Left home at 04:30, Holly saw me off. It was raining until just before Manchester, then it dried out a bit. The sat nav told me it was 9 and a half hours to Aberdeen the previous evening, but in the morning, it said ten and a half hours, which cut down my faffage time!
Got to the ferry terminal at 17:40, got waved through to the ticket office, handed a boarding pass, and then straight onto the boat. When the bike was all strapped down I went upstairs and waited for departure. It set off at 7p.m. and we were notified that due to weather conditions, the outside decks were closed.
The menu for the restaurant had some kind of haggis curry, which was tempting, however it also had vegetables in it, so went for the chinese chicken curry, which had a thick congealed skin on it, but underneath was bright yellow (sulphides were part of the ingredients), it was delicious!, and when I had finished, they asked me if I wanted dessert, to which I replied "Yes, another chicken curry", which I soon demolished. She looked worried in case they may have to clean it up later, if it made a re-appearance.
The crossing was smooth to start with, but after a few hours, got a lot rougher. I had booked a reclining seat, but it was crap, no leg room whatsoever, so I ended sleeping in the bar, wearing my crash helmet as a pillow, and dark visor down to shut out some of the light, managed about 4 hours kip. Up at 6a.m for breakfast, then docked at 07:30, then off on the bike to see Sunburgh, the lighthouse was closed and it was a bit drizzly
There are 2 lighthouses here, this was the smaller one
the larger one is in the background. I then headed off to Lerwick for a refuel, then off to find my camp site, it is quite remote, a small field full of toadstools, 1 toilet and 1 shower, pay with cash put in an envelope.
After the tent was set up, I went to St Ninians beach, which features in a certain tv series
it was very scenic. Next, I headed to Hillswick where some of series 1 was filmed (Magnus's house) then headed to Eshaness, where the spectacular cliffs are. After some more riding around, I headed back to the campsite for sone ZZZeds
I had the campsite to myself most of the time ( one camper van turned up the first night and one the second night0.
Next morning, I headed into Lerwick to the New Harbour Cafe for breakfast, very nice, then off to look for The Lodberrie for some photo's
Next, I took a ride up to the Northern Isles, but you have to book the ferries online and pay on board, when I got to the ferry, it was a long queue, so I changed my mind, and headed Northwest to Sandness and Papa Stour, then back to the campsite. That night, it really pissed it down, and the small wind turbine sounded like a steam train going full throttle. I had a lay-in until 07:30, then got ready for another explore, realised that I had done 110 miles since last fill up, and as I wasn't sure if there were any petrol stations on the Northern Isles, so filled up anyway. Got to the Toft to Ulsta ferry 2 hours early, but got let on anyway, it is a 20 minute ferry from Shetland Mainland to Yell, you buy one ticket that gets you to Yell and Unst, and return, good value.
There are lots of abandoned houses on Yell, and the roads are incredibly smooth, with lots of sheep. I soon got to the ferry from Gutcher to Belmont (Yell to Unst) 10 minute crossing
The sheep were even more numerous, and I headed up to the old radar station, passing a viking longboat on the way
which had some amazing views
Next, I headed to the Saxa Vord spaceport, there isn't much happening there, as the chap running it popped off in August!, the ride was a bit tricky, as the road is steep and muddy, not ideal on the bandit
After heading south, I had a lunch of soup and a roll in a small shop, then headed back to the ferry
The ferry was just arriving as I got there, but they let everyone off, then went to lunch for an hour, before letting us on board, then across Yell past a spooky house
then over to the Mainland on the next ferry, then back to the campsite. It was a bit cooler this night 3 degrees, I woke at 10 p.m to do some star gazing, and again at 3 a.m, beautifully clear night, fantastic view of the milky way and I found frost on the tent in the morning.
I didn't pack the tent until 10 a.m to give it a chance to dry out, then headed to the burger van in Lerwick, massive cheeseburger, with extra cheese in the middle, lovely.
I spent the rest of the day exploring Lerwick, and saw a seal on the beach
I then headed to the ferry for Aberdeen, I was the first on the boat, it's surprising how much room there is on one of these boats when they are empty. The bike was soon strapped down, then I was off to the bar. I upgraded from a reclining seat to a sleeping pod, which was a mistake, as there a lot of pods in one room, and I had a real fat git in front of me, who fell asleep almost immediately, snoring, snorting, crying out in his sleep, and many other weird noises that he was doing on a loop for 12 hours, I was expecting one of the other passengers to murder him to shut him up, but no luck.
I had a beer in the bar then a pork and mushroom stroganoff which was lovely. It was a choppy crossing, and took quite a while, as we stopped at Orkney, than got to Aberdeen at 07:00. A few people were checking the Aberdeen LEZ to avoid fines, as they had been caught on the way in.
