FOUR
6–19 June 2003
Shirley: On the ferry to Scotland, ours is the only bike among semi-trailers and tour buses. We land in Stranraer in Scotland’s southwest and the first thing we notice is an improvement in the road surface. In Ireland they seem just to asphalt over the bumps; here they seem to smooth the roads out before laying the new surface. The sky is grey and threatens rain. The wind sweeps across the water, whipping up small white caps on the surface. Grey shrubs, small bushes and sheep dot the roadside.
Brian and I, now used to being lost quite regularly, have trouble finding our way to Glasgow. At a service station, a local tries to give us directions and then offers to lead the way. With very few teeth and plenty of tattoos, he looks like an escapee from the local prison. We follow his little beaten-up Ford Escort through some very dodgy neighbourhoods and, just when we are sure he is leading us somewhere unpleasant, we see the motorway to Glasgow.
Brian: We follow the signs as best we can, but at one stage I get caught in the wrong lane. I indicate, hold up my hand apologetically and move over with plenty of room to spare in front of a ‘suit’ in a new Mercedes (yep – another Mercedes driver and my thoughts go straight back to the one we ‘ran into’ in Dublin). The driver gets indignant and blasts his horn, which just goes to show who the nice people are in this world. Give me Ford Escort drivers any time.
Shirley: It is amazing how lost you can get with one small error. On the banks of Loch Lomond, we pass a sign to our youth hostel, but instead of waiting for another sign we take the next turn. The road is the scenic route along the very shore of the Loch, and while we enjoy the scenery we miss the hostel. The dark skies make the deep water of the loch appear gloomy. The surrounding hills look as though they want to get away from the water, but even on the overcast afternoon their reflection adds to the beauty. We ride for another 15 minutes before realising we have missed the place. We ask for directions at a pub and the barmaid is bemused. She can’t work out how we missed it. ‘It looks like a castle with sheep in front of it,’ she tells us.
And it does.
Leaving Loch Lomond, the scenery is breathtaking but it is very hard to enjoy because of the biting cold. This is a mid-summer weekend and it is freezing. It is mid-winter in Melbourne and we learn that it is warmer there than it is here in Scotland. Even Brian has resorted to his jacket, riding-pants liners and waterproofs to cut down on the wind. I’ve donned thermals and waterproofs. From Firkin Point, where the mountains come to the water’s edge, we head across rugged, windswept plains into the Highlands. Here, the wind is biting and strong, and Brian struggles to keep the bike on the road. I begin to lose heart, as well as the feeling in my fingers and toes. Brian is coping well and makes me feel inadequate as I really feel this is too hard. If I find this hard, how will I cope in the more difficult countries? But there is no arguing that this is one of the most picturesque areas we’ve visited. The steep mountains, rushing streams and green pastures are postcard perfect. Trampers walking through the fields are fighting the blustering wind. What on earth are they thinking?
We plan on venturing even further north, but a quick check with Carbisdale Castle, the haunted castle of choice for backpackers, changes all that. There are no rooms available until after September. Seems everyone wants to share their room with a ghost. In this busy time, however, we eventually get a room at the Letterfinlay Lodge Hotel overlooking Loch Lochy. Not to be outdone by the more famous and close-by Loch Ness, Loch Lochy has its very own monster. She has been spotted a few times in the twentieth century, including once by some staff and guests of this hotel.
A 1997 expedition by the Friends of the Loch Ness Monster, the true believers in the ‘Nessy’ myth, claim to have got a signal from her at 50 and then 60 m deep before she disappeared into water at least 90 m deep. Well, that’s the story, anyway. We decide to have a drink in the bar and see if we can spot her – nothing to report!
After dinner we chat with a couple from England. He races motorcycles and is planning to ride in the Manx GP at the Isle of Man later in the year. He is obviously very courageous or very stupid.
When we check out, the owner tells us that he should have quoted £34 a head for our room, not £32, but as it was his mistake he would let us have the room at the lower rate. I thank him, adding, ‘We are on the road for 12 months so those four pounds might make the difference between a meal and us starving in a few months.’
