When we were in the UK for a month in 2023, Mrs. Koog did all the driving. I will admit, she hit nothing and no one. She got us safely from London to Bath to North Wales to Liverpool and all over Scotland until we turned in our car in Edinburgh. And when we turned in that car, it was pristine. No dings, dents, scratches or bumps.
As I have written in the past few entries my trip was magical and healing and all those things trips should be. With one exception, driving. I was nervous when I booked the trip that I would forget to stay to the left and cause an international incident on the M4. Apparently, staying to the left would not be the problem. No, my problem was staying too far to the left. For some reason, I completely lost my depth perception on the left (passenger side).
This issue wasn’t a real problem on the motorway as there was a shoulder and every time I’d cross the line I was able to correct immediately. The drive from Heathrow to Conwy, Wales was uneventful until I got off the motorway to the road into Conwy. About 2 minutes into my drive on a non-motorway road, I hit the curb at about 45mph. Ooof. Just a few miles past and I hit it again. This was going to be a long week since North Wales is not at all urban and has limited public transit.
Off the road with the curbs and into the walled city of Conwy, I found my house, unloaded my bags and got back into my car to drive it to the parking lot about a 3 minute walk. As I am making my way up the world’s narrowest and most vertical street, I hit 5 consecutive car rear view mirrors. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I pulled over and was getting ready to write my information on 5 cards for the owners. A man, at least 70 years old was running up the street to tell me there was no damage to any of the cars. He then asked me if I was American. I hesitated, but I said “Yes.”
I happily parked this car, it was a Mazda 3 by the way, oh and it was brand new as I drove it off the Enterprise lot with only 4 miles on the odometer. I went over to the passenger side and took a look both the tire and the mirror. The tire had a large gash in the sidewall that was hanging on by a small piece of rubber. The rim was ground down to its metallic base. The good news, there was no damage to my side mirror.
Grateful for the walk back to my accomodation to stop shaking, I pondered how the actual F@$k I was going to get through the next week having to drive the mountainous roads in Eryri and Llangollen. I assumed that today’s bumps were just because I had flown 7 hours then driven 3.5 hours. Tomorrow, I will have the driving under control. Not so fast with the confidence there, Junior.
Luckily, I was driving at first light so there were not many potential victims on the roads. My first problem came in the Llandudno tunnel. I was going the speed limit, 60mph, hit the curb and kind of bounced off. I did this more than once. Other drivers definitely wanted to get away from me first to avoid the bouncing but I slowed down to about 30. It would be a few miles on this motorway before I stopped shaking and cursing to myself. The rest of the drive on the motorway was fine and I hit nothing and no one. I got off the motorway and did fine in the roundabout. Gaining confidence.
Here’s where things go a bit awry. I am on the country roads on my way to Cwm Idawal to meet my guide in a parking lot. These roads are 2 lanes but very narrow and the speed limit is 60mph. At first it was fine. The road was only moderately winding and I was able to keep the car within the lines. Luckily, there was not a lot of traffic because it was only 6:15 am so still not many people witnessing the multiple curb hits.
I get to an area that is one lane due to construction. It has a red light and cones and the speed limit there was 30. I was overjoyed. I was the first car in the line of about 5. I’m doing well! Hitting nothing just driving. Then, I notice what looked like the opening between the cones to switch sides. It was not, it likely was just a non-evenly spaced cone. Quickly realizing my mistake, I moved back to the other lane. I did this slowly and while slowly making my way to the open lane, I hit and dragged at least 15 cones. I am spooked and nervous to continue my 35 minute drive to meet my guide. FYI: the other cars took the opportunity to speed away from me as I veered into the construction path. I don’t think they saw the cone situation.
The road was back to being an acceptable amount of winding and I was getting confident again and I was now driving the 60mph speed limit. Unfortunately, the curves come quickly and were very sharp. Unfortunately, I missed the curve, hopped the small curb and drove through someone’s hedge and out the other side. What the actual F is happening? Luckily, no one was coming the other direction as I busted out of this hedge back onto the road.
