Five of us met up at Stork Lodge Tea Rooms on Friday 4th June for our trip down to Mersea Island, for Colchester MAG's 3rd Magpie Rally. Suitably breakfasted, we headed out on Doncaster Road toward the A1, and J37, where we met up with Barnsley Bob, and supposedly 4 more of the Wakefield rally contingent ...... who were nowhere to be seen. A quick phone call revealed they were waiting for us out of sight at the other side of the roundabout. Oh, how we all laughed.
We then pressed south on the A1 before heading into Lincolnshire to meet Igor, our resident 'Lincolnshire Splitter'. We continued, cross country, through the Lincolnshire Fens before becoming stuck in a huge traffic jam in Spalding. Fortunately, Lorna had her Sat Nav on hand so we made a detour to avoid it and continued south through the Cambridgeshire Fens. We did a steady 50-60 MPH pretty much all the way and had lots of stop offs and breaks.
During our last break, 20 miles from Colchester, we received a call from Panos, who had just read the June Newsletter, discovered we were going to the Colchester MAG rally, and made a spur of the moment decision to join us, quickly packing the bike and setting off from Leeds at 18:00.
We arrived at the rally site at 18:30 (not getting lost once I hasten to add), some 200 miles and 8 ½ hours after setting off from Wakefield that morning. That could be a new kind of Wakefield MAG record !!!
But hey, no rush, as our pre-erected tents were ready and waiting for us. No time at all to make camp then it was time to crack open the tinnies and explore the site. The facilities and location, were absolutely superb. We spent most of Friday night sat around our tents, enjoying the warm evening, copious amounts of beer and chewing the fat.
Panos arrived at 22:00, diving straight into the bar before calling on the mobile to find where we were. As it happens, we had a spare pre-erected tent, so he had no need to pitch his own tent, thus, more drinking time !!!
Saturday was another hot warm day, and we had a look at the rally stalls then had a wander along the beach (there are not many rallies where you can do that !!!).
Micha went paddling but soon found it was more mud than sand, not that we laughed at him of course.
Saturday afternoon, most folks went to the onsite open air swimming pool for an hour (again, there are not many rallies where you can do that either !!!).
We also had a good look around the bike show, which had some pretty impressive entries.
We also hit the afternoon comedy show, which was pretty funny. Saturday night we watched the bands, the first one, Voodoo Bones, was rockabilly, not to everyone’s tastes, but the second band, Fubar, were pretty good, and we are sure we have seen them before at one of the more northern MAG rallies.
Saturday night it rained heavily but we were all tucked up in our tents by then. All too soon it was over and we made our way back, using a bit more of a direct route, and a respectable 5 hours return trip, including an hours stop at services for a bite to eat.
A most enjoyable time was had by all, and the weather couldn't have been better. However, we were all agreed, as good as it was, we all want to return to the Edinburgh rally again next year, so fingers crossed it will be on again.