Rides

I woke up at 9am, had a quick breakfast, loaded the bike and said goodbye to my Dad, brother Tim and his wife, Jenny. I’d planned a route taking me to Inverary, round the end of Loch Fyne. Then down to Dunoon to catch a ferry. The weather was cool, overcast, and I expected a few showers until midday, then better weather in the afternoon. Once again I set off to Oban, fuelled up the bike, and headed back along the A85. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and I made good time, enjoying the road for the third time in 4 days. At Damally, on the eastern end of Loch Awe, I turned right onto the A819. This is another favourite road in this part of Scotland. Initially, it follows the southern side of Loch Awe, before swinging south to Inverary. I stopped for a drink of water shortly after turning off the A85, took a few pics, then carried on. Again, I was quite lucky with the traffic, only getting stuck behind one lorry for a short while before he indicated for me to overtake. The road passed through low hills, with a lot of trees lining the road. The road surface was in really good condition, and to the south I could see blue sky, so knew that I would soon be in sunshine. I was really enjoying the ride. I passed three bikes going the other way, gave them a nod, but only got one in return. This whole nodding business is pretty weird really. A lot of bikers seem to never nod at Harleys, and on online forums a lot of bikers slag off Harley riders for never nodding at them. I nod at everyone, even scooters with L plates. It costs nothing. People often slag off Harleys for reliability, too, but I passed 40 000 miles on mine on this trip, and the only thing that has ever gone wrong with it is a snapped throttle cable, which happened a quarter mile from home.

It wasn’t long before I was in Inverary. I didn’t stop, heading straight out of town on the A83. I’d wanted to come up to Oban this way, but the A83 had a closed section, which signs now said was being bypassed on the old military road. I’d been told there was a convoy system operating through that section, but today I was turning off onto the A815. I’d not been on the A815 before, and it turned out to be a really lovely road, initially following the southern shore of Loch Fyne, before heading south along the eastern shore of Loch Eck to Dunoon. The road here had some long straights, was well surfaced and marked, so I opened up the bike, scraping on a few corners; you don’t have to lean that far to scrape the footboards on the Slim. Over the years, I have learnt the exact angle where the boards hit the road, and usually leave a bit of leeway. However, I was feeling good, the sun had come out, and I felt like a bit of a blast. I passed a few cars, and one bike. I’d put on my biking playlist, and the sounds of the Talking Heads accompanied me as I swung through the sweeping corners. It didn’t seem long before I arrived in Dunoon, where I headed for the ferry at Hunter’s Quay. The interweb had told me that ferries ran every twenty minutes, and I ended up riding straight onto a ferry when I arrived at the dock. I was waved up to the front, where a couple of cyclists were. Just after me, three guys from Northern Ireland, probably, like me, in their fifties, parked just behind me. Two of them were on Triumph Tigers, the other on a generic pointy plastic thing. I greeted them, but they weren’t friendly, eyeing up the Harley and me as if we’d gatecrashed a party. Apart from telling me they were headed to Stranraer, they seemed more interested in talking among themselves. The ferry took about 20 minutes to reach the dock near Gourock. When I was waved off the ferry, the three Irish bikers followed me, into quite heavy traffic. It was quite warm now, the sun bright, and I filtered through traffic all the way to Inverkip, the Irish bikes slowly dropping back. After Wemyss Bay, where the traffic cleared, I never saw them again.

Shortly, I arrived in Largs. I’d lived here once, and at Fairlie, just down the coast, for a bit longer. It was when I got my first job in the UK after moving back from Botswana, working for Loganair at Glasgow Airport. The flat I’d stayed in in Fairlie with my ex-wife was on the seafront, with a great view of the nuclear power station at Dounray. I wondered if my old friend Mike still lived in these parts? He used to go for midnight swims in the winter, after a skinful at the pub. I though about stopping to see the old view, but didn’t stop. Largs had been surprisingly busy, with lots of people wandering around eating ice cream and driving aimlessly, so I hadn’t stopped there. Largs has a very famous ice cream shop, Nardini’s, which was opened by an Italian immigrant from Tuscany and his wife in 1935. I’m not a huge fan of ice cream, or crowds during a pandemic, so I didn’t stop, but I can vouch from past experience that they have great ice cream. They are situated in an amazing art-deco building, and have been recognised as the finest ice-cream parlour in Scotland.