After about 5 more hits to curbs but no more crimes against hedges, I found the Cwm Idwal welcome center and parked my car. My guide was a bit late so I had an opportunity to scope out any damage to this brand new car. The sidewall of the passenger tire looked like someone took bites out of it and more of the rim was scratched to the metal. There were many hedge branches lodged in the broken grill. I was able to get pretty much all the branches out before my guide arrived. Finally, the front quarter panel was dented. I assume that was from the hedge. Oh and there was an acrid smell of grinding breaks and burning rubber.
My guide arrives and asks me if I smell burning rubber. I partially explained the situation and just mentioned the curbs but left out the drive through hedge. He checked the tire and agreed it looked like someone chewed it but said as long as I stay away from curbs, I should be fine. He also said he would let me follow him to the next stop and he’d go very slow. We finished our hike and photography and were off to the next mountain’s visitor center.
He did as he promised and went slow and I tried to follow his lane position. That worked on the 2 lane roads. He forgot to mention we would drive about 20 minutes on single track roads lined with hedges on one side and a drop off the side of a mountain on the other. I’d rather have hedge option, please. Oh, the speed limit on these roads is also 60mph. And there are big trucks going at speed as we pull over to let them pass on the single track road. While my heart was beating out of my chest and my stomach was tossing, I made it to our next stop without incident.
We were here for several hours as we hiked up and down the mountain while stopping at beautiful vistas for photographs. Since I had such success with the last drive, I followed him without incident. He even graciously told me to follow him to the motorway after our last stop. He was on his way to his home in Mold and I was on my way to Wrexham. Luckily, there were no curbs on the way to my accommodations. Although, I made a wrong turn and ended up driving onto an empty rugby field. Whoops…
The next day was a down day for me, no photo/hikes. My plan was to go into Wrexham and spend the day around the town. I was familiar with parking at the Ty Pawb garage since we used that in 2023 when Mrs. Koog was in charge of transportation. I made it to the garage and parked without incident. I had a great day in Wrexham knowing the car was parked and I was not moving it until tonight! When I did drive out of the parking garage, it was without error and I made it back to Cefn Park without taking on more damage to the car or my nerves.
Sunday the guide and I met at a service area off the motorway and he let me follow him to our stops. I think he was worried about my chewed up tire blowing if I kept hitting curbs. Once our day and travels together were over, he gave me perfect directions to the parking lot in Llangollen. I followed the directions, hit no curbs, and pulled into the parking lot. Unfortunately, since it was a beautiful, warm sunny day everyone wanted to walk around the quaint town and the parking lot was full.
My confidence had been boosted since I’d gone 2 days without incident. I came out of the parking lot and took a right. I remembered to stay to the left. Unfortunately, I was going the wrong way down a one way street. The man in the car that was coming toward me, leaned out his window and in true Welsh fashion he politely told me to back up and he could wait so not to worry. My driving in reverse is much, much worse than my forward driving. The man actually winced a few times as I he watched me back up and scrape the entire passenger side along a brick wall, sometimes making sparks. Luckily, I had the sense to fold in my mirror.
Horrified and embarrassed, I was able to get myself on a bidirectional road and head out of town. I was not going to enjoy Llangollen, I was heading back to Wrexham for my reservation for Sunday Roast and then parking the car for the night back at my accommodation, Cefn Park. I returned to Cefn Park and gently hit the gate on my way into the property. No damage to the gate, couldn’t tell at this point if there was more damage to the passenger side of the car.
My last day in Wales, I had planned to head into Oswestry as some of my ancestors came from that village. After the driving issues I was experiencing, I decided to stay in Wrexham since I’ve caused no damage to the car or other people’s property while in Wrexham! It did allow me to explore the beautiful property at Cefn Park. Anytime I can hang out with Highland cows is a good thing to me!
Tuesday I woke up sad to leave Wales but very happy to be on my way to Heathrow to drop off this F’ing car! I packed up the car and was on my way. Tears were shed as the bilingual road signs turned into just English. I was behind a large farm truck for most of the drive from Wales to the motorway so we went blissfully slow. Once on the motorway, things were fine and I arrived at Heathrow with no additional damage.
As I drove onto the Heathrow maze of roads, I missed the Enterprise road twice. I made two trips around the same roundabout but the third time’s a charm and I entered the return lane. The nice man that rented me the car and talked me into all that extra insurance was the same man that was handling the return.
