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The Buttertubs tour 16th april 2006 I don't know why, but I’m out of the house at 8.05, it doesn’t even take me 40 minutes to get to the Unicorn at night meet's, so I rolled in to the car park at 8.30 had a quick look around and nobody had arrived, so I went and filled up with fuel, I’d not been back in the car park for two minutes and Dr.P turned up in his monster WRX, soon they had all turned up Paulthejambo / Scoobyverysoon / Stressymare / Dr.P and a newbie Brett and his girlfriend Stef. To be honest I was quite nervous when we left the unicorn the reason being was, I had never organised a run of this length before, in fact I’ve never led and organised a proper run before especially on roads I had never driven. Oh well too late now, we headed towards the M60, the roads were still wet but it wasn’t raining (I was and I’m sure the rest of the pack was hoping for dry roads up in Yorkshire), when we on our way over the tops to Burnley the clouds were getting blacker, it held off and after another 5 minutes it just seamed to clear, just when it was looking up, I take the convoy off the M65 one junction early (I felt like an idiot so I don’t know how you felt CW42 with the NBO convoy), so one junction later and we are on the A682 heading for Settle and this is where the roads start to take off into the hill's, the traffic at first held us up a little, but there was never more than 1 or 2 cars to pass at one time, once the road opened up we started to gain a good pace, the thing is though half the time I was wanting to look at the views out of the window, they are stunning, joining up with the A65 we are gladly stuck behind traffic when we pass a police Volvo T-5 with camera in hand LOL (thank you traffic).
Upon entering Settle we found the nearest car park, we stood around for ten minutes chatting and taking photos, then we head of looking for the nearest cafe, walking out on to the road and what drives past us a fully stickered up police Impreza STI we found a lovely place called the Pot Hole, the owners pulled together 2 tables for us so we could all sit together, over a full English we talked about the trip so far amongst others subjects, we wandered back to the car park were we (me + Stressymare) had a debate whether she still had a centre cat, we must have looked like right idiots crawling around on the floor under three cars, the time on the pay and display ticket had run out about 20 minutes ago, so we decided to make a move. Once we got out of Settle on to the B roads I experienced the best driving roads I have EVER been on, the road just follows the terrain litterly in every sense, the road is tight but it feels really wide and the grip is unbelievable, the route throws everything at you, from off cambers to mega dips in the road and straying sheep in places, just hope health and safety officials don’t ever drive down there, it would be shut off in an instant.
When we arrived in Hawes the main street was absolutely packed out with bikers, so we made our way to the pay and display at the national park centre, that too was pretty full so we pretended to be coaches for half an hour(in the coach bays), during that time I receive a phone call from my93wrx saying that he was on his way up to meet us in Hawes, Brett then informed us that he and Stef were leaving (meal booked for 3pm), we said our goodbyes and off they went (hope you found your way home in time), meeting my93wrx back here gave us ample time to go over Buttertubs pass and back.
Pulling back out on to the main street and what do we see, another police Impreza this time it was a X registration classic, suppose they have to keep up with us somehow, at the start of the pass (from Hawes) the road isn’t all that tight but once you are on it for a couple of miles the road gets tighter and the drop offs get a lot bigger, and there is very little to stop you if you make a mistake, but it is over too soon and we reach the end of the pass, so we turned round and head back for more this time stopping on the top to get some pictures and another natter, we head back to the national park centre to meet my93wrx, after a little stretch of the legs (about 20 minutes), Martin arrives.
We set off back straight away, but almost immediately we got stuck behind 5 or 6 cars going the same way we were, so progress was painfully slow till we had got round them, but once round them, we was keeping our eyes open for speed traps, luckily for us it looked like they have had enough and gone home.
Driving through Settle it was still very busy with walkers and bikers enjoying the afternoon sunshine, the crowds don’t last long and we are out on the A roads now, for a reason everyone will know about, I’m third in the pack with a few cars between me and Dr.P + Stressymare and at the junction for us to turn off for Nelson I pull over and wait for the pack, the rest pulled up, but Stressymare and Dr.P didnt come back, so we waited around for twenty minutes and no joy, they were heading towards the right motorway anyway, we set off again to enjoy the last stretch of good roads that we would see today, making good pace we soon get to the m/way, turning off the m/way my93wrx decides he is going to take a more scenic route and carries on, which left just me Paul and Scoobyverysoon to make our way back over the tops to Bury, just after, I said my goodbye's over the radio, and watched them go past on the slip road, then made my way home, very tired but with a big grin on my face. I want to thank everybody who turned up on the day, you all helped make it an awesome day, one that we will have to organise again and something tells me that we wont be short on takers. Thanks again Pete
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