I followed the coast down to Ardrossan, then the A78 heads a bit inland towards Irvine. It’s now dual carriageway, which it hadn’t been when I lived here. As a consequence, before I knew it, I was past Prestwick, and turned off the A77, which is in effect a continuation of the A78. I joined the B7045 at Minishant, and immediately the road was absolutely gorgeous. Heading across farmland towards Kirkmichael, I realised that all I had to eat with me was a tin of stew, and realised I should probably have stopped at a shop. At Kirkmichael, I carried on straight into the village rather than following the road where it turned right. I immediately saw a sign saying “Kirkmichael Community Shop and Cafe”. Brilliant. I parked up, got my mask out of my pocket, and went inside. On the subject of masks, I have to say that they seem to take it all a lot more seriously north of the border. Everywhere I went into a shop, or a petrol station, masks seemed to be enforced, and everyone wore one, unlike down in NW England, where people seem to regularly walk into shops with signs saying masks must be worn while bare-faced. The shop was a bit odd, as the building it was in was quite large, but it was stocked like a village shop, with essentials only. It was staffed by two older women, who told me they were just closing and could only take contactless payment, which was fine by me. I bought some bread rolls, a couple of frozen burgers, and a tin of beans. I was hoping to find some of those all-in-one coffee sachets, as, stupidly, I’d forgotten to bring the makings of any hot beverages with me, even mate tea, which requires nothing else to make it. I thought about buying more water, but figured that, since I was going to camp next to a loch, and I had a water filter with me, I didn’t need to.

Stocked up, I set off again. I’d been meaning to fill up with petrol, but I realise that was not going to happen after a quick ride through the village. The gauge said I still had 93 miles range, so I figured I would make it through the Galloway Forest and back to civilisation before running out. About 10 km after Kirkmichael, I passed Straiton, where the road becomes single track and ceases to have a number, being called Newton Stewart Road instead. It’s a really beautiful bit of road; threading through farmland initially, you can in some places see for miles. It reminds me somewhat of roads in the Yorkshire Dales. There was very little traffic, and what there was pulled into passing places before me, so I only stopped once myself on he whole road. Rolling hills and farmland gave way to managed forestry, then a bit of open moorland, where I stopped to take in the view. By now it was around 5:30pm, so I wasn’t short of daylight. I chugged along, enjoying the view, the late afternoon sun adding a magical light to the surroundings. Roads like these can’t be hurried. I rode onto the crest of a hill, and stopped for 10 minutes, with a beautiful view looking out across moorland and forest.

Initially, I missed the turning to Loch Moan, because I wasn’t paying attention to the map on my phone. I’d gone a few miles past the turn-off before I realised. I did a U-turn, and found the turn off a few minutes later. I hadn’t been sure what sort of road it was from the satellite view, and it turned out to be a dirt forestry track. It looked OK, so I turned up the track and headed into a forest. The Harley doesn’t have much ground clearance, so I took it slowly, second and third gears, sometimes changing which track I was riding in to get the smoothest ride. After a few hundred metres, I turned left onto another, smaller track, which ran along the edge of a forest on the left, and a huge denuded area where the trees had been harvested on the right. It was just over a mile along the track before I found a tree across the road, and a muddy track down to the loch turning off to the right. I parked the bike, and walked down to the loch to make sure I could get back up it tomorrow. It looked OK, so I went back for the bike, and parked it under some trees next to the loch.

