Rob
ClioSport Moderator
So, another lovely long driving write up from me.. 
For the third year running for the mrs' birthday, we were off to the lakes. (The last year for a while I might add).
The last two years have been a joy in the Clio, it's an awesome car for those sort of conditions, but after recently buying the z4 I was really quite excited about the prospect of flying around with the top down, and well, just the prospect of having a different "fast" car to drive around. It didn't let me down.
We set of Saturday morning very early as usual, I couldn't actually believe the boot space. I forgot to take a photo of this, but I managed to fit a suitcase and three holdalls in the boot. Awesome.
After 5 hours or so, we were there, I'd gone for the best lodge available on our particular park:
Arrival:
The journey up was brilliant really, cruise control makes the miles much more enjoyable and you can always squeeze the loud pedal when you fancy it. Not to mention being so much more quiet than the Clio! Despite being a good exhaust, an aftermarket exhaust is never as quiet as standard.
Anyway, after booking the awesome lodge (the only one of it's kind) we had a few treats upon arrival:
And the living area was lovely! (I forgot to photo most of the lodge, sorry).
The view from the lodge was awesome too.
Oh and we had a hot tub:
So yeah, the first few days we did quite a bit of driving around, enjoying the roads climbing mountains, going to lovely little pubs. If the weather's nice up there, I really cannot recommend the place enough.
Driving through a ford was awesome:
After driving through we parked up and went for a walk up the river:
And climbed into the river
After a really long walk, which involved loads of climbing around rocks and getting stuck in the river, we went back to the car, where slightly dewy grass meant I was a little stuck for a minute or two....
Anyway, another day we went over to Kirkstone pass, after going last year I couldn't help but go again. I climbed a mountain, a few of these shots show just how awesome the roads are, the other shows how happy I am with my mountain climb.
On the way home, Olivia seemed to be enjoying the joys of the z4:
Where as I was enjoying the roads and scenery:
So another day passes and we're out and about, on the way home we popped to this lovely pub, proper proper lovely, if you're ever around Mungrisdale, I'd highly recommend it, and I thought it was a good chance for a sneaky picture: (by this point, Olivia was sick of pictures of the car).
We stayed here most of the evening, quite enjoyed some guiness and good company, including a weird dude and his dogs, who wouldn't leave us alone and insisted on calling Olivia "Amy Winehouse" (and asked her to take a photo of him).
Nice dog though...
So, the next day we decided with the awesome weather to go out on another boat on one of the local lakes:
We also saw an air-lake rescue, pretty cool:
And the views in general were awesome..
Ok, so there's pretty much the end of any proper photo taking that was write up related... other places visited were:
The World Of Beatrix Potter (very weird and full of Chinese/Japanese tourists getting foamy at the underbeard).
Overwater Hall Hotel (very pretentious, but very very nice food (I only managed to picture the desert as the dining room had emptied))
Anyway, after all that, I've come away loving the z4 10x more than I did for the first week I had it.
The repair job is perfect, so the car looks great, it's entirely un noticeable with a whole load of new panels and a passenger door that opens now (result!).
As for how it drove, whilst up there I really did start to find my feet with the car, nothing silly, but the pace it can achieve is quite frankly frightening, especially compare to the Clio lump, it just seems to have endless pulling power right through the revs. Corners and dips in the road were brilliant fun, we even managed to get the back end off of the floor down one particularly steep dip
I also learnt that three points turns aren't necessary on empty country lanes, full lock, first gear and just spin it around, brilliant fun (if not a little childish of me).
I've got a brand new steering wheel to put on tomorrow, and got some other things coming up to tidy it up further, but yeah, if you've managed to get this far down, thanks.
Finally, a rather cool picture olivia took on the way home, not sure why but I really liked it:
For the third year running for the mrs' birthday, we were off to the lakes. (The last year for a while I might add).
The last two years have been a joy in the Clio, it's an awesome car for those sort of conditions, but after recently buying the z4 I was really quite excited about the prospect of flying around with the top down, and well, just the prospect of having a different "fast" car to drive around. It didn't let me down.
We set of Saturday morning very early as usual, I couldn't actually believe the boot space. I forgot to take a photo of this, but I managed to fit a suitcase and three holdalls in the boot. Awesome.
After 5 hours or so, we were there, I'd gone for the best lodge available on our particular park:
Arrival:
The journey up was brilliant really, cruise control makes the miles much more enjoyable and you can always squeeze the loud pedal when you fancy it. Not to mention being so much more quiet than the Clio! Despite being a good exhaust, an aftermarket exhaust is never as quiet as standard.
Anyway, after booking the awesome lodge (the only one of it's kind) we had a few treats upon arrival:
And the living area was lovely! (I forgot to photo most of the lodge, sorry).
The view from the lodge was awesome too.
Oh and we had a hot tub:
So yeah, the first few days we did quite a bit of driving around, enjoying the roads climbing mountains, going to lovely little pubs. If the weather's nice up there, I really cannot recommend the place enough.
Driving through a ford was awesome:
After driving through we parked up and went for a walk up the river:
And climbed into the river
After a really long walk, which involved loads of climbing around rocks and getting stuck in the river, we went back to the car, where slightly dewy grass meant I was a little stuck for a minute or two....
Anyway, another day we went over to Kirkstone pass, after going last year I couldn't help but go again. I climbed a mountain, a few of these shots show just how awesome the roads are, the other shows how happy I am with my mountain climb.
On the way home, Olivia seemed to be enjoying the joys of the z4:
Where as I was enjoying the roads and scenery:
So another day passes and we're out and about, on the way home we popped to this lovely pub, proper proper lovely, if you're ever around Mungrisdale, I'd highly recommend it, and I thought it was a good chance for a sneaky picture: (by this point, Olivia was sick of pictures of the car).
We stayed here most of the evening, quite enjoyed some guiness and good company, including a weird dude and his dogs, who wouldn't leave us alone and insisted on calling Olivia "Amy Winehouse" (and asked her to take a photo of him).
Nice dog though...
So, the next day we decided with the awesome weather to go out on another boat on one of the local lakes:
We also saw an air-lake rescue, pretty cool:
And the views in general were awesome..
Ok, so there's pretty much the end of any proper photo taking that was write up related... other places visited were:
The World Of Beatrix Potter (very weird and full of Chinese/Japanese tourists getting foamy at the underbeard).
Overwater Hall Hotel (very pretentious, but very very nice food (I only managed to picture the desert as the dining room had emptied))
Anyway, after all that, I've come away loving the z4 10x more than I did for the first week I had it.
The repair job is perfect, so the car looks great, it's entirely un noticeable with a whole load of new panels and a passenger door that opens now (result!).
As for how it drove, whilst up there I really did start to find my feet with the car, nothing silly, but the pace it can achieve is quite frankly frightening, especially compare to the Clio lump, it just seems to have endless pulling power right through the revs. Corners and dips in the road were brilliant fun, we even managed to get the back end off of the floor down one particularly steep dip
I also learnt that three points turns aren't necessary on empty country lanes, full lock, first gear and just spin it around, brilliant fun (if not a little childish of me).
I've got a brand new steering wheel to put on tomorrow, and got some other things coming up to tidy it up further, but yeah, if you've managed to get this far down, thanks.
Finally, a rather cool picture olivia took on the way home, not sure why but I really liked it:
