Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 - SV650.org

Paul the 6th · 31-10-12, 03:26 AM

It's the last day of October 2012 and for some reason I'm on my 2nd night of struggling to sleep (feck knows why, but I might as well do something productive!).

The setup:
Rob (aka RobH539) and I met at the Glencoe Massacre rideout in July 2012. Our mutual org friends had said in advance that we'd get on like a house on fire, and they weren't wrong. We met on the friday night along with all the other org'ers and got reasonably smashed together discussing road craft/track days/stupid track day things we had done on the road/regular re-testing for all motorists amongst other things. We skipped along together on the saturday rideout together as well, with similar riding styles: not hanging around but riding with a strong group mentality = aware of others' and our place within 'the stack' at all times... Pished again on saturday night we talked briefly about having always wanted to tour Scotland on our bikes.. It was as if we had been friends for a long time prior.

Sunday, we all returned home and within an hour or so of getting back I called Rob and asked if he'd had similar thoughts on the way home; doing a 5-8 day tour of Scotland within the next month or so. He was shocked when I asked him as if I was some kind of medium. I could tell already we were on the same wavelength...

Various org/facebook/txt messages/emails exchanged, we quickly decided that monday 13th August 2012 would be an ideal start date for 5 days of touring Scotland with the final nights stay in Edinburgh on the Friday. Accommodation and route planning was borne off the back of this time frame/past experience campsites and roads.

Monday 13th August...
We left York at around 12 noon on Monday. Heading west through the Yorkshire Dales from York, we reached the M6 within around 90 mins, north to the M74, through Glasgow rush hour around 3-4pm (exciting filtering for Rob with full hard panniers on his Triumph Sprint) finally reaching the Drovers Inn at the northern tip of Loch Lommond.

I originally discovered this wee part of Scotland in 2010 on the GM3 rideout - the campsite was Beinglas Farm, around 200 yards up the road from the Drovers Inn. The Drovers is a traditional historic inn on the A82, with B&B/hotel facilities on the west side of the A82, and the pub/restaurant over the road. It's a beautiful grand stone building steeped with history, stuffed animals from hunting days gone by and a massive range of ales/whiskeys available in the bar. During our research phase for the trip, we had looked into campsites and found them to be relatively expensive - £25/person in some places, plus the inconvenience of setting up/packing away camp each night and day - so then moved onto hotels/hostels/B&B's and found on average they were around £30-£35 per person each night = no brainer really.

At the time of booking the only room available for Rob and myself was a room with four poster bed and a jacuzzi. No TV though... What a way to start the trip. Despite it being a monday night in the middle of August there was a traditional Scottish Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-leigh for those who have never visited Scotland before, a 2 or 3 piece band with guitar, hand beaten drum and vocallist) singing various olde Scot songs, and then 60's hits in Gaelic style. When in Rome, order the haggis neeps and tatties. Rob and I obliged, I even had 2 glasses of 'Rusty Nail' (shot of DramBuie with a shot of single malt whiskey; smells like rocket fuel, tastes like gold, makes you feel like you've been drinking rocket fuel).

We returned to our room feeling suitably entertained, pogged and pizzed... My waterproofs, leathers and base layer had caused some irritation on the ride up, so in the middle of the night I was scratching an itch on my back - for about 3-4 minutes. In the morning Rob asked if I had been having some 'me time'. epicLAD.

Tuesday 14th August:
We had our traditional scottish breakfast before thrashing up the A82, through Glencoe, then north for Fort William and onwards up the A830 to Mallaig for the boat to the Isle of Skye. We had heard various mutual friends raving about the A830 from Fort William to Mallaig. Both Rob & I felt that it was a good road, but was quite overhyped. Same wavelength again? Smooth, flowing and technical - but lots of blind crests and tourists (a minibus full of german tourists talking to us in a lay-by at one point) maybe led us to feel that maybe the road was somewhat less smooth/flowing.

Arriving in Mallaig with around half an hour to spare we faffed around taking pictures and talking about the roads. The isle of Skye is accessible by road from the mainland (A87), but as we were on a 'tour' we decided it wouldn't be a proper adventure if we didn't take a trip on a boat at some point. It was around £15/bike on the ferry which lasted around 30 mins. Once at Armadale port on the Isle of Skye we were around 50 miles from our accommodation destination for the day: Portree.