The first thing I noticed about my chosen campsite was that people had been there before. There were two separate areas where people had made fires. Both of these fire-pits were full of rubbish, one of them being covered in broken glass. Why can’t people clean up after themselves? Why go to a beautiful area, and trash it? Total wankers. I cleaned up a bit, and put some of the rubbish in a bag to take with me. The rest I put in a pile with the broken glass. There’s a limit to how much of other people’s crap I can get on the bike. I’d joked with my brother that I was going to have a good moan at Loch Moan, but I hadn’t expected it to be about other peoples rubbish. I picked a campsite a bit away from the rubbish, on an area of grass. It had a bit of a slope, but would have to do. After putting up the tent, a Vango Banshee 200 I’d been using for years, which actually belongs to my stepson, I took a walk along the shore. I picked up a 2 litre plastic Coke bottle near the edge of the loch. The whole shoreline of the loch was really swampy; when I stood on it, my foot would sink slightly, and water would break through the surface. In fact, the whole area seemed a bit swampy, and a line of planted pine trees had been evidently been uprooted by the wind, the ground too soft to hold them. The loch itself looked really beautiful. I filled up my 2 litre collapsible water bottle from the loch. The water was so full of peat, that the water was brown. I took it back to the campsite and ran it through the sawyer water filter. It looked much clearer, but was still brown. Just to make sure, I filtered it again. It was still the colour of whisky, but it tasted fine. Just as well, as I only had a 500ml bottle of water with me….I got my seat out, and sat admiring the loch while I blew up my air mattress. Then I assembled my wood-stove, a cheap Lixada one I’d bought from eBay. It’s an excellent bit of kit, in which you can burn small twigs and branches. I thoroughly recommend it; it; it packs up small, and, on my trip to South America in Jan/Feb this year, I actually used it more for cooking than my gas stove. After finishing setting up camp, I got the drone out. It was a tad windy, so I didn’t fly it too high or too far away. I kept getting wind warnings on the screen, but I managed to get a bit of footage. Then I took the chair down to the shore, and opened the small glass jar of malt whisky my brother Tim had given me. I sat watching the sunset across the loch, swiping at the occasional midges. The temperature was low enough for midges not to be a major problem, as I’d anticipated when I’d looked at the weather forecast the day before. It’s times like these I love the most about motorcycle touring. On my own, in the middle of nowhere, a whisky in my hand, and a beautiful sunset. While I also like travelling with other people, especially with Jackie, I also love solitude. I can quite happily just sit doing nothing, or bumble around the campsite, absorbing the sounds and smells of nature. It’s therapy. Give me a campsite next to a loch over any amount of counselling. The only problem I have with wild camping is actually getting anything done…I sat there for an hour or so, just chilling, watching fish break the surface of the water to grab insects, a group of geese noisily fly past, and mice scuttling about. There seemed to be a lot of mice; I counted 5 in a short space of time. One of them was black with a white nose, a type I’ve never seen before. Subsequently, I’ve found out it must have actually been a young rat….

Just before the light faded, I collected some twigs and got the wood-stove going.  I lit it using a trick I learned from Wiltshire Man, from one of his YouTube videos, cotton wool make-up removal pads covered in Vaseline. I mixed the beans and the stew and heated it over the fire, and ate it with two of the bread rolls. As usual, it tasted far better than you would expect; the combination of the great outdoors and hunger is a wonderful appetiser. I sat eating my dinner, and noticed a barn owl was hunting near me. After I’d finished my dinner, I got out the head torch, and walked along the track I’d ridden in on. The owl kept flying above me, disappearing, then swooping back. I could see it clearly with the head-torch, which didn’t seem to bother the owl at all. For a good ten minutes, it kept flying past, about 20 feet above my head, the suddenly dived down into the area where trees had been felled. I guess it must have caught a mouse, as I didn’t see it again after that. I went back to the tent, climbed into my sleeping bag, plugged my headset, phone and GoPro into the power pack. I then read for a few minutes before falling asleep.

The next morning, I woke around 7:30am. It was really cold. I heated some water on the gas stove, then started packing up. I often see posts debating the merits of different stoves. Mine is a cheap Chinese copy (sold under the brand name Outry), of a Fire Maple stove, which cost me £18 off Amazon. I believe the Fire Maple is in itself a Chinese copy of a more expensive stove. So I have a cheap Chinese copy of a Chinese copy. And it’s served me well, and I have no doubt it will continue to do so for many years. I love finding cheap equipment that works. I also refill camping gas canisters using cheap butane gas, bought from Decathlon, using an adaptor bought off eBay for £3. I always think that money saved on equipment is money that can be spent actually using it. People often say that cheap equipment is a false economy, but I disagree. Some items need to be the best quality, like bike tyres, and a decent sleeping bag and tent. But a lot of camping equipment (and motorcycle accessories) are ridiculously over-priced IMO. I am still using the £8 cookware set I used in Argentina and Chile for 2 months. The dual USB port I bought for my RE Himalayan for £8.67 is still working fine, after more than 10 000 km in all sorts of weather and road conditions. Spend the money on what matters, which, apart from the items mentioned, is the trip itself.

After a cup of hot water, I finished packing up, and set off back down the dirt track to the main road. The firstv10km or so were on the same single-track road, but, after Bargrenna, it got a little wider. It’s a beautiful bit of road, and continued all the way to Newton Stewart, where I filled up with petrol before joining the A75 to Dumfries. The A75 is in itself quite a nice road, the weather was nice again, and I settled in for the long ride home. My original intention had been to divert through the Forest of Bowland, but I soon realised I didn’t have time for this. I was going for dinner with my stepson, his girlfriend and her parents, and I didn’t want to miss it. At Gretna Green, I would join the M6 and head straight home. I stopped for a coffee near Dumfries, and chatted with a guy who was out on a 2 day trip from Birmingham on his GS. He’s been up to Stranraer, had campped and been eaten by midgies, and was now on his way home. He asked me where I’d come from, and I told him about my trip.

“This is a great road, isn’t it?” he remarked as I munched on a sausage roll. I agreed with him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had passed close to one of the best roads I’d ever ridden in the UK. I hadn’t known myself until I went there.

Last week I decided to head up to Oban to see my Dad. I’ve not seen him this year, with being away in South America January and February, and pretty much going straight into lock-down when I got back. My Dad is 88, and with me going back to work in two weeks, I wanted to see him before I couldn’t risk it again.

For this trip, I decided to take the Harley. The Himalayan has been sorned while I do some work on it, and the Harley is great for Scottish roads. I’d already done 1800 miles on the Harley this year, during lock-down, delivering PPE. Harleys seem to get a lot of bad press, but, for a long trip, the Slim is a brilliant bike. It’s comfortable, fast, has bags of torque for overtaking, and, as long as you’re not hoping to get your knee down, the handling is sure and precise. I’ve learnt you can load it up as much as you like, and the only thing you’ll notice is an increase in fuel consumption, which isn’t brilliant, about 32 mpg loaded up for a camping trip. I decided to spend three nights at my Dad’s, just south of Oban, do a quick loop of Glencoe while up there, and take the scenic route home, wild-camping for the last night of the trip. I set off on the morning of 28^th August in rain, and it rained heavily until I got north of Lancaster, then continued intermittently for the rest of the trip. Traffic was pretty light on the motorway, and I made good time. Once past Glasgow, I stopped for fuel in Dumbarton, then had a very pleasant ride along Loch Lomond to Crianlarich. I had thought of taking the road through Inverary, but it was closed. Once on the windy roads along Loch Lomond, I put on my biking playlist, played through the Sena headset, and contemplated the year so far. It’s been a strange one. So far this year, 5 friends of mine have died of various causes, the world has gone mad, and we’re all hiding from a pandemic that maybe isn’t as serious as we all think. When Muse started playing over the headset, as always I was reminded of riding at night in Qatar, where I originally bought the bike. I thought about Mikey, who I haven’t seen for nearly 5 years. Mikey and myself used to ride the Truck Road, which was about as exciting as life on a bike gets in Qatar. It was supposedly a temporary road for trucks, as the name suggests, but it was also the most exciting road in Qatar. It actually had some corners, and several roundabouts. It was also full of trucks, and the occasional random object lying in the road, the weirdest one being a double mattress we encountered once. Mikey and me were known as the Truck Road Warriors, as so few people chose to ride on it. Mikey is now back in New Zealand, and here I was, still listening to the same music. Only now, instead of sweating profusely in 90% humidity at 40 degrees, I was cranking up the heated grips and wiping rain off my visor.

I stopped at the Green Welly for a coffee and a pie, then carried on along the A85 to Oban. Again, traffic was fairly light, and I made good time, even enjoying a bit of sunshine for a while. The A85 is a great road, and I know it quite well now, a fact which enabled me to time perfectly jumping the queue at the traffic lights at the bridge crossing the railway line near Loch Awe. Oban was busier than I expected, and it took me about 15 minutes to get through Oban and onto the A816. My Dad and two of my brothers live on the Isle of Seil, just across Clachan Bridge, or the Bridge over The Atlantic as it is also known. The bridge is actually fairly small, made from stone with a huge hump in it. It was designed by John Stevenson of Oban in 1792, and built by engineer Robert Mylne between 1792 and ‘93. On the Seil side of the bridge is the Tigh an Truish, or House of Trousers. This name dates back to the Jacobite rebellion, the 1745 uprising and the failed attempt by Charles Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, to regain the English throne. In the ensuing aftermath repressive measures were introduced with the Disarming Act. Bagpipes were branded an instrument of war and banned. Wearing of the tartan and traditional kilt were forbidden too, under imposed penalties of fines or even transportation to the colonies. Islanders would change out of their kilts and into trousers at the pub, before venturing onto the mainland. With the weather being so crap all the way, I didn’t actually take any pictures at all on the whole journey to Seil. 

