Road to Merlin

John would have been in Tim Hortons Heaven

With the recent opening of Merlin in Glenrothes, Scotland now has access to a major archery supplier on its doorstep. Until now, our closest store was Merlin in Bishops Auckland which meant a 332 mile round trip. Rather than an all day affair, a jaunt to Merlin is now an afternoon or a morning. However, to commemorate the full day/weekend trip that so many Scottish archers have made over the years, here is a brief narration of one of these road trips recently undertaken by GA archers in search of that sweet sweet archery merch. We'll keep this article to the facts for once to give you an idea of what this trip entailed.

Chaos at Tim Hortons: Its an early start if you're heading down to Bishops Auckland. A 6 am departure time is required if you are booked in for opening time (10am) and assuming at least one breakfast and toilet break. Obviously, when planning you can adjust departure time to match booked in time. This road trip's break was at Tim Hortons just outside Penrith. Hortons is all about breakfast (and donuts) so a perfect place to stop. In addition, its in a very handy location 110 miles/2 hours down the M74/M6 and just as you turn east. With the change in roads, it feels like you're half way even though its closer to 2/3's. The next part of your journey is 52 miles/1 hour-ish on the A66 to Bishops Auckland but the roads, while not bad, can get a little snarled up. On the positive side there are some sections of dual carriageway to pass trucks or the odd Challenger tank that might be on its way to their gunnery range. You will also pass a castle and a stately home .. Our archers journey was quite uneventful with no roadworks, no singing, no huffs and minimal content that might upset a HR department. This latter being quite unique for certain portions of GA.

Four minutes to opening

Early Arrival: As said earlier, Merlin open at 10 am, and you need to book your time in the shop. This is mainly because if you need a bow set up, it takes time and they only have so many staff. This particular visit had kit to be set up for Mr and Mrs Hall plus our resident equipment gnu but he can take care of himself. In GA's visit, Stephanie and Gordon would have dibs on Merlin folks as they booked in advance even if interlopers beat them to the shop. Turning up on spec if you need help is never a good idea - walk-ins have been turned away when the store had people booked in. One gentleman traveled approximately 100 miles without a booking only to find the store full of Scots who had booked! So always book in advance if you're going to need help/get things set up. This is true for any Merlin shop.

Gordon keeping the tag on so you know its a PSE Dominator

Kit Frenzy: This wasn't a trip made on speculation. It was centered on two new compounds and a set of Uukha limbs. The compounds had been pre-ordered by Stephanie and Gordon some weeks ago. These required to come from the supplier. Ordering in like this means they must be paid up front. Geo's Uukha limbs were sent up from Head Office as he requested trying them out and they were in stock. This is just an internal transfer so Geo didn't have to pay up front. Having the kit internally transferred like this has to be done at least 7-10 days in advance of your visit. Merlin have a lot of stock but it is widely spread over the country. So if you want to check out something in particular, it needs to be couriered. Just call up Merlin and request they have the kit on hand for you to try on your booked visit. Again, this is true for any Merlin shop.

Lunch: There is a new retail park not far from Merlin which makes getting lunch pretty easy - Italian, Japanese, Lebanese, pub grub, Popeye's chicken ... there's a lot of variety. A lunch break also gives the Merlin guys a chance to make arrows, have their own lunch and get away from archery for a moment. (as if anyone ever needs to get away from archery!!! Ed) Our intrepid shoppers went Italian in case you're interested.

Returning Home: After you've returned from lunch, paid the requisite body parts for your kit and collected an Amazon warehouse of parcels, its time to head home.One thing worth considering is what time will you get home. The just over three hour journey might drop you into rush hour so perhaps something to consider. Due to delays at Merlin our three shoppers on this trip didn't get back till after 8pm so easily missing the worst of the traffic although there was a delay as a peeved feline did require collection from the cat sitter.

Final round up: So that was the road trip on 20th March to Merlin Bishops Auckland. A six hour drive, lot of gossip/banter/archery talk and a couple of debit cards taking a hammering in the name of archery kit ... all in all a great day out. There's going to be an expedition to Merlin, Glenrothes in a couple of weeks so hopefully we'll get another article out about that with piccies as we're sure many of you would like to visit and might want an overview to what the trip entails. It should be noted that Geo was on his best behavior on the above trip (outside of thinking he had lost his debit card when he went to pay for lunch ........ suspiciously convenient!) but if its him and John going to Glenrothes, it could prove to be the road trip from hell so definitely worth us covering!