Nearly got in a pretty bad situation tonight.
Didn't have much to do, so went out on a drive with a few mates from stoke to morcombe to get a kebab (lol).
Anyway, dossed around for a bit after getting there and decided to drop down to sunderland (not the real one
) as it looked like it went fairly close to the sea, and we wanted to drive around the coast rather than through the town.
As we got nearer, the roads became more countryside style and we ended up going through the town of overten. Now to reach sunderland (so my mate reckoned anyway) you had to go through a road that's about 1 1/2 mile long...
Pic showing the route we attempted to take;
We drove down and onto the road, and it looked pretty bleak. Drove for 30 seconds, and came to what looked like a bridge with a fork, obvious you had to go straight over it, not to turn if you wanted to reach sunderland point.
Anyway, there was a sign saying if you couldn't see the bottom of the poles holding the sign up then not to proceed due to tides and flooding.
We could see em (was raining a bit, so just looked a bit marshy around it!) and the road ahead looked OK. Few puddles, but like I said it was raining and we felt like dying! (joking in case fox comes in here)
So off we go. Was going fine for a while, was taking it easy as the roads are narrow and you could see the trenches and marsh by the sides. Few puddles here and there, but looked ok.. and after a bit you could see lights that looked like sundahland. (Only 1 1/2 mile road, but was foggy) Great! or not! We screeeeched to a stop, what looked like lake michigan was in front of us. We were not passing that
Oh well, try to turn around (hard feat considering it was foggy and narrow road) but couldn't... so thought I'l reverse, will only take 5/10 mins max to get back onto a main style road. Reversing was a peetake, rear lights don't give off much so decided to do a 55 point turn. (Very lucky...)
Just about to start the turn, and looked in front of me to see a puddle turning into a lake (thought it was a transformer I reckon??? lol) and coming towards us. Managed to keep it calm and do the turn (never turned so fast in my life) The puddle was still gaining on us, so we cained it. But wait, its coming the other way as well!
It was at this point one of my mates crapped everyone up by mentioning the chinese cockle pickers (rip).. great. I managed to keep to the road, it wasn't that deep yet and went at considerable speed, which was lucky as we got within about 200m of the original bridge when I saw it looked pretty deep... 2ft and about 10-15m across. Cained the car through it with relative ease... but then there was another... thought **** this and blasted through it, everyone was pretty nervous. Car was on the verge of cutting out, was 1/4 of the way up the doors! but it got through and the final mini lake was easy. Reached the other side and saw the sign warning to not enter half submerged! But we were safe now. Razzed it up the last bit and through the cattle thing and onto a 'normal road'
Pure adreniline, and yes I/We should have known better... but not living by the sea I guess you don't realise its immense power and speed. I think we'd of really struggled had I attempted to reverse all the way back and pretty sure we'd of never of made it through the final mini lakes, they would have been way to deep!
Ah well, fun !!! But thinking back I realise how close we were to some serious trouble!
Sorry for the long post.
Didn't have much to do, so went out on a drive with a few mates from stoke to morcombe to get a kebab (lol).
Anyway, dossed around for a bit after getting there and decided to drop down to sunderland (not the real one
) as it looked like it went fairly close to the sea, and we wanted to drive around the coast rather than through the town.As we got nearer, the roads became more countryside style and we ended up going through the town of overten. Now to reach sunderland (so my mate reckoned anyway) you had to go through a road that's about 1 1/2 mile long...
Pic showing the route we attempted to take;
We drove down and onto the road, and it looked pretty bleak. Drove for 30 seconds, and came to what looked like a bridge with a fork, obvious you had to go straight over it, not to turn if you wanted to reach sunderland point.
Anyway, there was a sign saying if you couldn't see the bottom of the poles holding the sign up then not to proceed due to tides and flooding.
We could see em (was raining a bit, so just looked a bit marshy around it!) and the road ahead looked OK. Few puddles, but like I said it was raining and we felt like dying! (joking in case fox comes in here)
So off we go. Was going fine for a while, was taking it easy as the roads are narrow and you could see the trenches and marsh by the sides. Few puddles here and there, but looked ok.. and after a bit you could see lights that looked like sundahland. (Only 1 1/2 mile road, but was foggy) Great! or not! We screeeeched to a stop, what looked like lake michigan was in front of us. We were not passing that
Oh well, try to turn around (hard feat considering it was foggy and narrow road) but couldn't... so thought I'l reverse, will only take 5/10 mins max to get back onto a main style road. Reversing was a peetake, rear lights don't give off much
so decided to do a 55 point turn. (Very lucky...) Just about to start the turn, and looked in front of me to see a puddle turning into a lake (thought it was a transformer I reckon??? lol) and coming towards us. Managed to keep it calm and do the turn (never turned so fast in my life) The puddle was still gaining on us, so we cained it. But wait, its coming the other way as well!
It was at this point one of my mates crapped everyone up by mentioning the chinese cockle pickers (rip
).. great. I managed to keep to the road, it wasn't that deep yet and went at considerable speed, which was lucky as we got within about 200m of the original bridge when I saw it looked pretty deep... 2ft and about 10-15m across. Cained the car through it with relative ease... but then there was another... thought **** this and blasted through it, everyone was pretty nervous. Car was on the verge of cutting out, was 1/4 of the way up the doors! but it got through and the final mini lake was easy. Reached the other side and saw the sign warning to not enter half submerged! But we were safe now. Razzed it up the last bit and through the cattle thing and onto a 'normal road'Pure adreniline, and yes I/We should have known better... but not living by the sea I guess you don't realise its immense power and speed. I think we'd of really struggled had I attempted to reverse all the way back and pretty sure we'd of never of made it through the final mini lakes, they would have been way to deep!
Ah well, fun !!! But thinking back I realise how close we were to some serious trouble!
Sorry for the long post.
)
)snow drift up in the welsh mountains for 4 hours - we had to physically lift my car up, was crazy as it was very nearly dark and we were about 20 miles from any sort of civilisation -- one of my mates rung the police but we made him put it down)