"Great Balls of Fire!"

The Mini Clan's Highland Gathering - 4th & 5th September 1999

This fun-filled weekend turned out to be rather more fun than any of us expected, with flaming members, frightened sheep & chickens, a lost Dutchman, spinning, flying Coopers, and a Mini-Bar to name just a few - read on to find out more!  Email me to find out how to join the Mini Clan, and come with us to our next event!

I suggested this trip to the Clan a couple of months ago.  The route used was the one I use to go up to our family cottage in Glenlivet - I think they are some of the best roads anywhere, and I wanted to see if the rest of the club agreed!

Day 1 - Flying Coopers & Assorted Drunks!

Our Mini-convoy formed at Scone Palace, Perth after assembling in Glasgow, Edinburgh and  Stirling along the way.  Everything went smoothly until we took the convoy through a very busy Perth - Graham and I seemed to have "lost" everyone else, so we turned back and retraced our steps - and then they all appeared, saw us going the other way, and started following us!  It ended up with Minis all over the place and a lost Dutchman...  Soon though we were all back together and on our way again.

The road from Perth to Glenshee was our next stage - a challenging road with many twists, turns and hilly-bits!  We stayed in convoy most of the time, but the road was just too tempting for the Cooper drivers, and they zoomed off for some fun - soon Graham was proving that 1999 Cooper's can still fly, although when he returned to earth his steering wheel wasn't straight any more...  I know the road like the back of my hand and zoomed ahead because I simply couldn't resist it - the road isn't often clear but it was this time!

Next stop was the town of Blairgowrie, which was having a festival - we received an amazing welcome and for a time were drawing a bigger crowd than the band on the nearby stage!  We did a couple of birthday-laps tooting our horns as we went.

Then it was on and up - up the long, long hill to the Glenshee ski centre!   This climb really tests a car to its limit, and it highlighted the power difference between the Coopers and Graham Blair's 998cc Mini "Flame" - I got impatient and overtook and sped to the top of the hill.  2 days later, the others joined me at the top and we gathered the cars together in a truly random way for this cool photo.

We were nearly at our camping site for the night - well more of a field actually - but because the Braemar gathering had just finished, the road we needed to take was temporarily closed by the police!  We adjourned to the nearby hotel for some light refreshment and to completely fill their car park with our Minis!  Once again, the cars were the centre of attention with 100s of people stopping and looking at them.  Arno's Dutch Mini Cooper drew a lot of attention, as did Graham Clarke's 2 week old Cooper sports.  

Unfortunately Graham's Mini also drew some attention from the wrong sort of admirer - a drunkard, with 2 pints of beer in his hands!   He became quite attached to Graham's car, literally, and used the sunroof as a giant beer coaster, and the door handle as a support to keep himself upright!

The road opened, and we went to find somewhere to camp alongside the river.  The decision was made for us, when from a van came the shout "YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO BLOW THE BLOODY DOORS OFF!!!" - so we stopped there and set-up camp - Arno and I took 5 minutes to put up our tent, everyone else took AGES - I think they all drunk too much beer...wouldn't catch me doing that! 

This is a picture of Shairen in her portable armchair and on the right is her first can of Miller...  We had some excellent BBQ food on our disposable barbecues, then after dark we moved over to the neighbouring camp, because they had stolen the roof joists from someone's hoose and had an enormous bonfire!  Some people got so drunk that they fell into ditches and didn't notice when sensitive parts of their anatomies caught fire...others resorted to drinking Peach Bacardi Breezers and walking on fire... while some just retired early at 1am...

This is Arno, Shairen, Calum, Alison, Graham, Jim and Adrian waiting for the chicken wings to burn horribly and the garlic bread to burn yet still stay soggy - impressive!

Day 2 - Whistling Kettles & Rob's Unintentional Acrobatic Display

I awoke to find people shouting around my tent - at 8:15 on Sunday morning!....turned out they were just talking but it seemed like they were shouting...that was when I discovered I'd slept all night on top of a rock...ouch!  This photo shows Arno (in green tent) and Calum & Shairen (blue tent) snoring happily at about 11:30am -shocking - imagine sleeping that long!

When eventually the others got up, we had breakfast, packed up the Minis and headed off to Braemar to dispose off the odd beer can and chicken wing...

Left to right we have Ernie Equinox, Charlie Cooper, Volcano, Scorcher, Anthrashite and MiniSpace

We headed off towards the Lecht - one of the most severely demanding roads anywhere in the UK.  This is a hill which cannot be managed by goods vehicles and which used to cause cars to go up it backwards.

This photo was taken at the first part of the climb, coming up out of Balmoral above the Queen's wee holiday hoose.  Charlie Leads the way with headlights blazing followed by Ernie, Antrhashite, Scorcher(!), Volcano and MiniSpace.

This photo shows the Minis coming over the famous humpacked bridge on the Cockbrige to Tomintoul Road. 

This old bridge has a very abrupt crest and has big score marks dug into the tarmac from cars getting stuck on top - I once saw a Volvo estate sitting on top with all wheels off the ground!  I told Ernie & Calum to wait while I went over first and set up to take photos....I zoomed up to the top in Charlie, but then braked hard before going over the top very slowly indeed. 

As I prepared to take the photo, I heard Ernie coming at full speed - I thought they hadn't noticed me braking - if they come over at that speed they'll take off and end up in the forest!! 

I flapped my arms madly to try to get them all to slow down but they just thought I was insane as usual.  Fortunately they slowed down anyway and disaster was narrowly averted.  Unfortunately I missed the photographs because of my arm flapping!!

The 1275cc Minis await the arrival of Graham Blair's 998cc Mini as it struggles up one of the steepest roads in the UK - and shortly afterwards entirely living up to its name - Scorcher - as it overheated!

The end of our fun weekend and a slightly blurry Graham, Shairen, Arno, Calum, Jim, Graham2, Alison and Adrian.  I just realised there's not a single photo of me on this whole page :-(

This is Charlie shortly after having performed a series of acrobatic manoeuvres at Bridge of Brown... I knew I shouldn't have taken him to see Russ Swift in action!