Well thanks to Andrew for coming along, we had a great day even if it did cloud over towards the end (it was actually snowing on our way back to Penicuik). As there were only three vehicles we were able to use the three access routes I was most worried about doing in a big group (East Reston Mill, Marlfield and Nenthorn).
From L to R:
rangerovering's 3.5 V8 RRC, I.AM_a Driver's Td5 90 and andrew's 200Tdi 3dr Disco
The fords in the order we visited them was:
Pease Bay
East Reston Mill
as you can see, the sun was shining and it really was a beautiful day.
Chirnside
I didn't get any pictures or videos as I was the only one to attempt it, it was a lot deeper than last time and hopefully Andrew or Steve will post a video here soon.
Abbey St Bathans
There are two fords here, the first is an irish bridge and when we recce'd on wednesday there wasn't much water flowing over the bridge, compared to today:
and a video of Andrew on his return (I was on the bridge away from watersplash)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj7gWAXOi5gThen we moved to the other ford, a deeper and rougher crossing of the same river about 200 yards downstream of the first (again I've no photos of my 90 going through but Andrew or Steve may post some).
Once I'd been through, Steve decided to try taking the RRC through, so fitted his posh wading blanket as a purely precautionary measure....
for the video of his 1st crossing, see link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLs8WLdg9Eo(ignore my commentary, the last section of this ford is deeper and I was 'helping' him along
)
and for his return crossing, the video can be found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5WUJ3PI5Yafter successfully returned, we noticed that Steve was needing to dry his carpets off....
... and luckily he didn't completely lose that posh wading blanket.
Pity about the front valance going missing during the return crossing, if you look carefully at the video it's intact before wading.
Onwards through Duns and to Langton Mill. This ford is very tame and though fast flowing, wasn't even that deep today so we didn't stop for photos.
Next up was Marlfield, we didn't stop at the actual ford but this is the 'road' leading away from it
Next up was Darnchester, again I didn't take any photos of the crossing, I think food was on my mind as it was getting close to 1:00 by this point.
We stopped for lunch in Kelso, in the town centre long enough to annoy a few locals and to pop into Greggs, then off down to a nice wee carpark down by the Tweed for a picnic
How did the river water get in there?
Steve finds he'd not got a cup, so has to improvise
(or was he just rinsing the headlamps out?)
After Lunch we headed on to Nenthorn
From Nenthorn we headed over to Earlston, where Leader Water had risen enough to make the crossing a challenge. Once again we'll have to wait for Steve or Andrew to post videos and/or pics as the water was too high for the RRC or Disco to attempt.
Having done this time was getting on, we decided to head to Peebles and make it our last stop before finishing up in Penicuik before going our seperate ways. Passing Melrose and through Galashiels it started to rain, and it didn't stop all the way to Peebles. We found that the river was quite high and flowing fast, I decided I wasn't worth the risk.
We finished up in another supermarket car park in Penicuik, it was still raining and it was getting dark.
I can't speak for the other 2 (well 3 if you count Andrew's daughter), but I had a really good day and there are still quite a few fords we didn't get to today that we could do sometime in the future (and I look forward to seeing their pics and videos from today).
