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Xmas night run.

It started in a very cold Tesco's car park in Ashford at 7pm on the 27th Dec. After the usual under car fixing shenanigans from me we were off, heading towards the two old faithful's at Brook, these having been resurfaced being  nothing more than  dirt roads. From here we headed off to Crundale taking the high & low tracks by the church, the frosty greasy ground making it slow going on the side slope of the lower track.

  From here it was off to the hill climb to get to the woods for our first tea stop of the night, after the usual camp fire stories and club merriment of taking the ‘wotsist’ out of people we were soon back in the motors heading off towards Etchinghill (via a couple more lanes) for another hill climb and terrific night views over the M20 & Channel tunnel site.

  Following on from there was a quick trip down the M20 to West Hougham and yes you guessed it another hill climb,  this one was a little tricky at the top as the greasy surface was tending to make  the Land Rovers  drift into the concrete fence post (ouch not good), once safely negotiated it was down to South Alkham for our second ‘cuppa’ of the evening in the shelter of the lane. By now it was almost midnight and the clear night sky had given way to rain clouds as it was just starting to drizzle (grrr - snow would have been better).

  After the last of the tea was drunk we set off for the ‘skew gate’ & Bushy Ruff After carefully negotiating the gate which has been so thoughtfully off- set to the track at the point right next to a tree (making it more interesting) we dropped down into Kearsney where we said goodbye to Ken & Nic, Nic, by then realising why he had been struggling all night, oops forgot diff lock, along with his fuel cap which he was now off to retrieve at the fuel station.

  Scott, Richard & I set off for the last four lanes of the evening (now morning) doing a couple of gentle ones out the back of Lydden and Barham before finishing on a  last lane for the night at Adisham as by now I had nodding donkey syndrome and didn’t want to fall foul to the ‘last lane’ of the night.

  All in all a great time was had by all!!

D.Parkin. 

Please email me any more pictures or stories from the day.

billy@whizz28.freeserve.co.uk