An Aussie tourist facing his fourth night stranded at Britain’s highest pub during heavy snowfalls today joked: “We are fine but we have run out of sausages.”.
Paul Wright, 52, said sausages and Malbec wine had run out at the Tan Hill Inn, North Yorkshire, which is 528 metres (1,732 ft) above sea level.
A total of 23 customers and six staff have been trapped since ‘four-foot’ high snow drifts cut off the pub from the outside world on Saturday evening.
Despite having enough food to feed 40 people for a month, the pub has run out of sausages and Malbec wine.
Beds at in a shared room start at £50 a night at the inn, with private double rooms from £79.
Those at the inn are staying for free for any days beyond their original booking, but have been asked to make a donation to local charities.
The situation has left visiting couple Paul and Naomi Wright, who live on a 19-acre (80,000 square metre) patch of land in rural Katherine, Australia, having to make sacrifices.
The 52-year-old father joked: “We’ve run out of sausages, it’s atrocious. No pork sausages, no more English breakfast. Gutted.
“This morning I just had to have an omelette, I could have had the bacon but I don’t like your bacon – I think it’s horrible, you guys don’t smoke your bacon.
“A good English pork sausage, there’s nothing better. Naomi and I being first-born Australians, our families are used to having pork sausages and stuff for our breakfast.
“We call them chipolatas, not having them for your breakfast is a bit weird.”
The couple, travelling with their 22-year-old son, sister-in-law, four-year-old nephew, and two friends, said they had also managed to drink the Inn out of Malbec wine, so have had to switch to Shiraz.
Pub-goers have been keeping entertained with a disco and even snowball fights, but some have started to work remotely while they wait for the roads to be cleared.
It comes as temperatures fell to -11.1C in some parts and the Met Office and UK Health Security Agency issued warnings ahead of the blizzards.
Paul added: “We’ve had to come upstairs because people are trying to work now, obviously there are people here who are meant to be at work, there’s meetings happening, and Zoom calls and laptops.”
Others have kept themselves busy by going hiking in the local area, but not Paul and Naomi, who turned up in jeans and coats as they thought they were just staying the night.
Naomi, 52, said: “We’re lucky that we’re on the road and we have our suitcases with us, whereas some people don’t have that. They came up for a night and they brought one set of clothes.”
Owner Andrew Hields said: “It’s the wind that causes the problem when it blows drifts onto the road.
“We are very exposed and it snows a lot in the winter months so we would be out of business if we shut the inn every time snow was forecast.
“We have had bad weather in the past when there is no warning, we have had weather warnings and it’s been fine at Tan Hill.
“Often, when the main A66 is closed, traffic diverts and stops at Tan Hill.
“Sometimes people do travel when it is unwise to do so and it might not be the norm or the done thing by some people’s standards but we offer hospitality in the oldest sense of the word and cannot turn them away in the teeth of the weather.
“Tan Hill has done that for centuries and we are not stopping now.”
ENDS.
