nice interior trimming but a surprisingly small boot. Having support for Android Auto makes it a breeze to get my music playing and navigation working seamlessly. Very comfortable ride, nice and quiet on the motorway and thankfully the driver’s seat comes with massage included.

The drive from London is a very long one, made even longer by the tremendous downpours that assaulted the south of England on this day. The first 250 miles was an endless stream of heavy traffic, accidents and very low visibility through motorways without much of a view to make it interesting.

The last 100 miles are a lot more rewarding moving away from the motorway and into smaller roads that go along the coastline and the weather was much better with no rain and some breaks in the clouds. This combined with a late sunset meant that the drive into Edinburgh rewarded us with epic pink and golden skies over the sea as we finally come to the end of the 10h drive.

Now for a couple of quiet days in Edinburgh….