I then headed Northwest to Inverness (110 miles) to see my old friend Pavel,
then after a couple of coffee's and a chat, I headed South. I was going to visit some caving buddies, but a large storm was heading my way, so just went into "Blat Home" mode, I did 720 miles that day, and got home at 22:15. Laura had told Holly (my cat) that I was on my way home, so she was out by my garage to meet me!
Start mileage 24761, end mileage 27500, 2739 miles total
Got home from a nightshift at 03:45, grabbed 4 and a half hours sleep, got the bike out of the garage and went to get fuel at a local Texaco, where I bumped into my wife getting some sandwiches for lunch at work.
After we said our goodbyes, I set off for the Channel Tunnel, got there at 11:20, and although I was booked for the 13:05 crossing, I got loaded onto an earlier train. Rode to meet Jeremy in Antwerp, got to the pre-arranged campsite, City Camping Antwerp, found the gates were closed, and a sign saying they were full, then a girl came out and I told her I was waiting for a friend to turn up, and she told me she had room for both of us. Result!
There was a bar on site, but we were hungry, so went to a restaurant in the nearby yacht club, Restaurant Belgica, who looked after us, with great beer and a delicious steak
Then it was back to the campsite for some very needed sleep
Next morning, we set off for Denmark, we went via Duisburg, Munster, Bremen, Hamburg, and got over the border to Rinkenaeshus Campground which took longer than expected due to lots of roadworks delays, and a bad crash that closed the road for a while. We got to the campsite at 19:05, it all looked ok, but as soon as the sun went down, we were invaded by dozens of slugs. Next morning, Jeremy's tent looked like the slugs had been partying all over it, he even had a slug on his mobile phone!
Anyway, we set off for Kolding, turned right towards Copenhagen, then the Oresund tunnel and bridge towards Sweden, that Jeremy had never visited
the 512 miles later, we got to Utne Camping in Norway
Jeremy had a visitor to his tent
Next morning, we headed off in the direction of Lysebotn, we went through lots of tunnels and toll roads (which are mostly free to bikers) we stopped to have a look at a Stave church, (Heddal) which apparently smelled of creosote ( i didn't get too close) but it was interesting
After a spectacular ride towards Lysebotn, with unbelievable scenery...
we eventually came to the start of the Lysevegen road,
which has (I think) 23 zig zag's, 2 of which are underground, amazing engineering feat! I video'd from 3 cameras below
we soon arrived at the campsite at the bottom of the Lysevegen, where we met Jeremy's brother in law Jacob and family in a vw camper, and the tents were soon set up with a spectacular view of the fjord. photo's dont do it justice
We had a storm in the night, and had to pack up in the rain and thick fog, and headed bach up the Lysevegen (there is only one road in and out, or the ferry) up to the cafe at the top of the fjord, but it was closed, so off to find a cafe elsewhere.
Next, we headed towards Stavanger, then south towards the Fjords, went through loads of tunnels and bridges over the fjords, even saw a floating oil platform in one of them, next went through Kristiansand and ended up at Gon Camping near the ferry at Larvik, then next morning, we caught the 4 and a half hour ferry to Hirtshals in Denmark, then rode the length of Denmark into Germany, where we met a biker from the previous nights camp, who said there may be a ferry across the Elbe that would avoid all the traffic jams in Germany.
He was right, and we found a couple of campsites across the river, the first one was in a housing estate that was just a bit of grass with no facilities, but the next one we found seemed deserted, but we then found a helpfull german who told us we would have to phone the owner. This was done, and we were soon in the "camping meadow"
which had just enough room for 2 tents, but it was all good
Next morning, we set off for Osnabruck, where we went our seperate ways, Jeremy to the South of France, and me towards Calais, and as I was riding through Germany, my mobile started to smoke as the charging lead started to melt, fortunately I caught in time before the phone was wrecked, but I then had to resort to a physical map in my tank bag. Anyway, I was soon on the Calais - Dover ferry and homeward bound. Excellent trip, and thanks for the company, Jeremy
After doing a nightshift Thursday night / Friday morning, managed to grab about 3 hours sleep, then got the bike ready to go, and met up with Neil and Clive Friday morning at 9a.m., and we set off to the Cotswolds Airfield to have a lookm at an aircraft scrapyard.
view of some more scrapped aircraft in the distance
We stopped in the cafe, AV8, clever name, which was nice, then headed into Wales, had a brief stop at the Usk museum Cafe for cakes, then off to our pub lodgings for the night, The Lamb and Flag,
Abergavenney, and ended the day with a few beers. Me and Neil had the full english breakfast (English chain of pubs or it would have been full Welsh) Next morning, , Clive opted for a continental breakfast, he ordered porridge with golden syrup and a croissant, what he got was .....
a thing that looked very dissapointing, some hot water, and a plain croissant with no butter.
