Tonight - whilst driving home from our regular trip to Fife, we chanced upon a huge traffic jam and decided to take a detour home. BFS drove past our normal turning and used his sense of direction to choose another route. All was going well, and I even managed to pick up our location on my map on my phone to confirm that we were heading in the right direction when - just at the approach to our final junction - the road was closed! A quick u turn found us depending on my map to find an alternative route. I found a wee track road which would take us cross country to meet up with the original road we were aiming for. Perfect. Well, that was until we turned into it and BFS looked at me dubiously enquiring if it was in fact a road and not just someone's drive. I reassured him and we set off along a track which would could make a lot if money on a 'learn to drive a 4x4 course' our freshly cleaned lower sitting rear wheel drive German estate wasn't best placed to deal with such a contoured muddy track. It was hair-raisingly slippy at some parts and eventually, at the top of a hill of mud which had us travelling up mostly losing the back end and sliding sideways, did we get stuck in a trench of mud. Errrr maybe my map wasn't the most reliable tool, but it was definitely a track - just not one for actual cars!
Anyways - my heart started to beat again after (admittedly) some very skilled steering work from BFS released us from the grip and we set off again along the final stretch of the track. Tracking our movements as I encouraged him that we were just about at the junction...we both looked with despair at what we could see in front of us - a couple of feet back from the road, denying us of our freedom was a flipping rusty gate, with an even rustler chain wrapped around it and the post, tied shut with not one, but three teasingly gleaming padlocks - aaaaaaarrgggh. We attacked the gate at the hinge end, but nothing was shifting this bad boy. The lane wasn't wide enough for a 3 point turn and we both knew how slim the chances were of us making it back through the muddy swamp which we'd already grooved even deeper trenches into with our previous spin of wheels. Sheepishly I returned to the car, rather amazed at how calm BFS was - considering! He plonked his bum back in and then proceeded to start what must have been about a 15 point turn which had the front and rear of the car climbing up the embankments in turn until we finally set free to attempt to retrace our steps and try and make it back with us (and the car) in ine piece. As we approached the squelchy pit and it came into view BFS hit reverse and took an effective 'run at it' - woohoo, we made it through first time. It was a white knuckle ride down the hill though as he just went for it - intent on not getting stuck. He saw that I was in mild panic and pointed out at that point in time he wasn't caring about the car - I pointed out it wasn't the car getting knocked about that I was worried about, it was more us sliding down a ditch at the 'road' side! Anyways - we made it in one piece with lots of 'wow, wasn't that an adventure' to make light of it to the kids, so they couldn't see just how stressed we both had been!
The ride was ever so slightly hairy - not one to repeat, that's for sure!
Oh and we did have a wee casualty - apparently the mudguard that's been hanging off for a bit, decided to stay behind as a little souvenir of our adventure for someone to find one day!
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