In July 2007 much of the UK was hit by severe flooding.

This hit Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire on the week-end of BugJam, and it took me 12hrs 30mins to drive 100miles from Bournemouth to Oxford.

Despite being stuck behind a caravan for much of my time on the A34, the view straight-up was much better. You’d never guess there were rivers overflowing...

Having finally made it to my destination in the early hours of the morning, we decided to abort our trip to BugJam, fearing the worst for the campsites.

We returned from walking the dog the following lunchtime to find a river running down the driveway and through the house. The exit from the roads was even deeper so we had no option but to leave the cars where they were.

This was the water level when we were evacuated - the tide mark on the Bug tells me that the water rose to the headlamps overnight.

Next day the water level was low enough to get the cars out to higher ground. My girlfriend’s New Beetle was bone dry inside and started without a problem. Mine had not faired so well - everything inside had been submerged or had absorbed the filthy water.
Having towed it out, I drained 2.5l of oil and about as much water from the sump. With the sparkplugs out I turned the engine to clear out the cylinders. With some fresh oil it started instantly - it may not be as resistant to water ingress but at least there’s not much to go wrong!

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