‘Well, that might be the case,’ he says in true Scottish style, ‘but I need everything I can get to keep a roof over my head.’ He seems to forget that we ate in his expensive restaurant last night and drank in his bar!
The ride to Loch Ness is a biker’s dream. The long, sweeping corners take us along the banks of Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and, finally, Loch Ness. There might have been a monster or two floating past, but Brian didn’t notice – he was too busy concentrating and having a blast. To Brian, a clear road equals freedom.
The touring is getting easier the more time we spend on the road. We’ve organised the security chain so we can now lock the helmets onto the bike and only have to carry our jackets and the tank bag when we go sightseeing. Unfortunately, because of terrorist threats no-one has cloak-rooms any more.
The only other problem we have is sniping at each other every time we get lost – and that is more often than I care to admit. I hate to say it, but it’s probably true that women can’t read maps. Brian gets stressed and swears, and I get defensive and apologetic – whether it is my fault or not. We can feel the tension rising and we know this has to stop.
Touring castles in the UK is a bit like visiting churches in Europe – you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But then we find Doune Castle near Stirling. We walk into the ticket office and souvenir shop and are met by the guard. He produces two half coconuts from under the desk and does a very fine impersonation of a horse riding up to the castle wall. Then, in a very bad French accent, he says, ‘I wave my private parts in your direction.’ Briefly thinking we have walked into a lunatic asylum, we soon realise this is the castle where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. Before getting to see the castle proper, we have to browse through the photo album of the movie shoot and the guard tries to sell us a couple of bottles of Holy Grail Ale. This is when being on a motorbike has its advantages. ‘We have no room’ is the answer whenever we are offered something we couldn’t possibly want in our wildest dreams.
Brian and I stop to wander through Stirling Castle, Edinburgh Castle and Dryburgh Abbey before heading to the border town of Kirk Yetholm. Spending a night at our hostel is like trying to sleep in the middle of a French farce. The building is tiny and we are the youngest guests. The others are all well into their seventies and are here to walk the Pennine Way, a 250-kilometre walk from the Scottish border to Derbyshire in central England. As the sun gets up, so do the other guests. The first door to slam is the dormitory door. Then there’s the door to the men’s room, the individual toilet doors and the shower-room door. And when the doors aren’t slamming, you can hear the lambs calling for their mothers in the distant fields. But it’s impossible to get annoyed in places like this.
Brian: After all the early morning noise, there is no point in hanging around. We hit the road at 9 a.m. and ride along almost-deserted roads. The big sweeping bends and undulating landscape get the juices flowing. Sometimes I liken riding to a form of bizarre dance and, when it flows, it is addictive. This is one of those days. The weather is fine and the road surface good. We play with a few fellow bikers taking in the morning roads. Of course, I have no hope of staying in touch loaded up the way we are, but it is good fun.
Shirley: We have our first sighting of Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Emperor Hadrian to keep the marauding Scots out of the ‘civilised’ world of the south in 122 AD, while stuck in the middle of a field in northern England. We dodge cow pats and the cows that left them to get close to the wall – or what’s left of it. Not only have the ravages of time taken their toll, but over the centuries the locals have used the stones to build dwellings and animal shelters. When you are next to something unique and the only people there, it is hard not to be a tourist and take ridiculous photos. We lie and stand on the wall for the camera before we find out at the nearby visitor centre that this is frowned upon.
Brian: Riding around the Lake District, through Winder mere to Bowness, we see heaps of bikes out, and no wonder. It’s a beautiful day and the roads are something else. As we crest hills, Shirl admonishes me for taking both wheels off the ground. Getting around the tight sweepers, however, I know she is really enjoying this. I’m not doing anything over 100 km/h.
Shirley: Summer has finally arrived and it is amusing to watch the Poms sunning themselves on the shores of Lake Windermere – masses of lily-white flesh that will be scarlet by high tea. On the other side of the lake we stop at Keswick, where there is more white flesh.
This is obviously a popular tourist spot during the summer months and we can understand why. It’s hot but the breeze off the water is cooling. The grassed banks of the lakes are dotted with tourists on deck chairs. We expect them to be wearing hankies tied in knots at the corners but they aren’t. Still, many of the men do have their trousers rolled up, making the most of the sun.