Parked with the passenger side away from the Enterprise building, the man noted there was no damage to the driver side. It was pristine. As he walked around the back he noted no damage to the trunk. Then he made his way to the passenger side where there may be some dings. The side of the passenger headlight was smashed (but it still worked), the front wheel well was dented, the rim of the front wheel was scratched down to the bare metal. The sidewall of the tire looked like a chocolate donut that had large bites taken out of the side, had several chunks of rubber either completely gone or just hanging on by a tiny piece of rubber.
He slowly backed up to take in the entirety of the damage to the passenger side. There was a 4 inch scrape from the dented front rim to the taillight. On the bottom of the car there was that scratch, almost like a pinstripe, that went from the front to the back that was scratched down to the metal. The rear wheel well was also dented but I’m not sure which mishap caused that specific damage. Slowly, he moved to the front of the car where he noted the broken grill and the few jammed sticks still stuck from that hedge I drove through. Other than those dings, the car was in perfect shape.
After he called his co-workers over to take in the full breadth of the condition of this car that was brand new with 4 miles on it when I drove it off the lot 5 days prior, he calmly turned to me and said “What happened, miss”? At first I said “You don’t want to know” but he said he actually did want to know since he had to fill out the insurance paperwork. Luckily, he talked me into that insurance because all I had to pay was the £100 deductible assuming the damage was under £10K. Anything over that, I had to pay another £100.
As I was waiting for my Uber, they were discussing the front tire and its condition. It was decided to be too unsafe to drive the 500 yards to the lot with the other damaged car. Bunch of wimps, I drove like 650 miles on that thing! He remember I was American because he left me with this nugget, “Some Americans return the cars with bumpers in the back seat.”
My Uber finally arrived and as the driver was loading my bags, they changed the tire and drove my little Mazda 3 to the broken car lot. While I would find myself missing the car, I definitely didn’t miss the driving. About a week later, I got the information and only cause £8,500 worth of damage so my case was closed and I was not needing to pay anything additional. Mrs. Koog was very happy.
Just a heads-up, for my next solo trip to the UK I will be looking for a confident driver and I will also be getting the extra insurance. Let me know who’s interested.
As I have written in the past few entries my trip was magical and healing and all those things trips should be. With one exception, driving. I was nervous when I booked the trip that I would forget to stay to the left and cause an international incident on the M4. Apparently, staying to the left would not be the problem. No, my problem was staying too far to the left. For some reason, I completely lost my depth perception on the left (passenger side).
This issue wasn’t a real problem on the motorway as there was a shoulder and every time I’d cross the line I was able to correct immediately. The drive from Heathrow to Conwy, Wales was uneventful until I got off the motorway to the road into Conwy. About 2 minutes into my drive on a non-motorway road, I hit the curb at about 45mph. Ooof. Just a few miles past and I hit it again. This was going to be a long week since North Wales is not at all urban and has limited public transit.
Off the road with the curbs and into the walled city of Conwy, I found my house, unloaded my bags and got back into my car to drive it to the parking lot about a 3 minute walk. As I am making my way up the world’s narrowest and most vertical street, I hit 5 consecutive car rear view mirrors. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I pulled over and was getting ready to write my information on 5 cards for the owners. A man, at least 70 years old was running up the street to tell me there was no damage to any of the cars. He then asked me if I was American. I hesitated, but I said “Yes.”
I happily parked this car, it was a Mazda 3 by the way, oh and it was brand new as I drove it off the Enterprise lot with only 4 miles on the odometer. I went over to the passenger side and took a look both the tire and the mirror. The tire had a large gash in the sidewall that was hanging on by a small piece of rubber. The rim was ground down to its metallic base. The good news, there was no damage to my side mirror.
Grateful for the walk back to my accomodation to stop shaking, I pondered how the actual F@$k I was going to get through the next week having to drive the mountainous roads in Eryri and Llangollen. I assumed that today’s bumps were just because I had flown 7 hours then driven 3.5 hours. Tomorrow, I will have the driving under control. Not so fast with the confidence there, Junior.
Luckily, I was driving at first light so there were not many potential victims on the roads. My first problem came in the Llandudno tunnel. I was going the speed limit, 60mph, hit the curb and kind of bounced off. I did this more than once. Other drivers definitely wanted to get away from me first to avoid the bouncing but I slowed down to about 30. It would be a few miles on this motorway before I stopped shaking and cursing to myself. The rest of the drive on the motorway was fine and I hit nothing and no one. I got off the motorway and did fine in the roundabout. Gaining confidence.
