Tour of the Highlands (No 56k SERIOUSLY!!)

[Shay HTFC]

Well, Simon (DidierD) and me decided a while back when we still worked together that we'd go to Scotland for a week around August. Great scenery, good roads and easy to get to.

Anyhow, we set off on the 31st July and now I'm back early (you'll find out) and he's still there till Thursday or so.

Never done one of these, so it might be a bit heavy on the words, but ah well, I like to write.

Day 1:
Today we were heading for Cockermouth at the very top of the Lake District. My Auntie, Uncle, cousins and Grandparents live in a small village just outside it, so it made good sense to stay there first where I could see them for the first time in 2 years or so and have a nice warm bed to get into for the first night.

I got up at about 7:30 to get ready for the short trip to Si's house in Harrogate. Like usual, I'd left some of the little things till the morning to do them and was rushing through thinking "shit shit shit" because I'd agreed to get to Harrogate early because we were due HEAVY rain by early afternoon at least.
First problem arises - I don't have enough bungee cables and didn't really know where to buy them that was close. So I jump on the bike and get my arse over to Screwfix to buy a bag of them for cheap. I have to sign up to them before I could buy them though?! Argh! I'm in a rush and I need to give my details to some spotty kid behind the counter who's more interested in talking about how many WKD's (gay drink for starters) he drank last night with his equally spotty mate.

Anyway, I get back and I set off from Halifax later than I'd hoped at about 11:30 or so I think.
At this stage the weather is still quite nice. A bit overcast, but nothing bad, but by the time I get into Bradford it's starting to come down a bit. By the time I'm in the tunnel under the airport runway it's absolutely pissing it down and I was just thinking "shit".

Get to Si's and he's still doing a bit of preparation, but before long we set off in the pissing rain and cross town.
Quick tip.. BUY WATERPROOFS! We stopped at some lights on a downwards hill and suddenly I had this feeling like I'd just had a freezing cold wee in my pants. My crotch was soaked, but it didn't have that nice warm feeling that I'd have expected when my crotch is soaked. It was freezing and very unpleasant!

Luckily we were out onto the main road to Skipton that goes over the tops past Blubberhouses (what a name!) and the weather had cleared up. We made good progress and before long we were on the A65 heading NW towards the Lake District. We passed by the quirkily named villages of Giggleswick, Nappa and Newbiggin and on towards Windermere.

We had to battle through the traffic in Ambleside and Keswick and I had my first very minor 'crash' here. Forgetting how much wider my bike was at the rear due to the panniers, I went to filter past a car and *clunk*, my left pannier hit her bumper. We made eye contact; both of us looking surprised, but I quickly rode off only to have to stop at traffic lights 10m later, but it was all ok.

I don't know if anyone has been on it, but there is a section of dual carriageway next to Bassenthwaite Lake that is simply sublime! It's like a race circuit that is two lanes wide. Anyway, we had our fun there and before long we were in Eaglesfield where my family live.
They weren't in, so we simply let ourselves in (yes, coming from a town it's hard to imagine, but all the houses are just left open, keys left in cars etc) and dumped our bags in their house before heading into town to get some food and petrol.


Bike parking in Cockermouth... nicely done
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Bikes parked at my Uncle's house
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We had our tea, then headed for the pub in town with my cousin for the pub quiz which we won. Although the skanky bastards behind the bar had some sort of Deal or No Deal game to decide how much we won, so we came out with 30p between 8 of us. Ah well, it was free to play so we still pulled in a profit
Si met his friend from uni working behind a bar in the next pub along and it made me think how many people seem to come from Cockermouth?!
My brother's mate at uni is and my other brother had someone from Cockermouth come into his ski shop whilst he was working in Canada. And my Uncle owns a toy shop on Cockermouth high street (bright yellow one if you've ever been) so they all say hi to him or my Auntie when they stop there. Small world!

Day 2:
View from the bedroom window in the morning
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We set off early-ish to Carlisle which was on the route up to Scotland and also had a Hein Gericke where I could buy a rain suit. I wasn't going to suffer what I had suffered in Harrogate the previous day, I tell you that!
The road there was fast and quite straight, but with some nice corners still although nothing too testing for any speeds really. There was quite a bit of traffic, but we got to Carlisle before long and picked up my rainsuit from a very friendly staffed Hein Gericke.

We'd decided that we'd take the A7 up towards Edinburgh which we'd been told was a very nice route (turned out to be some historic route that was promoted by the Scottish tourism department), then onto the M8, M9 and then towards the A82 till Fort William where we'd camp for the night.

The weather was patchy rain right up until the Scottish border where it started to turn sunny. And the scenery was superb already. It was like crossing the border suddenly flicked a switch and we were riding through valleys filled with pine trees and rivers and streams flowing beside us. It was beautiful and that's before we mention the road. It was such a nice introduction to Scotland. Flowing corners and a pretty good surface too, especially in one part where they'd relaid the road after a landslide!

At one stage, my peripheral vision got filled with blackness and I thought some bird was flying beside me, so I turn to the right and saw such an awesome sight. A fighter jet just flew straight past us down the valley at such a low height weaving between the hills. It was truly amazing to see and I was just shouting and whooping in my helmet. I was so full of awesome emotions having seen that and having arrived in Scotland to a great road and great weather.

About 10 minutes later or so though, I suddenly realised that my bike sounded a lot louder. I pulled over and sure enough, on of the welds in the exhaust where 2 becomes 1 had split. I now effectively had a straight through pipe from my right cylinder and it was f**kin loud!!

Buggered weld
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Although it wasn't too bad... We'd pulled over in this valley

Already beautiful scenery
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Si rode off to get some photos of the road we'd just been on whilst I tried to bodge some way of fixing it, but then I just thought "f**k it, I'll just have to have a noisy pipe" and we carried on.

Part of the road we rode on - superb surface, scenery and corners etc
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I was however starting to crap it a bit, because the thought of the second weld cocking up and then the whole rear part of the exhaust just falling down and jamming into the road whilst we rode at high speeds came into my head, so we stopped off at the next town (I think it was Hawick?) and I grabbed some wire just to wrap around the exhaust and frame to provide some form of support for it.

Hawick??
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My wire support just incase the second weld cracked
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We carried on with me following Si, but I had just seen something that I had to stop and get a photo of. I tried to signal to Simon, but nothing was working, so I just turned around anyway and headed back to take a photo with my special thing I'd seen.

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Yes, a street named after ME. Some dodgy tramp guy with a bag full of booze and heavily stained fingers took the photo, but he was a friendly enough chap.

We soon arrived in the outskirts of Edinburgh after passing through small villages and towns where my growling exhaust was making dogs bark and little children cry, and we headed around the ring road and stopped at a Little Chef somewhere. Wow - it was such a cheap meal for such good quality food NOT!! I think it came to £19 or so for the two of us including a bottle of apple juice probably just about big enough to fill a small condom before it stretches, which cost £1.90 or so.

We set off again in the sun and onto the motorways. I don't know why, but in Scotland the motorways have a speed limit posted on the side. It's not the NSL white circle with black stripe through it, but rather it actually states 70mph in numbers. I couldn't figure out why the difference, but it didn't matter anyway.

We were now onto the A84 just outside Stirling and before long the scenery just got shifted up a gear. We were riding past lochs and impressive valleys of the sort I have never seen before. My jaw was pretty much dragging along the road and I couldn't keep my eyes on the road. This was quite simply amazing to look at and I couldn't believe that this stuff was just a few hours up the road from where I live. Stunning, simply stunning.
Every corner brought new sights and I just couldn't get enough of it.

Loch Lubnaig??
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Honestly, the photos do this stuff NO justice. I look back on them now and they don't even begin to show how amazing these places look!
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The scenery and roads simply got better and better although by now it was a bit rainy and overcast, but not even that could detract from the total 'amazingness' I was feeling.

I'll let the photos do the talking.

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We then found ourselves on what I later found out to be called, Rannoch Moor. (google this place!)
One word. WOW.
This place was like an alien landscape. It's 1000ft up, but flat and full of small lakes, rivers, trees and all surrounded by massive peaks. It was overcast and there was a very light drizzle when we were there which just added to the eery spookiness and weirdness of the place. It was a truly amazing sight to take in and I felt like I was on a different planet. I couldn't believe that only hours before I had been in my uncle's home and now I was here.

These photos do it no justice at all, mainly because we'd already passed a lot of it, but like I said before, you really have to see it with your own eyes to understand it.

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We carried on and literally after just a few seconds we had to stop again for another set of photos. The road dropped into some sort of gulley between rocks and carved it's way down and over a waterfall. A few people had stopped here and a viewing platform had been built. It really was impressive to look at!

The waterfall is just on the left
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Unfortunately, just before taking these photos my bike had fallen off the side stand. I don't know whether it rolled off because we were on a slight hill or if I just didn't put it down properly, but either way, I noticed the smashed indicator. Luckily enough, the bulb was still intact and worked, so I just stashed the cracked indicator housing into my tank bag and took the above photos.

After being attacked by midges (they seem to come from nowhere!) we got back onto our bikes to go, but when I went to pull in the clutch, the lever had no resistance. "Oh shite" I thought and true enough, the lever had snapped too, but further down so it was hanging off by the cable. The snap occurred between the cable 'attacher' and the bottom where the clutch lever pivots. So effectively I now had no clutch and no way to use it. Bugger!

I bumped the bike and rode on doing clutchless upshifts which I've never done before and didn't want to do, but had heard that they weren't as bad as clutchless downshifts. I kept in a lowish gear and rode slowly so that I didn't have to downshift.
This was all well and good until in the distance I noticed a set of temporary traffic lights. I slowed down hoping that if I timed it right, I could wait until they were green then speed up again. But these things were red for AGES! I eventually met up with the back of the traffic and came to a stalled stop at which stage the lights went green, but I was stuck there whilst cars diverted around me and we watched them go red again!! What shit.

Whilst waiting for them to turn green again, we decided that Si would give me a running push. I would have bumped it, but without the aid of a hill, I'd have had to run along, then jumped onto a fully loaded bike and I didn't fancy doing that, especially as I'd already dropped it.

So the lights went green and Si gave me a push. I got through the lights, but Si had missed them again so I just rode really slowly (and loudly due to the buggered exhaust from before). People overtaking me must have thought WTF is going on here as they overtook some extremely slow, extremely noisy bike that looked to have a fat heffer on the back of it (my waterproofs are a bit big for me) with a thinnish tyre. What a goon.

Ah well, Si caught up after a bit and we rode on at about 40 - 50mph. Not far to go now.

All this while we were passing through yet more amazing scenery. I didn't stop for photos for obvious reasons, but there is a bridge at Glencoe that has zigzag white metal girders across it. When you first come onto it you don't realise anything until you then look left across Loch Linnhe I think. The view is so spectacular, it is unreal! My jaw just dropped for what seemed like the 1000th time. You really need to see this place. The whole of Glencoe was so amazing to look at!

We were now on the last leg of the journey. Just a short blast up the side of Loch Linnhe (I think it's still called that) and we arrived in Fort William. As you come into it, you just go for ages along a road just full of B&B's. The place itself was so picturesque to look at. There was a pier with fishing boats docked all around it. Behind this were tall mountains and behind the town stood Nevis although it was too cloudy to see the top.

We pulled into a car park near the McDonalds (yes, they are everywhere) to discuss what we'd do. We decided that Si should ride off to a tourist information place to find a campsite and before long he was back and giving me directions that I wasn't quite taking in.
After he gave me another push I led the way and took a wrong turning. Ah well, round the roundabout we went and he overtook me to guide the way. We came across another roundabout with some tourist just sat there not knowing where to drive and a taxi behind them. We couldn't stop because of my clutch so Si just went straight past them in and across the roundabout, with me and my sound of hundreds of controlled explosions close behind.

We got to the campsite in Glen Nevis which was one of these big commercial type of places with hundreds of tents and camper vans placed out in pre-designated pitches etc. There was a reception and a shop and it was all a bit too much like an outside hotel and not like the small field next to someone's house for me to take a shine to, but we were here now and signed in at reception.

We got directions to our pitching area and it was at the far side of the camp site. Let's just say that most people we passed stopped what they were doing and turned around to check out what that satanic sound coming down the path was as my exhaust banged away

My bike parked up in the campsite
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The campsite and it's surroundings. Very impressive!
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We soon discovered just how bad the midges were (!!), got a burger from the burger van, made tea using my trangia, chatted for a while and then hit the sack for a well deserved nights sleep.

Day 3:
I spent this morning trying to make a bodge for my snapped clutch lever. Si went off and rode some roads to Oban whilst I hung around at the campsite with my toolkit (always bring it around with me).

After some time I managed to come up with a bodge that actually worked quite well.

First, I tried to cable tie a spanner to the clutch cable, but the cable tie just couldn't hold, so I moved onto a metal hose clip and used it to join the spanner and cable together. I then used a few cable ties to extend it and came out with the final product

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Now I had to find a new clutch lever as I couldn't live with this thing for ever. Luckily for me my new phone contract includes free internet for 1 month, so I got straight onto that.
Unfortunately there were no motorbike shops in Fort William or for some distance around. I rang up shops in Glasgow, Perth, Edinburgh, Oban etc etc, but none had a clutch lever in stock.
Finally a shop in Inverness said that they might be able to match it up if I brought my old one along. I had a couple of hours till they closed so straight away I got on my way.

The road to Inverness from Fort William is something else. There are no sharp and scary corners, just a load of flowing ones that are an absolute pleasure to go round. You could keep riding at 80mph and just go round the corners with the feeling of absolute bliss. Never have I in my short life of motorcycling ever felt so at 'one' with my bike. This was something else; it was just an amazing feeling!
The road follows the coast of Loch Ness and it really is superb scenery. It carves through rocks, weaves in and out of forests and every now and again just puts you right next to the shoreline which just looks amazing.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of this road as I couldn't bring myself around to stopping. I just had to keep going, overtaking cars like they were not even there.

After a bit of fannying around in Inverness getting slightly lost and asking the two most weird boys I have EVER seen for directions, I got to Mitchell's Motorcycles (I think that's the name).
But about these boys. As soon as I pulled over to them they completely disregarded me. One of them looked at me and then straight away turned away and almost buried his face in his mate's arm as if he was trying to hide. The other one just looked at me strangely. I then asked for directions and the one closest to me looked again, but straight away hid his face again. I caught a glimpse of it, but I couldn't see anything untoward.
His friend just said "no" to me just like that without even thinking about whether he knew the way.

I just had to ride on from these weirdos. I have no other word for it and couldn't explain them.

Anyway, Mitchell's Motorcycles raised my impression of Inverness after these boys had done everything in their power to make me want to stay away for ever. It's in Delmore on the road that leads inland and it's a very pretty place. The bike shop itself was very good from my impression and luckily the parts guy had a spare GS500 clutch lever which he offered for a tenner. Absolute result bearing in mind just a couple hours before I'd been stuck with nothing miles away from any bike shops.

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My bike left like a loner in it's own spaces
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So back along the Loch Ness road which once again was great fun and back to the campsite.

That night we cooked some food and drank and talked with these two German lads who were just spending a week in the UK and this Irish lad who was climbing the tallest mountains in each country in the UK. But the nice twist was that he was hitch hiking to each one. One of his stories included getting into a car with a couple of Glaswegians who were just smoking joints and racing along these loch-side roads, before being dropped off and shortly after getting into a car driven by a very 'well to do' couple whilst he was still stoned

Day 4:

Today was the day we hit the Isle of Skye. I was really looking forward to this and like we'd promised ourselves, we set off early.
The roads to Kyle (the town where the bridge to Skye is) were just so good. The ride was incredible and yet again we were riding through some truly amazing and spectacular scenery.

There was one stage where the road curved around over this very low bridge. It was almost just hovering over the water and didn't feel like a bridge at all. I can't really explain it very well, but it was excellent.

A dammed up valley with reservoir
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A castle near-ish to Kyle where some other bikes were parked up
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Then we got to Kyle and grabbed some food from the co-op food shop before heading out across the bridge. Didn't get any photos though

The Isle of Skye is a great place. They seem to be doing up a lot of the roads and no joke, they are race track quality. It's amazing! Then to top it off you have the great scenery where big mountains meet the sea with impressive cliffs and gorges etc.
At times it looked like we were in North America / Canada with valleys full of pine trees and mountains surrounding them.