People in hire boats row across the water and the colourful sails of the yachts add to the postcard look of the scene. After the ride through the hills it is peaceful to sit here and watch the world go by.
Brian: We head to the Yorkshire Dales. The day is great, with clear, blue skies and crisp air, and the roads flow through laneways with stone walls and hedges along the side. We have become used to the black-faced sheep grazing on the sides of the road, but as we head into the Dales, we cross a cattle grid – hundreds of cows seemingly oblivious to the constant stream of traffic.
At the hostel we decide not to carry our entire luggage up the 52 steps to our room. This time, I leave the panniers on the bike and just take up a change of clothes, our passports and laptop. After all, if a thief wants to steal my dirty jocks from my pannier, good luck to them! Besides, my lower back is really sore. I damaged it years ago, and I can do without lumping the heavy panniers around. Maybe the strain is starting to show up in these little niggles; I resolve to get fitter. Shirley is not all that enamoured with opening up her pannier in the car park and displaying its contents to all and sundry. As she ferrets through to find some clean clothes, I remind her of her father’s immortal words, which she often recites, ‘F!@#, you’re middle class.’
Shirley: Some of the guests at the hostel put us to shame. Two old cyclists, probably in their sixties, are spending a few days riding their pushies around the Yorkshire Dales. After breakfast we meet one of them. He’s been for a brisk walk into town and back to see a rock garden! We ponder his sanity. After cycling some 112 km up and down rather steep climbs yesterday, he has enough energy to walk about 4 km to see a rock garden. And he intends to cycle about 160 km today! We get tired just thinking about it.
Brian: The Horizons Unlimited website is the overland motorcyclists’ online bible. If you want to know about border crossings, visas, places to stay, fuel quality – anything about travel on two wheels – this is the place to look. When we heard the Horizons Unlimited get-together of world travellers coincided with our trip, we had to get there.
Everything is going very well. Shirley has the written directions from the Yorksire Dales to the meeting in Derbyshire and seems to be following them well. I should have known it was too good to be true – Shirl misdirects me into a major shopping centre. I boil over and snap at her through the intercom. It doesn’t take long to get back onto the right road and then I notice it is very quiet on the back seat. There is no answer to any questions. I feel bad when she tells me I made her cry. I know this is testing her comfort zone and I have to make sure I don’t do that again. We are in this together and need to work as a team to get the most out of our adventure.
When we at last find the rally site – a vacant block beside a rundown pub outside the small village of Somercotes – we look for somewhere to stay. We check out all the surrounding towns for a B&B but find nothing. Finally we head for Alfreton and come across a Travel Lodge just off the M6, but of course, true to form, there is no-one on reception until 3 p.m. That is one thing we have noticed in the UK – service verges on non-existent. We wait around in a Burger King cafe next door and grab the only available bed for at least a 15 km radius. As we open the door to our room, I see the smile return to my loved one’s face. There is a real double bed and a bath!
Shirley: At the rally we meet world travellers and those who would like to be world travellers. There’s the man who sold everything and travelled for eight years and the young bloke who spent a month riding through the Moroccan desert. But the people we most enjoy meeting are Kiwis Trent; Jacqui; and Peter, Jacqui’s brother. Peter is about to head to Goa to work for a motorcycle tour company taking punters around India on Royal Enfield bikes. Jacqui and Trent plan to ride home to their native New Zealand next year after living in the UK for four years. The more experienced travellers at the rally are happy to pass on their knowledge and some tell us we are too heavy, with too much luggage. They are probably right.
We get the chance to test our bike and load on rough dirt roads well before we had planned to when we ride through some of the local lanes with a guy on a trail bike. I’m a little anxious, but Brian is keen to get going. There is a handful of riders with us, including a Dutch girl on a Yamaha XJ900 road bike with a sidecar that looks a lot like a coffin. She and her boyfriend have taken this machine around the world – twice! We figure that if she is taking this machine, then we will be fine (famous last words!).