We made our way along the Island roads, in places similar to single track roads on the Isle of mull, but for the most part proper full width roads with 2-way traffic which hugged the coast line, chasing the divide between land-and-sea while chasing the undulating height of the cliff edge..

We arrived at Portree Independent Backpackers around 3pm - the hostel where we were to stay for the night (and our cheapest nights stay on the entire trip at £18/person). With the hostel closed until 4pm we went for a ride further up the north east coast of the Island past 'The Old Man of Storr' and up to Staffin Bay. We returned to the hostel, checked in, bags/panniers dropped off, headed to a nearby pub, played pool (I won 3-0), ate pizza at the upstairs pizza restaurant (proper traditional stone baked pizza oven restaurant) and then went back for more drinks before going home around midnight. We stumbled into our dorm and onto the bunk beds in a fit of giggles much to the annoyance of the german couple we were sharing the room with..

Wednesday 15th August - 'The Big Miles Day':
We left Portree around 10am with 275(ish) miles ahead of us, destination: Thurso, around 30 miles from John O'Groats. Taking the A87 south east back down the Island towards Mallaig was special - having only negotiated the twisting coastal road 24 hours previous, the bends and scenery were completely different heading in the opposite direction. The A87 is the road back onto the mainland, which led us to the 'Wester Coastal Trail' on the A890 around lochcarron. Although not the most technical nor fastest, smoothest, most sweeping bit of road on the tour - this section was the point where I realised we were 'living the dream'. This was the point where the scenery was turned upto 11 (see pics).

We carried on along the A896 following the west coast of the mainland. Between this and the wester coastal trail I will forever remember the views from this section as the 'cover photo' for the whole entire trip. The roads were narrow single track with passing places every 100-200 yards, yet the tarmac was smooth and looked quite new, possibly due to the lack of traffic through winter months?

Having picked up the A832 east we made progress on our way to the lunch stop at Ullapool. The A832 is a climbing sweeping road, not too dissimilar to the Hard-knot pass in the Lake District. When I go back I will stop at the lookout point - we were tramming along at 'progress speeds' by the time I realised there was a lookout point but needless to say the view in the mirrors blew my mind..

We eventually picked up the A835 north towards Ullapool. The roads were brand new smooth black tarmac, sweeping from side to side on gentle descents and ascents along the coastline, rich green coniferous/pine trees along the roadside = Rob and I remarked how Alpine it felt along the last 15(ish) miles leading up to Ullapool...

Ullapool was the 'halfway' point for the day. I had wanted to tour Scotland on the bike for around 5 years by the point we got on this road, and having looked over various maps, I had subconsciously made my mind up that 'Ullapool' written on a map in big bold letters must be a major town with a Maplins and a mini-shopping centre.. The reality was possibly 10% the size of what I had in mind; literally a main street on the seafront with 1-2 housing estates leading up the hill towards the main land. There was a fuel station where we bought our lunch before sitting on the harbour wall to snaffle away...

We headed off from Ullapool North along the A835 until the A837 where we headed East/South/East again towards Lairg, and then onwards up the A836 to Tongue. From Ullapool to Tongue took around 3 hours, and this was after 3-4 hours getting to Ullapool from Portree. The roads varied from fast sweeping wide open A-roads to narrow single track b/unlisted roads with passing places every 100-200 yards. The scenery varied from wide open moorland to imposing coniferous/pine trees with forestry/logging work going on.. The weather varied just as wildly. We had left the Isle of Skye with perfect pristine rich blue skies and bright sunshine all the way up the west coast to Ullapool, but after Ullapool encountered patchy cloud as our altitude slowly increased before encountering thick fog and extremely chilly patches with low light.. There was a section around 15 miles before Tongue where we pulled over alongside loch loyal to wrap up and look at an abandoned house, as the temperature had dropped so low...

