DAY 8: 26th June 2010

Yes, OK, I know, it's a bit late, but with one thing and another the - relatively short - blog post for the last day is now here.

So, having set my alarm for 0600, I got up at 0445. Some had already gone from the campsite, some were getting ready to leave, so I managed to say some goodbyes.

I nipped to the loo and on returning, Tony was also surfacing and with little else to do we cracked on with dropping the tents and getting the last bits packed into Dennis.

After a few more goodbyes from others who had got up in the meantime, it was time to hit the road, and by 'eck did we hit it... out of Inverness before we knew it, and on to the glorious boredom of the A9 south to Perth. With Tony's updated TomTom maps, the next instruction showed us keeping right after a mildly humourous 89 miles, rather than last year's roundabout in 126 miles...

And so we went, eating up the miles at a positive rate of knots; hitting Edinburgh and rolling round on the bypass, munching the borders before we realised they were there. First petrol stop was a bit of a shock as the MPG had dived a little, but we were hammering it on the dual carriageways (at or below the speed limit, obviously!).

The run kept going smoothly, and that uppy-downy bit was fun again, more so without the trailer. We rolled on until we were in the Barnard Castle area. TomTom wanted to take us through a ford - which I would have done - but the gates across it, meant to be locked from October to March, were still locked and rather than ring the keyholder, we just took the alternative route. Which had a road closure on it.

So, a half hour detour later to get round the closure and we carried on belting down to Leeds. We reached Scotch Corner without issue, tanked up again then hit the A1 down to Ripon. From here it was a blast through to Harrogate, and then over to and through Leeds.

We made it back to first direct at about 1430, a cracking time and leaving me plenty of leeway to get Tony's stuff unloaded, shake hands and say our congratulations on completing the event, before I headed off to Skegness... but that's another story for another time...