Brian: We head off and ride down some great little English country lanes, which are so narrow the bike’s sidecar is hitting the overgrowth on both sides of the road. The lanes are gentle and we have time to admire the rolling hills, even when we hit the first dirt section. Then we ride through a farmer’s yard where a lot of cow manure has recently been deposited. It flicks up over the front of the bike and us, but we figure this is the country and it’s all part of it.
Then the lanes get narrower, the surface turns to deep stones and it becomes a constant battle to keep the bikes upright – that is, of course, unless you are on an out-and-out trail bike like our ride leader. We scramble up a steep, slippery hill and Jacqui falls off in front of us as she slows because the sidecar is stuck with all three wheels off the ground. We man-handle the sidecar up to the top of the track and Trent gets Jacqui upright again.
We take a rest and muse that it can’t get much worse – but it does. We get to a steep descent, which disappears out of sight into the undergrowth. There are huge wheel ruts at least half a metre deep, the road slopes wickedly away to the left and there are boulders the size of helmets. To top it off, the surface is muddy. The sidecar bounces its way down the hill, out of control and out of sight. Jacqui falls off again and is assisted down the hill.
Now it’s my turn. Shirley wisely gets off and says she’ll walk. I start but the weight of the bike takes over and begins to pull me down the hill. I lock up the back wheel but still gather pace, the front wheel falls into a rut and I’m stopped dead in my tracks and topple over to the right, unable to keep my foot on the rear brake and the ground at the same time. It’s a heavy landing, with a rock springing the pannier off its mount. It takes three of us to lift the bike back on its wheels in the mud and sloping ground. I sit on the bike and need two other guys to balance and stop the forward momentum as I bounce down the hill with the engine off. Three more bikes suffer a similar fate as it takes us an hour to traverse about 300 m. Our ride leader is a little embarrassed, realising he has chosen a route that is great for trail bikes but not so good for these types of bikes.
Despite a small dent in the right pannier, there is no harm done and, really, it was great to explore the boundaries of bike and rider. Physically, my back is killing me; I think I strained it while twisting. Due to some earlier damage I know it will take ages to come good.
We head back on some more beautiful laneways, through some farmers’ gates and onto another loose-stone road. Again, the weight of the bike makes the front wheel act like a plough. It twists sideways and rather than fight it and risk a high side, I run it into the raised grass verge. Those behind laugh but understand it was the safest option. At least we stayed upright this time. I back it out and continue on. We come to a small village, obviously the back way, and surprise patrons of a church fête, who are spread out on the lawns sipping tea and eating scones. They all look alarmed as we rumble through. The road back to Somercotes takes us through a road with signs declaring, ‘Slow down, 36 lambs killed last year’.
After four hours we drag ourselves back to the rally site and we find out the other riders didn’t even attempt this route due to the slippery road. We certainly took the wrong ride!
Shirley: Our ride back to London is like going from the sublime to the ridiculous. We take to the motorways with Jacqui, Trent and Peter and it is a smooth run. We pull into the service centre to say our farewells, planning to spend Christmas with Peter in Goa and to catch up with Jacqui and Trent when they come through Australia on their way home.
In London we head back to the home of our relatives Bettina and Tim. We need to go to Germany for the BMW Motorrad in Bavaria, the third annual get-together of BMW bikers from Germany and around the world. Bettina is about to give birth, but it is clear that the baby won’t arrive before we have to leave. We want to be there when the baby comes, so plan to return to London. Before we leave, I have one job. I know my hair colour will be a problem while we are travelling, as touching up regrowths will be virtually impossible, so I hit the hairdresser to go back to my natural near-black colour.
Brian: Shirl arrives back from the hairdresser complaining bitterly. She hates her hair and thinks she looks like a witch. The colour is close to jet black and so different from what she is used to. I anticipate this reaction from her (no matter what the colour) and have planned some lines that husbands should drag out on such occasions. Actually, when I open the door and see her hair, I genuinely like it. I’m probably too effusive, because I don’t think to this day she believes it looked any good.
Shirley: We’ve been on the road for nearly six weeks and realise we have way too much gear. We rationalise our clothing and bike spares. With my new hair colour and a lighter bike, we hit the road for the BMW Motorrad in Garmisch, the heart of Bavaria.
