Unless you are used to it, the wee small hours which will last till near enough 8am till daylight are the killers, especially as you are working the night before.

Yes you could get some sleep before hand, but if you feel fresh enough after work it might be worth getting going and put a couple of hours under your belt, which should take you well up into thenorth whichever route you take, M11 A14 A1?.

Take a flask of boiling water and tea/coffee ingredients, and a blanket or two, cos by about 3/5am you may well be flagging, if you feel tired stop and make a drink, scoff some food, garages with microwaves and ginsters pies will be open so you won't starve, if you feel dog tired bed down for a few hours, preferably at a service station not in a layby in the middle of nowhere, low life's exist in real life.

Warm clothes, gloves, work type gloves in case of puncture etc, hi viz vest or work coat, stout pair of boots just in case, brolly always handy to have, good torch, head torch never out the way, spare batteries, drinking water, phone and charger, emergency breakdown cover in place and numbers/cards handy.

Car wise, yes make sure all is well now and before you leave, washer bottle full of strong mix, oil and water topped up, tyres good, pressures checked, spare tyre pumped up, wheel changing equipment on board (make sure the wheelbolts are undoable by you today cos emergency cover will be skeletal that night), check hoses and auxilliary drive belts for condition, does it need a new cambelt soon change it, brake fluid ok, all lights working, spare headlight bulb wouldn't go amiss no a few assorted other bulbs espacially stop and tail lights and check now in daylight how to fit them, few basic tools, spare oil, spare water, spare screenwash concentrate, rubber squeegee blade and water spray bottle to keep the salt down on the windows.

Start of with spotlessly clean windows inside and out, headlight lenses dull? polish them now with autosol or similar then wax them, buy a can of Holts Mixra off the internet, when the screen gets greasy and the wipers won't shift it this stuff works wonders.

Take care, have a good trip.

Edited by gordonbennet on 19/11/2017 at 12:43

I really don't like the fact that you intend to take on this run right after finishing work. How long will you have been working?, and how long will it have been since you last slept?. I have no problem with your reasoning for leaving at 1am (I have done that myself in the past), it is sound, and you are right, the roads are likely to be very quiet indeed. But my honest opinion would be to leave it 24 hours and go at 1am on the 2nd of Jan. The roads will be just as quiet, but you will, at least in theory, be properly rested. Trying to do what you are planning to do is a recipe for disaster with the chances of you falling asleep behind the wheel extremely high.

Yes, it's all been said ... and I would think you're much younger than some/most here (certainly younger than myself, I''m sure). The older you get the harder certain things (lots of things) get.

It was 12 years ago (I was 54 then) that we moved from Essex to the West Country ... about 230 miles. The day of the move was long and busy and we didn't leave Essex till quite late in the day. We each drove our respective cars and travelled close(ish) to each other. We even had little those little two way battery powered radios so we could contact each other on the move (agreed might not be entirely advisable, but hey ho).

I have to say it was an absolute nightmare. What should have taken about 4 hours turned into at least 8 hours. Possibly 10. ( it was certainly WELL into the early hours by the time we arrived). We simply couldn't stay awake and had to keep stopping in garage forecourts and motorway service areas. Yes, it was inadvisable but it was far worse than anyone would have imagined... the stress and work of leaving the old house and saying goodbye to people plus the actual move itself was tiring but to then to drive 230 miles was too much for us. Yes, we got there without mishap but a lesson was learned. Trying to stay awake between little mini snoozes was horrendous - and dangerous.

Think carefully before going all that way after work!

As others say leaving striaght after a late finish at work is a bit of a worry but I guess there's a reason to be in Glasgow early doors on 1st.

My standard route to NW and Scotland from Northampton is M1/A50/M6 but at that time of year/night I'd use M6 all the way. Not even worth paying for the toll road. Certianly avoid A66 as it's hard work to drive and vulnerable to both snow and high winds. M/way all the way also has advantage of certianty that services are 24/7/365 and if you're fatigued you're guranteed never to be more than 20mins or so from a stop with coffee and bogs although I never seen anything worse than Killington Lake (IIRC) at 02:00 in June 2010 when main building was closed and all services were delivered by a guy with very limited English in the fuel station.