By the time we joined the northern coastal road A836 we were pretty tired, chilly and generally fed up.. Not far after Tongue my fuel light came on and despite Rob's best efforts to reassure me that we would make the remaining 30 miles, I kept thinking back to earlier on the A836 where I had been absolutely tanking it. Would we make it?

After filling up at a petrol station on the way into Thurso we spent 20 mins riding up and down the main streets looking for 'Sandra's backpackers' - it turned out that a greasy chippy we had passed 4 times, was in fact the place we were looking for. Being around £3-4 more expensive than the shared hostel dorm in Portree, Rob and I had our own room with bunk beds and private shower/toilet. We headed out for the night feeling broken from 8 hours/275 miles of riding, with only 3-4 beers knocking us on our arses. We concluded that next time we would break the day in half, since the mornings ride from Portree to Ullapool was unbelievably epic, and that, although the afternoons ride was equally awesome we were too tired to fully appreciate it, and the last 30% of the days riding became an objective to complete rather than a section to enjoy. Also not having had time to fully absorb the mornings roads/scenery meant that the afternoons roads and scenery completely over wrote our memory, which was a real shame. Thurso felt a bit bigger than Ullapool, probably something similar in size to Bridlington or Scarborough, albeit on a flat level ground rather than a steep coastal hillside.

Thursday 16th August
A damp, grey, murky, cold start saw us steadily make our way along to John O'Groats. Thurso was chilly but fog free, where by the time we made it Jo'G the visibilty was down to 150m at best. We spoke to the guy running the photography spot and he advised we give it half an hour = epic picture. Again as with Ullapool we expected there to be more at Jo'G but there was little more than a visitor centre, toilets, carparks and some buildings under construction. "Bleak" was the word we agreed on. After half an hour the sun burned through, the temperature and mood for the day managed to rise gently and we captured a brilliant picture before heading off.

This was the point where the main A-roads started to resemble regular run of the mill main A-roads again. Gatso speed camera's and speed camera warning signs re-appeard after a 3 day sabbatical. We suddenly realised we hadn't seen any police or speed cameras/camera signs since leaving Glasgow on Monday. It had been so relaxing...

However the roads were still smooth new in appearance, with many wide open overtaking spots to make safe progress. The north sea on our left as we made our way south for Braemar and the Cairngorms. Sweeping A-roads gave way to dual carriageways and roundabouts before turning into twisty technical A-roads again. "Welcome to the Cairngorms National Park". After a hundred or so miles of smooth relatively flat tarmac, the roads started to rise and fall in line with the surrounding mountains again. We eventually made it to Braemar Lodge (our final nights accommodation before Edinburgh) with fuel lights blinking and rain spitting on our visors. Ever since the fog burning off in John O'Groats the weather had been exceptional with blue skies and glorious sunshine (4 days in a row in Scotland, surely a new record??).

Braemar struck us as a bit of a tourist town with coach loads of mature sightseers pouring in, the hotels carrying a rather majestic and classy feel - yet friendly and accomodating as the rest of our tour had been. We ventured out to see if there were any pubs nearby, only to find similar sensible and classy hotels as per the one we were staying in. Upon our return to the Braemar lodge we were suprised to find a Honda CB500 parked next to our bikes (Triumph Sprint ST and Suzuki GSX-R 750 SRAD).. We were shocked when we noticed the reg plates were French, and absolutely astonished to learn that the rider was in fact a lone female who had been touring Scotland for around 5-6 weeks and had covered 4,000+ miles on her own..... and there we were thinking we were great adventurers having covered 1000 miles in 5 days.

The lone French bike rider was a lady called Nolwenn from Paris - we invited her to join us for dinner, and I later gave her my 'British Biking Roads' atlas since she didn't have a map of her own - I felt it would be of far greater use to her. The 3 of us shared dinner together and then talked long into the night with whiskey and beers.

Friday 17th August - the last day...
Friday morning saw the weather turn against us. We had our full Scottish breakfast and loaded the bikes in the finest drizzle Scotland had to offer. It was only a short 100-120 mile journey from Braemar to Edinburgh but sodden roads and pouring rain meant the progress was steady (relative to the rest of the weeks travel).

We had planned to have our rap party in Edinburgh at the peak of the Fringe Festival, but since accommodation was in short supply had decided to stay in Dunfermline at the Pitbauchlie hotel. This meant a short 20 minute train journey to Edinburgh Waverley, but once we were there, we were greeted by an old friend of mine Paddy Hirst aka 'Ball-Zee' = the national UK beat boxing champion 2 years in a row. He was performing as part of a show called the vocal orchestra but it just so happened that in 6 weeks of daily performances, Friday the 17th was his night off. So naturally he managed to get us into the VIP bar attached on to the Udderbelly festival tent. Many channel 4/BBC comedians were floating around and Josh Hartnett was sat having a beet with a few friends. A very surreal moment for Rob and myself after such an unbelievable week.

We headed off into the night, finishing up at a bar called 'Checkpoint Charlies' where we watched the Root City Band, and various impromptu acts, including a set from Paddy 'Ball-Zee' and the Australian beatboxer Tom Thumb.. Needless to say we ended up pretty smashed and got back to the hotel pretty late. It was the perfect way to round off the perfect week of adventure, and I'm sure neither of us will forget it.

Hopefully this thread will provide some inspiration to people who are considering a similar trip. Feel free to post questions or add in your own suggestions on how to make the trip even more special. Above all, just go and do it. Scotland is only a few hours away and once you're north of Glasgow, you're already onto incredible roads/stunning scenery. You won't regret it.

Hopefully I haven't rambled too much (2 hours I've been writing this now!) and maybe you even enjoyed the write up... Post below

Geodude · 31-10-12, 08:00 AM

Brilliant and inspiring write up Paul thanks for not sleeping and sharing with us.

maviczap · 31-10-12, 08:21 AM

Great write up Paul, I've done many of those places by bike, car and boat

Ullapool, I was there in 1987 on the night of the great storm, it was as calm as a millpond, beautiful place, but not much to do there.

31-10-12, 08:55 AM

Beautiful to see young love flourish!

Good write up Paul.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk

Paul the 6th · 31-10-12, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Beautiful to see young love flourish!

Good write up Paul.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk

I love it when he looks into my eyes, his hand gentle on my arm..... and at the top of his voice screams "GO ON RHINOTTERPIG!! DO IT FOR DADDY!"

You normally have to pay for stuff like that, ya know?

31-10-12, 09:08 AM

Super write up Paul! An amazing week indeed. I ended up going to Ullapool as a car passenger this summer, the weather was beautiful and I SO wanted the bike! So next year I think I'll be making the trip. Though you can bet the jetstream will behave itself next year and so Scottieland's freakishly better summer than ours probably won't happen again haha. I did manage to squeeze in a 300 mile round trip covering most of the Distillery Trail and the Cairngorms during my stay up there, that was good enough!

Hats off to the French lass, truly inspirational

Luckypants · 31-10-12, 11:40 AM

Great write up Paul, makes me want to go up there for another visit

Paul the 6th · 31-10-12, 11:42 AM

Thanks for all the feedback guys

been meaning to do it for a while.. Definitely going back

Paul the 6th · 31-10-12, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by missyburd

Hats off to the French lass, truly inspirational

Yeah Nolwenn had done like 5-6 weeks of touring and around 70-80% of her accomodation on the trip was arranged through couch surfing. We exchanged email addresses/phone numbers and I offered to put her up for the night on her homeward journey. By the time she finished her tour she'd been away from home for around 2 months and covered 6,000 miles. She even mentioned us in her blog: http://fr.mobilytrip.com/journals/pq...pxC9YqN94y5WMi

A planned one nights stay turned into 2 nights and I took her on a whistle stop tour through York, then up into the North York moors. She showed me how to cook savoury crepes the Brittany way and she taught me a bit of french.. She's offered me a place to stay in Paris when I next visit.

Paul the 6th · 31-10-12, 12:22 PM

And for anyone interest in Ball-Zee's work here are some bits:

AT&T flew him out to Nashville, Tenesse to film a new ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=z_oaOR-xn68

www.facebook.com/ballzeebeatbox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnSMDKITx4 - Paddy on the right, Tom Thumb in the middle and Heatbox on the left

31-10-12, 03:26 AM	#1
Paul the 6th Member Mega Poster Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 4,790	Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 It's the last day of October 2012 and for some reason I'm on my 2nd night of struggling to sleep (feck knows why, but I might as well do something productive!). The setup: Rob (aka RobH539) and I met at the Glencoe Massacre rideout in July 2012. Our mutual org friends had said in advance that we'd get on like a house on fire, and they weren't wrong. We met on the friday night along with all the other org'ers and got reasonably smashed together discussing road craft/track days/stupid track day things we had done on the road/regular re-testing for all motorists amongst other things. We skipped along together on the saturday rideout together as well, with similar riding styles: not hanging around but riding with a strong group mentality = aware of others' and our place within 'the stack' at all times... Pished again on saturday night we talked briefly about having always wanted to tour Scotland on our bikes.. It was as if we had been friends for a long time prior. Sunday, we all returned home and within an hour or so of getting back I called Rob and asked if he'd had similar thoughts on the way home; doing a 5-8 day tour of Scotland within the next month or so. He was shocked when I asked him as if I was some kind of medium. I could tell already we were on the same wavelength... Various org/facebook/txt messages/emails exchanged, we quickly decided that monday 13th August 2012 would be an ideal start date for 5 days of touring Scotland with the final nights stay in Edinburgh on the Friday. Accommodation and route planning was borne off the back of this time frame/past experience campsites and roads. Monday 13th August... We left York at around 12 noon on Monday. Heading west through the Yorkshire Dales from York, we reached the M6 within around 90 mins, north to the M74, through Glasgow rush hour around 3-4pm (exciting filtering for Rob with full hard panniers on his Triumph Sprint) finally reaching the Drovers Inn at the northern tip of Loch Lommond. I originally discovered this wee part of Scotland in 2010 on the GM3 rideout - the campsite was Beinglas Farm, around 200 yards up the road from the Drovers Inn. The Drovers is a traditional historic inn on the A82, with B&B/hotel facilities on the west side of the A82, and the pub/restaurant over the road. It's a beautiful grand stone building steeped with history, stuffed animals from hunting days gone by and a massive range of ales/whiskeys available in the bar. During our research phase for the trip, we had looked into campsites and found them to be relatively expensive - £25/person in some places, plus the inconvenience of setting up/packing away camp each night and day - so then moved onto hotels/hostels/B&B's and found on average they were around £30-£35 per person each night = no brainer really. At the time of booking the only room available for Rob and myself was a room with four poster bed and a jacuzzi. No TV though... What a way to start the trip. Despite it being a monday night in the middle of August there was a traditional Scottish Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-leigh for those who have never visited Scotland before, a 2 or 3 piece band with guitar, hand beaten drum and vocallist) singing various olde Scot songs, and then 60's hits in Gaelic style. When in Rome, order the haggis neeps and tatties. Rob and I obliged, I even had 2 glasses of 'Rusty Nail' (shot of DramBuie with a shot of single malt whiskey; smells like rocket fuel, tastes like gold, makes you feel like you've been drinking rocket fuel). We returned to our room feeling suitably entertained, pogged and pizzed... My waterproofs, leathers and base layer had caused some irritation on the ride up, so in the middle of the night I was scratching an itch on my back - for about 3-4 minutes. In the morning Rob asked if I had been having some 'me time'. epicLAD. Tuesday 14th August: We had our traditional scottish breakfast before thrashing up the A82, through Glencoe, then north for Fort William and onwards up the A830 to Mallaig for the boat to the Isle of Skye. We had heard various mutual friends raving about the A830 from Fort William to Mallaig. Both Rob & I felt that it was a good road, but was quite overhyped. Same wavelength again? Smooth, flowing and technical - but lots of blind crests and tourists (a minibus full of german tourists talking to us in a lay-by at one point) maybe led us to feel that maybe the road was somewhat less smooth/flowing. Arriving in Mallaig with around half an hour to spare we faffed around taking pictures and talking about the roads. The isle of Skye is accessible by road from the mainland (A87), but as we were on a 'tour' we decided it wouldn't be a proper adventure if we didn't take a trip on a boat at some point. It was around £15/bike on the ferry which lasted around 30 mins. Once at Armadale port on the Isle of Skye we were around 50 miles from our accommodation destination for the day: Portree. We made our way along the Island roads, in places similar to single track roads on the Isle of mull, but for the most part