I arrived at my Dad’s house about 7pm, and he’d cooked a very nice dinner in anticipation of my arrival. My brother Tim came round, and we sampled several malt whiskies. Tim works at the Oban distillery, and as far as I know is the first person ever with a PhD in chemistry to be employed making whisky. My other brother, Nick, who also lives on the island, is currently on a voyage taking one of his boats to the Canaries, where he plans to leave it.

A very wet Sunday was spent walking my Dad’s dog, Jett, a badly trained Staffie that basically took me for a walk, and chatting with my Dad. He pulled out loads of old family photos I’d not seen before, reminisced about his time in Botswana, where I grew up, and prepared another great dinner. Another night in the loft before heading out on the Monday for a loop of Glencoe.

The road to Glencoe took me back up the B844 to the A816 to Oban. The B844 is a great little road, single track mostly, and thankfully not busy when I set off. In the summer, the normal swarms of camper-vans and caravans can make riding around here a bit tedious. Just after Oban, I stopped for petrol and a coffee, and met two Polish bikers, Zbigniew and Robert, who had ridden up from London and just completed the NC500. We chatted a while, swapped details, then I headed off across the Connel Bridge and up towards Glencoe on the A828.

Traffic was again quite light, the weather was sunny, and the bike was running great. Days like this are just so satisfying. Anyone who doesn’t get motorcycling just needs a ride on the West Coast of Scotland to get understand why it’s so addictive. Lochs, mountains, twisty roads; Scotland is, in my opinion, one of the best motorcycling countries on the planet, and I’ve been lucky enough to ride in many countries.

At South Ballachulish, I joined the A82, pulling over after a few miles for a drink of water. Then on into Glencoe. I went to school not far from here, at Rannoch, and spent many weekends wandering around lost in the rain on school expeditions. I always imagine I can feel the atmosphere left over here from the famous massacre. There’s something spooky about Glencoe, yet at the same time it is really beautiful. Traffic was heavier than it had been, and after a while it was at a standstill. As nothing was coming from the other direction, it was evident there’d been an accident. I rode slowly to the front, and saw a BMW GS on it’s side in the middle of the road. Behind it, lying on the asphalt, in line with the road, I could see a rider in a textile suit. He was in the recovery position, and being attended to by a couple who looked they knew what they were doing. A small group of people were gathered round them. Next to the bike was an SUV, at right angles to the road, with damage to the right rear side. Shit. The bike had evidently clipped the rear of the SUV as the car driver was turning into a parking area on the right hand side of the road, most probably while the biker was overtaking. The guy lying in the road was one of a group of bikers who had passed me a few miles back, when I’d stopped to take pictures. I chatted with one of them for a while. His friend was talking, and didn’t seem to be too badly injured. He’d not hit the SUV side-on, but had caught it glancing glow, and evidently hadn’t been at high speed when he hit the car. A policeman who had been passing had taken control of proceedings, and a helicopter was on it’s way. The biker was talking, and I hope he wasn’t too badly hurt. Unfortunately, it’s an almost inevitable type of accident when you have streams of tourists rubbernecking at the amazing scenery on the roads in a beautiful area, and lots of people on bikes too. The cop said if I could get round the SUV by going into the parking area, I was welcome to continue. Once the helicopter arrived, the road would be closed. I decided to carry on while I could, and a number of other bikes did likewise. Once past, the road of course was empty in my direction. I stopped for a few minutes, and, after getting over the shock of seeing the aftermath of an accident, I soon settled into the ride through the rest of Glencoe. The weather was overcast but dry, the temperature comfortable.

I stopped at the Green Welly for the traditional coffee, and gave a few other riders the heads up on Glencoe. It was now closed, according to Google maps. Then back along the A85 to Oban, with a stop to fly the drone.

I was expecting a lot of traffic, with Glencoe now closed, but, apart from a long line at the railway bridge again, which I managed once again to get past in the gap between the oncoming traffic and the lights changing to let us across. I passed a group of three bikers on Kwakasukis who seemed to be taking it pretty slowly, then for a while got stuck behind a van. After getting past the van near Taynuilt, I hit bright sunshine and clear roads the rest of the way to Oban. I arrived back at Seil around 5:30pm, and we ordered take away fish and chips from the Oyster Bar at Easdale. The next day I was heading home, so planned a route taking me t the Scottish broders avoiding motorways, and had a look on a satellite map for a campsite. There was a small loch in the Galloway Forest park that looked a good candidate, Loch Moan. I’d camp there, and have a good moan while I was at it. Time for bed.