We then set off to find the "Gospel Pass" North of Abergavenny, it starts off as a narrow road in a rough state, with lots of potholes, gravel and mud on the road, Clive was worried that we would be dissapointed ..
But after a few miles it opened up into a very picturesque road
Then after zig zagging around North Wales, we stopped at a reservoir
Then we eventually ended up at Premier Inn, Porthmadog for the evening, and a few more beers
Next morning, Llanberis Pass was the first call
then a ride into Caernarfon for a snack
Then it was back to the "Lamb and Flag", Abergavenney for our final evening. Next morning, the bikes had frost on them, so it was off to McDonalds for a double sausage and egg mc muffin until the roads warmed up a bit, then we got a bit split up due to road closured on the A40, but managed to meet up again near Clarkson's pub. Then it was time to head for home, Nice relaxing trip, thanks to Wing Commander Richardson for organising, and Neil for general Neilishness.
Due to me not checking my diary properly, I managed to book myself two trips at once, I booked a Longbow making course for a Thursday and Friday, and a bike trip Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
I went off to Thetford for the longbow course with overnight camping, the day was very interesting, the tent set up was very difficult as it had been very hot for a few days, and the ground was like concrete
The next morning, I had completed my bow, and it was arrow making time, I started on the arrows, but as I have already made loads in the past, I decided to finish early and head off to Yorkshire to meet Neil and Clive, we met at South Yorkshire3 aircraft Museum, which was interesting, then headed to our hotel for the night, then next morning we went to Pickering station which is a steam railway, so Neil could get his steam train fix
Next, we went to Thornton le Dale where Bangers and Cash is filmed
We rode through some very nice scenery on the back roads
we found a large rock that Neil had a go at eroding, without much success!
Eventually, we came to our hotel for the night, The Lounge, Penrith.
We were a bit disturbed as there was a hen party there, and it got very loud when we were having dinner, so we went outside to the patio area, and they followed us, then asked for a group photo, then Neil asked if we could have a photo with them...
The next morning, we went for a ride through the Lake district,
and I wanted to do the Hardknot Pass and the Wrynose pass, which I was expecting to be tricky, as the bike was loaded up with all my camping gear and cooking gear
The Pass was harder than expected, the hairpin bends were almost full lock on the motorbike, and you had to lean the wrong way, as the bends are also on a 30% slope and very uneven, no wonder so many people drop their bikes on this road, and as soon as you have done one very tight turn, there is another one a very short distance away, its worth checking out other peoples video's on youtube. I then headed off to the Lakeland Motor Museum, which has a lot of Donald Campbell cars and boats, very interesting.
Our hotel for the night was Travelodge Kendal, which was fine, then next morning we set off for home, Excellent fun trip, thanks chaps, and I now have a new bow!
Start mileage 17552, End mileage 19557, 2007 miles.
I was planning on getting up at 02:15, however, Holly had other idea's so she woke me at 1a.m., so got up, fed her then decided to make a move. Finally got going at 2a.m., the sky was like a disco, lightning flashing every few seconds. It was pissing it down all the way to Oxford, where the rain finally stopped.
Got as far as Birmingham before I needed to stop for fuel, had a sausage roll and a can of ginger beer, this was to be the only stop, apart from fuel (4 times) on the way to John O Groats. Got there 13 hours and 40 minutes later, and as the Bandit 1250 is so comfortable, I didn;t even have a numb bum!
The weather was nice and sunny, and I got the usual photo of the sign
Next, I turned West along the coast road and got to Ferry View campsite, which is really nice, and they had food on site. The camping spot they gave me had a roped off section for my bike, right next to a large roped off area for my tent, the most space I have had on a campsite! Today was 740 miles. No sign of Jeremy, who had set off the day before, so I phoned him, turned out he had got lost. I eventually met him at the campsite a few hours later so after a short chat, he went off to an air b and b.
I had to be up at 5a.m. the next morning to catch a ferry to Orkney, the ferry I chose was a few miles away, as the one next to the campsite would have missed out on the view of "The Old Man of Hoy, an impressive sea stack. On the way to the ferry, I took a detour to the most Northerly point of mainland Britain, at Dunnet Head
then it was off to the Scrabster-Stromness ferry and met Jeremy, and also met a chap called John on a BMW R1200GS who joined us for breakfast on the ferry. We went past the Old Man of Hoy, and I got chatting to a couple of American lads who were planning on climbing it!
Jeremy, with the Old Man in the background.