proper full width roads with 2-way traffic which hugged the coast line, chasing the divide between land-and-sea while chasing the undulating height of the cliff edge.. We arrived at Portree Independent Backpackers around 3pm - the hostel where we were to stay for the night (and our cheapest nights stay on the entire trip at £18/person). With the hostel closed until 4pm we went for a ride further up the north east coast of the Island past 'The Old Man of Storr' and up to Staffin Bay. We returned to the hostel, checked in, bags/panniers dropped off, headed to a nearby pub, played pool (I won 3-0), ate pizza at the upstairs pizza restaurant (proper traditional stone baked pizza oven restaurant) and then went back for more drinks before going home around midnight. We stumbled into our dorm and onto the bunk beds in a fit of giggles much to the annoyance of the german couple we were sharing the room with.. Wednesday 15th August - 'The Big Miles Day': We left Portree around 10am with 275(ish) miles ahead of us, destination: Thurso, around 30 miles from John O'Groats. Taking the A87 south east back down the Island towards Mallaig was special - having only negotiated the twisting coastal road 24 hours previous, the bends and scenery were completely different heading in the opposite direction. The A87 is the road back onto the mainland, which led us to the 'Wester Coastal Trail' on the A890 around lochcarron. Although not the most technical nor fastest, smoothest, most sweeping bit of road on the tour - this section was the point where I realised we were 'living the dream'. This was the point where the scenery was turned upto 11 (see pics). We carried on along the A896 following the west coast of the mainland. Between this and the wester coastal trail I will forever remember the views from this section as the 'cover photo' for the whole entire trip. The roads were narrow single track with passing places every 100-200 yards, yet the tarmac was smooth and looked quite new, possibly due to the lack of traffic through winter months? Having picked up the A832 east we made progress on our way to the lunch stop at Ullapool. The A832 is a climbing sweeping road, not too dissimilar to the Hard-knot pass in the Lake District. When I go back I will stop at the lookout point - we were tramming along at 'progress speeds' by the time I realised there was a lookout point but needless to say the view in the mirrors blew my mind.. We eventually picked up the A835 north towards Ullapool. The roads were brand new smooth black tarmac, sweeping from side to side on gentle descents and ascents along the coastline, rich green coniferous/pine trees along the roadside = Rob and I remarked how Alpine it felt along the last 15(ish) miles leading up to Ullapool... Ullapool was the 'halfway' point for the day. I had wanted to tour Scotland on the bike for around 5 years by the point we got on this road, and having looked over various maps, I had subconsciously made my mind up that 'Ullapool' written on a map in big bold letters must be a major town with a Maplins and a mini-shopping centre.. The reality was possibly 10% the size of what I had in mind; literally a main street on the seafront with 1-2 housing estates leading up the hill towards the main land. There was a fuel station where we bought our lunch before sitting on the harbour wall to snaffle away... We headed off from Ullapool North along the A835 until the A837 where we headed East/South/East again towards Lairg, and then onwards up the A836 to Tongue. From Ullapool to Tongue took around 3 hours, and this was after 3-4 hours getting to Ullapool from Portree. The roads varied from fast sweeping wide open A-roads to narrow single track b/unlisted roads with passing places every 100-200 yards. The scenery varied from wide open moorland to imposing coniferous/pine trees with forestry/logging work going on.. The weather varied just as wildly. We had left the Isle of Skye with perfect pristine rich blue skies and bright sunshine all the way up the west coast to Ullapool, but after Ullapool encountered patchy cloud as our altitude slowly increased before encountering thick fog and extremely chilly patches with low light.. There was a section around 15 miles before Tongue where we pulled over alongside loch loyal to wrap up and look at an abandoned house, as the temperature had dropped so low... By the time we joined the northern coastal road A836 we were pretty tired, chilly and generally fed up.. Not far after Tongue my fuel light came on and despite Rob's best efforts to reassure me that we would make the remaining 30 miles, I kept thinking back to earlier on the A836 where I had been absolutely tanking it. Would we make it? After filling up at a petrol station on the way into Thurso we spent 20 mins riding up and down the main streets looking for 'Sandra's backpackers' - it turned out that a greasy chippy we had passed 4 times, was in fact the place we were looking for. Being around £3-4 more expensive than the shared hostel dorm in Portree, Rob and I had our own room with bunk beds and private shower/toilet. We headed out for the night feeling broken from 8 hours/275 miles of riding, with only 3-4 beers knocking us on our arses. We concluded that next time we would break the day in half, since the mornings ride from Portree to Ullapool was unbelievably epic, and that, although the afternoons ride was equally awesome we were too tired to fully appreciate it, and the last 30% of the days riding became an objective to complete rather than a section to enjoy. Also not having had time to fully absorb the mornings