Here’s where things go a bit awry. I am on the country roads on my way to Cwm Idawal to meet my guide in a parking lot. These roads are 2 lanes but very narrow and the speed limit is 60mph. At first it was fine. The road was only moderately winding and I was able to keep the car within the lines. Luckily, there was not a lot of traffic because it was only 6:15 am so still not many people witnessing the multiple curb hits.
I get to an area that is one lane due to construction. It has a red light and cones and the speed limit there was 30. I was overjoyed. I was the first car in the line of about 5. I’m doing well! Hitting nothing just driving. Then, I notice what looked like the opening between the cones to switch sides. It was not, it likely was just a non-evenly spaced cone. Quickly realizing my mistake, I moved back to the other lane. I did this slowly and while slowly making my way to the open lane, I hit and dragged at least 15 cones. I am spooked and nervous to continue my 35 minute drive to meet my guide. FYI: the other cars took the opportunity to speed away from me as I veered into the construction path. I don’t think they saw the cone situation.
The road was back to being an acceptable amount of winding and I was getting confident again and I was now driving the 60mph speed limit. Unfortunately, the curves come quickly and were very sharp. Unfortunately, I missed the curve, hopped the small curb and drove through someone’s hedge and out the other side. What the actual F is happening? Luckily, no one was coming the other direction as I busted out of this hedge back onto the road.
After about 5 more hits to curbs but no more crimes against hedges, I found the Cwm Idwal welcome center and parked my car. My guide was a bit late so I had an opportunity to scope out any damage to this brand new car. The sidewall of the passenger tire looked like someone took bites out of it and more of the rim was scratched to the metal. There were many hedge branches lodged in the broken grill. I was able to get pretty much all the branches out before my guide arrived. Finally, the front quarter panel was dented. I assume that was from the hedge. Oh and there was an acrid smell of grinding breaks and burning rubber.
My guide arrives and asks me if I smell burning rubber. I partially explained the situation and just mentioned the curbs but left out the drive through hedge. He checked the tire and agreed it looked like someone chewed it but said as long as I stay away from curbs, I should be fine. He also said he would let me follow him to the next stop and he’d go very slow. We finished our hike and photography and were off to the next mountain’s visitor center.
He did as he promised and went slow and I tried to follow his lane position. That worked on the 2 lane roads. He forgot to mention we would drive about 20 minutes on single track roads lined with hedges on one side and a drop off the side of a mountain on the other. I’d rather have hedge option, please. Oh, the speed limit on these roads is also 60mph. And there are big trucks going at speed as we pull over to let them pass on the single track road. While my heart was beating out of my chest and my stomach was tossing, I made it to our next stop without incident.
We were here for several hours as we hiked up and down the mountain while stopping at beautiful vistas for photographs. Since I had such success with the last drive, I followed him without incident. He even graciously told me to follow him to the motorway after our last stop. He was on his way to his home in Mold and I was on my way to Wrexham. Luckily, there were no curbs on the way to my accommodations. Although, I made a wrong turn and ended up driving onto an empty rugby field. Whoops…
The next day was a down day for me, no photo/hikes. My plan was to go into Wrexham and spend the day around the town. I was familiar with parking at the Ty Pawb garage since we used that in 2023 when Mrs. Koog was in charge of transportation. I made it to the garage and parked without incident. I had a great day in Wrexham knowing the car was parked and I was not moving it until tonight! When I did drive out of the parking garage, it was without error and I made it back to Cefn Park without taking on more damage to the car or my nerves.
Sunday the guide and I met at a service area off the motorway and he let me follow him to our stops. I think he was worried about my chewed up tire blowing if I kept hitting curbs. Once our day and travels together were over, he gave me perfect directions to the parking lot in Llangollen. I followed the directions, hit no curbs, and pulled into the parking lot. Unfortunately, since it was a beautiful, warm sunny day everyone wanted to walk around the quaint town and the parking lot was full.