The loos were an absolute disgrace - seen better in a night club at that time of day.

It's all been said I think.

One thing that occurs to me, which hasn't been said, is that it may be a bad idea to drive in a very warm car. You may be tempted to do that in the middle of a (possibly cold) night, but remember the TV programme about the railway staff managing the train taking Liverpool and Everton fans back home from Wembley? First they were relieved of any undrunk booze, then when they were settled on the train the staff turned up the heating to make sure they dozed off. You don't want that happening if you can help it.

When I started work in Cheshire 50 years ago, and before I had a place to live, I commuted at weekends from Cardiff (mostly A49) getting up at 4:30 for a 4-hour drive. It had its plusses and minuses, but at least I had had several hours sleep, and I didn't nod off.

You should never need to go to Killington Lake, as the excellent Tebay / Westmorland services are the next ones north from there (and unlike K. Lake, open both sides of the M6).

That would be my normal principle. On this occasion though we were hi-tailing for home with stops driven by time/bladders. Previous stop had been either Annandale Water or Gretna.

Our Daughter lives in Torpoint and the 'Hobbity Services' at Gloucester (the grass roofed buidings apparently resemble a Hobbit Hole*) are a mandatory stop en route.

* I'm the only member of my household not into Tolkein - I was put off by The Hobbit being a set book at school.

Edited by Bromptonaut on 19/11/2017 at 21:49

I run a small courier company here in Devon and all I have ever done is high miles

I did 2000 last week and it looks like I will be hitting that again this week !

If this is your natraul awake time then I would say plough on It appears you may be used to being awake these strange hours so you are not going to feel it if this is the norm for you .

As already said if you feel tired pull over and have a sleep I would stop for a couple of hours then drive on

You are wise to take advantage of the time and have the road to yourself I always find that I might feel tired but as soon as it gets light I am wide awake

Make sure your motor is upto it if it runs OK normally it should be just check the levels Have plenty of screen wash this time of year you can use it every miles on the motoway if they have been gritting

Dont eat any big meals this makes people more tired than any thing else lots of water and a bunch of grapes !

Just remember that if parking at a service station, they charge you to stay more than two hours. You can buy time when you arrive, otherwise there is a hefty 'fine'.

So if the OP wants to kip, he needs to set an alarm for 100 minutes to allow time to visit the loo and fill up.

Very good point about the parking time limit at MSA's, usually 2 hours then anything up to £25 or large charges if you don't pay (avoid the hell holes), most decent sized filling stations will be open NYD i would have thought, it's Christmas Day when many more are closed, as said though be sure to have a full tank to start with.

The Markham Moor A1/A57 service area i would have thought would be open, large Shell filling station (on the right as you go north but access from/to all directions) and a large McD's beside it which has always been open when i go by, thats the sort of service station i meant for the OP to have a well deserved kip and possibly a bite to eat at and possibly refuel at, and a decent distance to have driven in the first hit, not one of the rip off MSA's.

Have we lost the OP, he hasn't been seen unless i've missed something.

Edited by gordonbennet on 22/11/2017 at 10:42

It's ok as long as it doesn't snow south of about York. North Yorkshire, County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria, as well as all of Scotland deal with it pretty well.

When the high part of the A66 is blocked due to snow, it usually really is ... to the point of not knowing where the road is any more were it not for the snow poles down each side.

In that really heavy snow of late 2010, I drove several times between Yorkshire and northern Scotland, and only got severely delayed by the snow once ... though even that was mostly caused by BMWs hopelessly spinning in circles on a snowy slight incline on a 2 mile stretch of the M90. We got up it fine in a large van, albeit needing a to get the shovel out a couple of times when the spinning BMWs blocked our path and we had to stop.