A English man made a 700-mile round trip to Scotland to purchase a barbecue after not being able to find the model of grill he wanted.
Mark Whalley, 52, drove from the West Midlands to Inverclyde's Cardwell Garden Centre on in order to buy the Ziggy 2 Grillstream gas barbecue.
He said he decided to travel to Scotland as he could not find another business in the UK that had the model on sale, reports Coventry Live.
He said: “I really wanted the Ziggy 2 barbecue and I searched everywhere online and the only one I could find on sale in the country was at Cardwell Garden Centre. I’ve had this particular model of gas barbecue for years, but it was getting a bit temperamental and it needed replacing.
"I wanted to get the same model because it’s a great barbecue, it’s solidly built, allows us to grill or bake and we’ve always had great results with it. In fact, it’s never let us down.
"I could see online that this barbecue was still available in Australia and South Africa, where it is classed as a real top-end model, but that was just a bit too far for me to travel and Cardwell is much closer for me to travel in my electric car.”
Searches online show that the Ziggy 2 Grillstream gas barbecue retails for around £300. He added: “It might seem a long way to go to buy a barbecue, but it was worth every mile and every minute travelling. I left my house at 7.30am and didn’t get home until 1am the next day. Both my wife Tracy and I enjoy our barbecues in the garden during the summer and I’m really looking forward to using my new barbecue this weekend with some friends".
Cardwell’s retail general manager, Paul Carmichael said: "We’re delighted we were able to supply Mark with his favourite gas barbecue. We really appreciate the effort Mark made driving all the way from Solihull to pick up his barbecue. That must have been the furthest anyone has travelled to buy anything thing from us.
"We hope he has many years' enjoyment from the barbecue."
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