My confidence had been boosted since I’d gone 2 days without incident. I came out of the parking lot and took a right. I remembered to stay to the left. Unfortunately, I was going the wrong way down a one way street. The man in the car that was coming toward me, leaned out his window and in true Welsh fashion he politely told me to back up and he could wait so not to worry. My driving in reverse is much, much worse than my forward driving. The man actually winced a few times as I he watched me back up and scrape the entire passenger side along a brick wall, sometimes making sparks. Luckily, I had the sense to fold in my mirror.
Horrified and embarrassed, I was able to get myself on a bidirectional road and head out of town. I was not going to enjoy Llangollen, I was heading back to Wrexham for my reservation for Sunday Roast and then parking the car for the night back at my accommodation, Cefn Park. I returned to Cefn Park and gently hit the gate on my way into the property. No damage to the gate, couldn’t tell at this point if there was more damage to the passenger side of the car.
My last day in Wales, I had planned to head into Oswestry as some of my ancestors came from that village. After the driving issues I was experiencing, I decided to stay in Wrexham since I’ve caused no damage to the car or other people’s property while in Wrexham! It did allow me to explore the beautiful property at Cefn Park. Anytime I can hang out with Highland cows is a good thing to me!
Tuesday I woke up sad to leave Wales but very happy to be on my way to Heathrow to drop off this F’ing car! I packed up the car and was on my way. Tears were shed as the bilingual road signs turned into just English. I was behind a large farm truck for most of the drive from Wales to the motorway so we went blissfully slow. Once on the motorway, things were fine and I arrived at Heathrow with no additional damage.
As I drove onto the Heathrow maze of roads, I missed the Enterprise road twice. I made two trips around the same roundabout but the third time’s a charm and I entered the return lane. The nice man that rented me the car and talked me into all that extra insurance was the same man that was handling the return.
Parked with the passenger side away from the Enterprise building, the man noted there was no damage to the driver side. It was pristine. As he walked around the back he noted no damage to the trunk. Then he made his way to the passenger side where there may be some dings. The side of the passenger headlight was smashed (but it still worked), the front wheel well was dented, the rim of the front wheel was scratched down to the bare metal. The sidewall of the tire looked like a chocolate donut that had large bites taken out of the side, had several chunks of rubber either completely gone or just hanging on by a tiny piece of rubber.
He slowly backed up to take in the entirety of the damage to the passenger side. There was a 4 inch scrape from the dented front rim to the taillight. On the bottom of the car there was that scratch, almost like a pinstripe, that went from the front to the back that was scratched down to the metal. The rear wheel well was also dented but I’m not sure which mishap caused that specific damage. Slowly, he moved to the front of the car where he noted the broken grill and the few jammed sticks still stuck from that hedge I drove through. Other than those dings, the car was in perfect shape.
After he called his co-workers over to take in the full breadth of the condition of this car that was brand new with 4 miles on it when I drove it off the lot 5 days prior, he calmly turned to me and said “What happened, miss”? At first I said “You don’t want to know” but he said he actually did want to know since he had to fill out the insurance paperwork. Luckily, he talked me into that insurance because all I had to pay was the £100 deductible assuming the damage was under £10K. Anything over that, I had to pay another £100.
As I was waiting for my Uber, they were discussing the front tire and its condition. It was decided to be too unsafe to drive the 500 yards to the lot with the other damaged car. Bunch of wimps, I drove like 650 miles on that thing! He remember I was American because he left me with this nugget, “Some Americans return the cars with bumpers in the back seat.”
My Uber finally arrived and as the driver was loading my bags, they changed the tire and drove my little Mazda 3 to the broken car lot. While I would find myself missing the car, I definitely didn’t miss the driving. About a week later, I got the information and only cause £8,500 worth of damage so my case was closed and I was not needing to pay anything additional. Mrs. Koog was very happy.
Just a heads-up, for my next solo trip to the UK I will be looking for a confident driver and I will also be getting the extra insurance. Let me know who’s interested.
It’s refreshing to learn that you aren’t perfect in EVERYTHING you do! This is very entertaining! Glad all sorted out in the long run!
ReplyDeleteI am 100% confident driver and can be yours! Glad you made it out without serious incident….except maybe to your nerves! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteThis was a treat to read! Although I was biting my nails as you described hitting the curb a few times, especially while at 60 mph, I'm happy you were/are okay! I have to admit that I laughed out loud a few times, but I loved losing myself while reading all about your U.K. driving adventures!!
ReplyDelete