Our Journey Begins – Friday 3rd May

Our journey started in the early hours of Friday morning with a flight from the Gatwick U.K. to Paphos, Cyprus.

Flight time was around four and a half hours and we landed around 2:00pm local time. Just in time for a late lunch of bread and cheese!

Unpacking and then out for dinner in the town. We caught a glimpse of the Greek Orthodox Easter celebrations outside a nearby church. It involved a LOT of fireworks!

Then off home and to bed, ready for the classic car club breakfast tomorrow.

Whilst I had been taking the camper to Sofia my dad and helpful friends had been ensuring that the MG was ready for the trip.  He had found a number of problems with the electrics, mostly caused by corrosion in the 1960s wiring connections, always a problem on those cars, and wiring that had just not been reconnected during previous works. They topped up the gearbox oil, well down on where it should have been and replaced the back axle oil and changed the engine oil and filter along with adding in an in-line petrol filter in case of mucky fuel along the way.  He also had rebuilt the carburettor float chambers to replace the worn out needle valve that was leaking fuel.

We also decided to rig up dad’s rally Brantz distance and speed instrument as we wanted to ensure that we knew our speed in kilometres and didn’t end up with speeding fines in the north and Turkey.   Just as well we did, as it turned out as the speedometer decided along the journey to progress from highly inaccurate to reading 50mph while stationary.