A lot of the main loops around the island are single track with passing places. It's a slower pace, but allows you to look around and see everything which is definitely a good thing! It was the first time I have ever been to some where that actually feels remote. Before, I saw it on TV, where there are desolate communities huddled around a bay surrounded by cliffs, but now I was riding through these very places and that feeling of desolation wasn't there. Infact, I thought it would be such a nice place to live.
Once you have visited the place, it doesn't feel so distant anymore and I feel like the Highlands and the Isle of Skye are just up the road now. It is really amazing how travel changes your perception on the world!

Anyway, I'll just show a few photos from our trip on Skye.

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Approaching Staffin on the NE coast
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Looking down over Staffin Bay
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Looking into the village of Digg in the NE
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Looking down into the Port of Uig where the ferries set off to the Isles of Lewis and North Uist
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Looking across from Uig
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Same place
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Check out the quality of that road!
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After all that, we headed for the ferry down in Armadale. The whole road down from Broadford is being redone and resurfaced with help from the EU and it's very nice, especially these few bends towards the end when you are right next to the waterfront and they all just link up perfectly.

We sat down to finish gorging on the crisps and biscuits we'd bought earlier and saw some other bikes come into the ferry port, including a man who looked exactly like what I envisage stinkwheel to look like, if not a bit younger. He had the exact same beard! (although I didn't get a photo )

All the bikes lined up ready to get on the ferry first
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There were 6 bikes on the ferry including one on the other side of the deck
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The view coming back onto the mainland
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The view of Mallaig and the houses by the coast. Very nice place to live!
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We got off the ferry and straight away headed for the A830 back to Fort William. We came to some road works that went on for AGES. We were up and down hills, round hills, through hills all the while riding on freshly laid tarmac that was single track for the time being. It was something that was going on all over the places we rode. New roads being built that had incredibly flat, smooth surfaces that wouldn't look out of place on a world class racing circuit.

I quickly took a photo whilst waiting at some red lights.

What a road this will turn out to be. Perfect surface in a great area through some stunning scenery
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Just look at the surface and the scenery you're riding through!
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I only wish these sort of roads would be built in England, rather than the ones where they chuck a load of gravel down onto what seems like double sided sticky tape so all the gravel gets blown away after 3 weeks anyway.

Well, this road was something else. The corners just invited you to come into them at a good speed as they were at such a good angle. They never tricked you and it just felt so right.

That is until I came to one of them. I was going around leaning to the left with my pegs scraping. Before I knew it, I was off and sliding across the road. I came to a stop and got up fine. What a shock. It was my first proper off and my bike was now in the greenery pissing oil all over itself

I waiting for Si to come round after me and as he stopped and ran back another biker came round the corner, stopped and helped. We got the bike out, but it was a sorry state. The front fairing was all bent somewhere as it was right up scraping against the forks. The foot peg had come off and the screen had snapped across the middle and come off.

My indicator that had pulled through with only the housing smashing had been fully obliterated by now and my mirror was bent round.
My kit had done it's job. My left shoulder hurt a bit and I had a graze just below my elbow, but everything was fine really. My textile trousers had burnt through the material, but the knee pads had done their job, although my camera which was in my thigh pocket had been badly damaged. Somehow it still worked though and the mechanical system of the lens coming out still worked!

I got on the phone to my recovery insurance people and they got a local recovery truck to come round which they did surprisingly quickly to be fair and he said he'd take it back to their garage till the morning when we could decide what to do. (whether I'd carry on pillion, get it repaired, go home etc)


I got a pillion lift back to the campsite with Si along what would have been an excellent road that passed alongside lochs and followed the railway, including the Glenfinnan Viaduct (the viaduct in Harry Potter).


We cooked some super noodles on the stove and chatted with the Irish lad and some guys who had come up from Bristol. At some stage this drunk German lad turned up asking where the ladies were on site. Good point I thought, but the campsite was mainly families

Day 5:

I decided that it would probably be the best idea to go home with the recovery people. Riding pillion just wouldn't have ben an option with all our luggage and to be honest, riding pillion isn't as good as being on your own on your own bike.
Getting it repaired was an option, but bearing in mind my bike was so cheap to start off with, I didn't want to spend however much getting it back up in running order for another day or 2 riding time. Plus they'd have had to have get parts ordered in which would have taken time.