roads/scenery meant that the afternoons roads and scenery completely over wrote our memory, which was a real shame. Thurso felt a bit bigger than Ullapool, probably something similar in size to Bridlington or Scarborough, albeit on a flat level ground rather than a steep coastal hillside. Thursday 16th August A damp, grey, murky, cold start saw us steadily make our way along to John O'Groats. Thurso was chilly but fog free, where by the time we made it Jo'G the visibilty was down to 150m at best. We spoke to the guy running the photography spot and he advised we give it half an hour = epic picture. Again as with Ullapool we expected there to be more at Jo'G but there was little more than a visitor centre, toilets, carparks and some buildings under construction. "Bleak" was the word we agreed on. After half an hour the sun burned through, the temperature and mood for the day managed to rise gently and we captured a brilliant picture before heading off. This was the point where the main A-roads started to resemble regular run of the mill main A-roads again. Gatso speed camera's and speed camera warning signs re-appeard after a 3 day sabbatical. We suddenly realised we hadn't seen any police or speed cameras/camera signs since leaving Glasgow on Monday. It had been so relaxing... However the roads were still smooth new in appearance, with many wide open overtaking spots to make safe progress. The north sea on our left as we made our way south for Braemar and the Cairngorms. Sweeping A-roads gave way to dual carriageways and roundabouts before turning into twisty technical A-roads again. "Welcome to the Cairngorms National Park". After a hundred or so miles of smooth relatively flat tarmac, the roads started to rise and fall in line with the surrounding mountains again. We eventually made it to Braemar Lodge (our final nights accommodation before Edinburgh) with fuel lights blinking and rain spitting on our visors. Ever since the fog burning off in John O'Groats the weather had been exceptional with blue skies and glorious sunshine (4 days in a row in Scotland, surely a new record??). Braemar struck us as a bit of a tourist town with coach loads of mature sightseers pouring in, the hotels carrying a rather majestic and classy feel - yet friendly and accomodating as the rest of our tour had been. We ventured out to see if there were any pubs nearby, only to find similar sensible and classy hotels as per the one we were staying in. Upon our return to the Braemar lodge we were suprised to find a Honda CB500 parked next to our bikes (Triumph Sprint ST and Suzuki GSX-R 750 SRAD).. We were shocked when we noticed the reg plates were French, and absolutely astonished to learn that the rider was in fact a lone female who had been touring Scotland for around 5-6 weeks and had covered 4,000+ miles on her own..... and there we were thinking we were great adventurers having covered 1000 miles in 5 days. The lone French bike rider was a lady called Nolwenn from Paris - we invited her to join us for dinner, and I later gave her my 'British Biking Roads' atlas since she didn't have a map of her own - I felt it would be of far greater use to her. The 3 of us shared dinner together and then talked long into the night with whiskey and beers. Friday 17th August - the last day... Friday morning saw the weather turn against us. We had our full Scottish breakfast and loaded the bikes in the finest drizzle Scotland had to offer. It was only a short 100-120 mile journey from Braemar to Edinburgh but sodden roads and pouring rain meant the progress was steady (relative to the rest of the weeks travel). We had planned to have our rap party in Edinburgh at the peak of the Fringe Festival, but since accommodation was in short supply had decided to stay in Dunfermline at the Pitbauchlie hotel. This meant a short 20 minute train journey to Edinburgh Waverley, but once we were there, we were greeted by an old friend of mine Paddy Hirst aka 'Ball-Zee' = the national UK beat boxing champion 2 years in a row. He was performing as part of a show called the vocal orchestra but it just so happened that in 6 weeks of daily performances, Friday the 17th was his night off. So naturally he managed to get us into the VIP bar attached on to the Udderbelly festival tent. Many channel 4/BBC comedians were floating around and Josh Hartnett was sat having a beet with a few friends. A very surreal moment for Rob and myself after such an unbelievable week. We headed off into the night, finishing up at a bar called 'Checkpoint Charlies' where we watched the Root City Band, and various impromptu acts, including a set from Paddy 'Ball-Zee' and the Australian beatboxer Tom Thumb.. Needless to say we ended up pretty smashed and got back to the hotel pretty late. It was the perfect way to round off the perfect week of adventure, and I'm sure neither of us will forget it. Hopefully this thread will provide some inspiration to people who are considering a similar trip. Feel free to post questions or add in your own suggestions on how to make the trip even more special. Above all, just go and do it. Scotland is only a few hours away and once you're north of Glasgow, you're already onto incredible roads/stunning scenery. You won't regret it. Hopefully I haven't rambled too much (2 hours I've been writing this now!) and maybe you even enjoyed the write up... Post below __________________ RIP Reeder 20/07/1988 - 21/03/2012 - You were awesome Cbf600, sv650, sv1000, gsxr 750 srad, KTM adventure 950, gsxr 750 k1, gsxr 750 srad, fazer 1000, zx9r ninja.. Last edited by Paul the 6th; 31-10-12 at 03:28 AM.

