In 23 weeks time I will be setting off on my Sabbatical Adventure driving a Caterham 7 Roadsport from Shrivenham to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain.
Admittedly this is a rather unusual way of undertaking one of the most famous pilgrim routes in all Christendom, which normally begins from either Canterbury or Winchester down through France across the Pyrenees and then along the North coast of Spain.
To walk this route normally takes several months for the seasoned walker but I have only four weeks and decided to try and visit as many Holy sites as I could on route including Taize, Cluny, Lourdes, Loyola, Avila to name a few, oh and a bit of a detour to take in the 24hr Le Manns. This will involve me driving around 2600 miles or about 200 miles a day. Having been a professional Photographer in my past incarnation I am also keen to create a photo easy of the journey and to publish daily photographs on this blog.
So why in a Caterham 7 you may well ask, not the normal mode of transport for the clergy. The answer is partly an early midlife crises, ( I will be forty next year) and have dreamed of owning a 7 since I was 19 and first saw Patrick McGoohan as No:6 in ‘The Prisoner’ driving one in the opening titles depicting freedom of spirit, ‘I am not a number I’m a free man’. Also as it’s a very small car it had to be now before my middle-aged spread meant that getting into it required a shoehorn and Vaseline, though I have lost well over a stone since acquiring the car in February due to that fear!
The main reason apart from the enormous fun is the challenge of living out of a car that has a boot the size of a small child’s rucksack, a roof that takes over 15 minutes to put up so there’s no point as your wet through by the time you have finished, no air con, no stereo [even if it had one you wouldn’t hear it over the engine noise] it’s just me, God, the road, 135bhp, a tent and couple of pairs of pants.
Jezza as Top Gear fans know him, said of the Caterham 7 ‘that owning a normal sports car like a Prosche or Ferrari is like stroking the tarmac with your hand, owning a Caterham is like getting down on your hands and knees and licking it with your tongue! It’s also vastly cheaper.
In this type of car you are not cocooned from the world around, you feel the elements and because it has no roof when you go through and town or village and pause people immediately come and speak to you, which means you have to interact with complete strangers one of the most important experiences on any pilgrimage.
Finally I hope to raise some money for charity Leukaemia Research as this is the charity that the Lotus 7 club supports, so please sponsor me for making the trip.
This blog will be written while on the trip so that you can all keep up with the adventure but for now it will just be updates on the planning.
Admittedly this is a rather unusual way of undertaking one of the most famous pilgrim routes in all Christendom, which normally begins from either Canterbury or Winchester down through France across the Pyrenees and then along the North coast of Spain.
To walk this route normally takes several months for the seasoned walker but I have only four weeks and decided to try and visit as many Holy sites as I could on route including Taize, Cluny, Lourdes, Loyola, Avila to name a few, oh and a bit of a detour to take in the 24hr Le Manns. This will involve me driving around 2600 miles or about 200 miles a day. Having been a professional Photographer in my past incarnation I am also keen to create a photo easy of the journey and to publish daily photographs on this blog.
So why in a Caterham 7 you may well ask, not the normal mode of transport for the clergy. The answer is partly an early midlife crises, ( I will be forty next year) and have dreamed of owning a 7 since I was 19 and first saw Patrick McGoohan as No:6 in ‘The Prisoner’ driving one in the opening titles depicting freedom of spirit, ‘I am not a number I’m a free man’. Also as it’s a very small car it had to be now before my middle-aged spread meant that getting into it required a shoehorn and Vaseline, though I have lost well over a stone since acquiring the car in February due to that fear!
The main reason apart from the enormous fun is the challenge of living out of a car that has a boot the size of a small child’s rucksack, a roof that takes over 15 minutes to put up so there’s no point as your wet through by the time you have finished, no air con, no stereo [even if it had one you wouldn’t hear it over the engine noise] it’s just me, God, the road, 135bhp, a tent and couple of pairs of pants.
Jezza as Top Gear fans know him, said of the Caterham 7 ‘that owning a normal sports car like a Prosche or Ferrari is like stroking the tarmac with your hand, owning a Caterham is like getting down on your hands and knees and licking it with your tongue! It’s also vastly cheaper.
In this type of car you are not cocooned from the world around, you feel the elements and because it has no roof when you go through and town or village and pause people immediately come and speak to you, which means you have to interact with complete strangers one of the most important experiences on any pilgrimage.
Finally I hope to raise some money for charity Leukaemia Research as this is the charity that the Lotus 7 club supports, so please sponsor me for making the trip.
This blog will be written while on the trip so that you can all keep up with the adventure but for now it will just be updates on the planning.
Of course I will sponsor you. Had thought about £1 per mile but when I saw the milage I dropped it to 1p per mile. Even that is a bit much so I'm trying to work out a formula linking the distance to the time you take; should get it to £20 max!
ReplyDeleteChallenged my grandson "Bet you don't know what a Caterham 7 is!" He replied "Course I do! It's the old Lotus Super 7 that was sold to Caterham in the '90s. For £15K you can get one in kit form to build yourself. I intend to do that one day!". How's that for an unemployed graduate?
All the best. BEF.