We soon arrived at Stromness, and John told us he was booked in at a campsite at Point of Ness, which is just outside Stromness, so we went to have a look, as we hadn't booked anything. It was a council run site, and the lady in charge was lovely, and let me and Jeremy share 1 space so it was a lot cheaper. The tents were soon up
and we had some lovely views. We then went for a tour of the island, we first went to Skara Brae prehistoric villiage
which was interesting, then we went to Twatt, to get a photo of the sign, but it was gone, so then off to Kirkwall so I could buy Laura a ring, then got chatting to an ex copper about bikes in the town center, then it was off to have a look at the Churchill Barriers, which are very impressive, they were built to stop u-boats sneaking through the islands.
Next, we went back to Kirkwall then up Wideford Hill where you can see the whole island from the viewpoint, then back to the campsite for tea. John and Jeremy cooked a curry, while I had 8 Tunnocks snowballs, 6 Tunnocks tea cakes and 2 packets of crisps. Lovely.
Next morning we went through Stromness on the way to the Italian Chapel
Stromness is a very unusual town, it feels like you should not be riding through it as it seems pedestrianised. We soon got to the Italian Chapel, which was a Nissen hut modified by Italian prisoners of war
Then we went to the Ring of Brodgar, the Dukes Palace ruin, where we had some lasagne, then off to look at a causeway out to another island
We then went back to the campsite with John, and the lady who ran the site gave us some Twatt stickers for our bikes as she knew we were disappointed not to get a photo of the sign
We said goodbye to John at the ferry terminal, as he was getting a later boat to Shetland, and we were heading back to the mainland, I had a curry on the boat, and Jeremy fish and chips. On the boat, Jeremy booked us a campsite at Halladale North Coast Touring Park, which was very posh with a pub attatched.After a couple of beers, back to the tents.
Next morning we had a lovely breakfast of bacon, square sausage, haggis, black pudding, tomatoes, beans, toast, stovies and scrambled eggs. very nice. Then off to the ferry for Cape Wrath, we waited 2 hours for the ferryman, who was sitting in his car, then when he went and got the ferry, he told us the minibus wasnt running, but he would take us in his 4x4 to the lighthouse for £20 each way, but he would only take us one way on the ferry and bring us back 24 hours later, but we had already paid for a campsite elsewhere, and didn't want to leave the bikes in the middle of nowhere for 24 hours, so didn't go. (He could have told us this 2 hours previously, but he was a bit of an arse).
We headed back the way we had come to Kyle of Toungue campsite for some beers and a pleasant evening, the roads were great.We set off next morning, it was very misty, and as we were at cloud level, it was very damp. As it was Bank Holiday Monday we had about 10 minutes of proper rain, not serious enough for the Scott Waterproofs.
We went back to Durness to have a look at a boat wreck that Jeremy's father in law used to fish from 70 years ago, when it was washed up onto the beach in a storm. Next, we headed along the North Coast 500, through lots of twisties which took a while. We eventually got to Torridon campsite where we were to meet Rob Davis. As I pulled up, he phoned me to find out how we were doing, turned out ,we had arrived within a minute of each other. We were soon set up at the campsite
Rob went to investigate the local shop for some beers, but it was closed. We had some beers with us, and some Spam, so all ok.
Next morning, it was off to Applecross, and the famous pass
Jeremy was starting to worry about fuel, but me and Rob were carrying a spare 3 litres each, so wasn't a problem.The pass was much easier than the last time I did it with Clive. When we got to the top, Rob set off his drone to get some video's, but I don't know how to do a link. We found an un-attended petrol station in Applecross, so all was sorted. There is also a bacon sarnie van there, which was expensive, but very nice.
Next, round the rest of the Applecross peninsula, then off to Skye bridge, which is now free. We got to a campsite at the bottom of the Cullin Hills which was nice. It was almost empty when we arrived, but after a visit to the pub, a lot of Belgian motorcyclists and camper vans turned up. One of the Belgians had a cough that sounded like he had the plague, which kept Jeremy and Rob awake all night.
Next Morning, we set off back to the mainland, then Rob headed North to do the rest of the NC500, while me and Jeremy headed South. Me and Jeremy stopped for fuel 150 miles later, then Jeremy's bike wouldnt start, so we bump started it, I told him ton ride with the lights off to charge the battery quicker, next fuel stop another 150 miles later his bike was still having "problems" that I wont go into, so I abandoned him, as there was nothing I could do, and it took him until 16:30 the next afternoon to get home! Note to self...get green flag breakdown cover as the RAC are plop. I just carried on and got home at 23:30, Holly was waiting for me, Laura was busy pushing out Zeds. Excellent trip with great company.