31-10-12, 08:00 AM	#2
Geodude Member Mega Poster Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Durham Posts: 2,669	Re: Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 Brilliant and inspiring write up Paul thanks for not sleeping and sharing with us. __________________ Black naked 1999 sv650 which im trying to keep happy Custom paintwork *Saragon Customs* Spray painting *Electrical fault finding guide* and *Regulator rectifier test* Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.

31-10-12, 08:21 AM	#3
maviczap Member Mega Poster Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 9,096	Re: Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 Great write up Paul, I've done many of those places by bike, car and boat Ullapool, I was there in 1987 on the night of the great storm, it was as calm as a millpond, beautiful place, but not much to do there. __________________ We're riding out tonight to case the promised land Make everyday count RIP Reeder - Jolly Green Giant and comedy genius

31-10-12, 09:08 AM	#6
missyburd Guest Posts: n/a	Re: Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 Super write up Paul! An amazing week indeed. I ended up going to Ullapool as a car passenger this summer, the weather was beautiful and I SO wanted the bike! So next year I think I'll be making the trip. Though you can bet the jetstream will behave itself next year and so Scottieland's freakishly better summer than ours probably won't happen again haha. I did manage to squeeze in a 300 mile round trip covering most of the Distillery Trail and the Cairngorms during my stay up there, that was good enough! Hats off to the French lass, truly inspirational

31-10-12, 11:40 AM	#7
Luckypants Moderator Mega Poster Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Nr Ruthin Posts: 7,056	Re: Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 Great write up Paul, makes me want to go up there for another visit __________________ "Your Viffer sounds like it is raising hell! Spot on." - Witchery 17/4/08 Snow Plough Appreciation Society - Member #3

31-10-12, 08:55 AM	#4
-Ralph- Guest Posts: n/a	Beautiful to see young love flourish! Good write up Paul. Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk

31-10-12, 11:42 AM	#8
Paul the 6th Member Mega Poster Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 4,790	Re: Scotland: The Brave Tour, August 2012 Thanks for all the feedback guys been meaning to do it for a while.. Definitely going back __________________ RIP Reeder 20/07/1988 - 21/03/2012 - You were awesome Cbf600, sv650, sv1000, gsxr 750 srad, KTM adventure 950, gsxr 750 k1, gsxr 750 srad, fazer 1000, zx9r ninja..

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