Sabra-Sabre Meeting in Wales (23/12/08 ) Previous Page

September 11-12, 2004

Departure in Antwerp Thursday september 9th 2004 at 3 pm - nice weather means hood down - we arrived in Zeebruges at 4.15pm.  We had an appointment with André & Carine on the first (pub-)terrace where our routes joined.  We wanted to refuel shortly before embarking and there, by hazard, we met Jacques.
The whole Belgian delegation for the Sabra/e-meeting had joined so we embarked together on P&O's "Pride of York".
Friendly crew on the boat, buffet-dinner, cautious taste of the English beers, had a night sleep, English breakfast.  At 8 am we got ashore and immediately in a queu.  Fourty minutes later we drove over the Humber Bridge, impressive span of the Humber-estuary.

Early on the trip we rather made long distances on short time, so from the Humber Bridge we drove South and then East to the M18, South again onto the M1 when we ran into a fogg-wall, never seen such a change of weather in minutes (but then, we're not British.)  We left the M1 for Chesterfield where the church-tower was made of unseasoned timber (John learned me).. reminded me of Pisa.

Straight East, through the "Peak District", not as high as our Ardennes but still some steep climbs.
Then we reached the "Cat & Fiddle", a Pub, comparable with our "Signal de Botrange": in the middle of nowhere but lots of guests.  Quite some motorbikers testing their bikes and their skills on the winding roads?

John Cartwright & Bev would be waiting for us over here to guide us to the hotel.  As we were 25 minutes ahead of schedual John arrived five minutes after we arrived.  Guess we had "foreigner" written on our foreheads as he immediately found us in the crowd.

Lunch, chat, looking pictures, quickly outside to close the hood - started raining.

I'd like to do the Cat & Fiddle road to Macclesfield again in sunny weather.  Nice that we had a good guide, he lead us round some queus at roadworks and because we only had to follow we could keep our maps dry.

At our arrival in Hanmer-hotel it had stopped raining, Jaki & Tony Heath were there already, Malcolm & Val Marchbank arrived soon so the "baptisement" of Jaki's Sabre-6 could be held in the patio.
Carine; Els, Jef, Malcolm, Tony, John, Val, Jaki, Bev (picture André Delouvroy).

Two wonderfull Sabre-6-es, both in showroom-condition and with an engine that pushes harder than most of it's contemporary cars.

Tony & Jaki Heath Vin & Sylvia Ward

Next morning the club was almost complete:
Vin, Tony, Jef, André ,Jacques, Malcolm, Patrick, John (Cartwright), Richard & John Valler

Later our host Tony Seddon arrived with one of the few (the only?) open Sabre-6 with flailing arms.  He lead us on a tour, mapped out by Geoff Cooper so in a way Geoff wasn't far away. Driving a Sabra is pleasant, certainly when the hood's down, but on these roads the car seems to get more alive than elsewhere, and there's allways a good gear, no need for high rpm's.

On some of the roads even bikers would slow down when crossing each-other.  Most pictures (took quite some) were ruined because on the click the car in the viewer had disappeared  behind the bend. Stil nice that one of the pictures (Patrick Gundry in Jacques' Sabra) wasn't bad.

A lunch-rest in the "Grouse Inn" Corwen.
Lunch, some people eat three times a day!, sandwich with Tuna and mayonaise is enough for me, Patrick ate "whitebate", kind of stickleback out of the see.

Some cars (don't mention no names) had to take in quite some water.  Further on it started raining.  It's clear Scottish people take their own decisions: "I decided it wasn't going to rain hard enough to put up the hood........" few minutes later when we reached the Llangollen motor museum it was dry again.

Back in the hotel we lined up for the Guiness-book-picture:

Vin Ward, Jef Neefs, Tony Heath, Tony Seddon, Chris Gallagher, Jacques Vandevelde, André Delouvroy, Malcolm Marchbank, Richard Valler, John Valler. 

central picture we see Patrick Gundry(behind the camera), Richard & John Valler, David Poole.

Dinner, chat, sleap, breakfast and Tony Seddon took us to another place where we could park in one row again (right picture).

We were invited at the Yesteryear Rally, Sarah Seddon waited on us (Ellie wasn't very interested)  A picture of Tony would have ruined this page, all covered with coal, soot and oil, cannot do this

No comment but one of the donor-cars must be included.

  Tony on his road-roller
  Those days you needed two drivers
Carine and the double-deckers. Never seen this: ladder-truck with caravan
After another night at the Hanmer Hotel and a motorway-trip to Hull, on the "Pride of Bruges" we had to adapt to the continent again. We only missed a picture of Mark Cooper, restauring a  Sabre-6, perhaps we'll see him again next year in Belgium.

A few Leffe's, though from multinational Interbrew, made us feel almost at home..

      

See you next year in Belgium

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