So early in the morning I got on the phone to the recovery company and they said they'd be able to give me a lift back in the afternoon at about 3ish. So I packed my tent along with Simon. The time had come for Simon to set off to his grand parents who lived near Inverness and we shook hands and wished each other good luck and he rode off into the Scottish highlands again whilst I sat outside reception and ordered a taxi to get me into town.

I sat in the McDonalds for what seemed like an eternity before the recovery truck turned up. The driver was good fun though and we chatted all the way to Glasgow where he had to drop off a car that was on the back. I'd always heard bad things about Glasgow, but the part I was in was really nice. (Kelvindale)

We set off again chatting whilst we went down the motorway towards the Dales at which stage we cut across on the A65 and pulled up outside my house at about 11:30.

I pushed my poorly bike into the garage and that was it; my amazing trip was over

I will DEFINITELY be back though! It really was an amazing place with amazing towns and villages, amazing scenery, amazing roads - just amazing everything really!
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Full Motorbike License - GS500E '95

[Shay HTFC]

ok resized some of the images and will hopefully do the rest later when I have more time. At least it's not as bad to load now.
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Full Motorbike License - GS500E '95

[kitty kat]

really enjoyed the write up, I did part of your route the Sunday before you set off. I avoided the A7 to Harwick and went along a fantastically tarmaced B road that runs alongside the river and straight into Harwick. You are right, photos don't do the scenery any justice at all.
You have made me jealous now, I have no holidays left until October and on my day out I was thinking how great it would be to do a tour of Scotland
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Enjoy everyday, tell those you love everyday you love them
Life is too short to fall out with people

[StevenF]

Nice write up there - looks like some great roads and scenery up there! Sorry to hear about the troubles you had with you're bike, hopefully it will serve you well next time!

As I've mentioned in another thread, I live in Scotland, but I haven't been to that many places - I'm only 19. I would love to go touring around Scotland at some point.

Would you ever consider going by yourself?
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My Project - Honda CBR 600 F2/FM

[Shay HTFC]

Yeah, I'd consider going by myself.
At the campsites you meet lots of other people who are travelling so that's a good laugh. DidierD is still out there so had a couple of days on his own, so I'm sure he'll be able to tell you what it was like on his own.

Having someone else with you can come in useful though when you come off the bike in the countryside
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Full Motorbike License - GS500E '95

[Swim41]

Great write up, really interesting especially as I'm thinking about a similar trip in the near future. I had thoughts about another Euro tour but the more I read about the Highlands the more I think I should go and see them.

Thing is I would only be able to afford to camp - how did you cope with the midges?

[alt101uk]

Hi there, really excellent write up and some great photos. Its like a different world up on the northern roads, we have some here in the central belt but nothing can prepare you for what its like up there. Hope the bike and yourself are ok after your wee off.

Grahme

[Deano_44]

Wow, that looks amazing. There is something about mountains and valleys.

Really enjoyed that, thanks for the write up .

[----]

Bastards!
Could have told me you were going
I went up there a couple of weeks ago,but had to come back after just 2 days (had to pick up another bike).

Going back up in the next couple of weeks,this time i'll have my mob turned off so the trip isn't cut short....

Excellent write up anyway,glad you weren't injured too bad on the fall
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DRZ-400sm

[ram_doom]

[DidierD]

Well I got back the other day and it was a fantastic trip.

I've done a seperate write up of the days I was on my own here:

https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=153255

[stinkwheel]

You can smoke and drink through midge nets.

It was me on the Armadale ferry with a couple of guys from the club.

The corner you came off on. Was it that tightening left-hander with the cliff on your left?

I fucking hate that corner. Every other corner on that road is a perfect, predictable curve but that one had to be blasted out from the cliff. Trouble is, there are about four other similar-looking corners, you get lulled into a false sense of security. You come into it hot and fast, lay the bike right over, come round the edge of the cliff and see the road disappearing into its vanishing point rather than opening out. If you have room you can run wide and lay it over a bit more.

I know the bit of dual carriageway you mean in the lake district too. There are two bits like that, one on the A66 heading West, the other on the A591 heading South. Basically, they decided to make it dual carriageway and instead of extending the existing road, they made that bit one side of the dual and built another two lanes elsewhere to go the other way. The A591 bit is shorter but by far the most mental. I've seen me sit at the start of it waiting for a big gap in the traffic so I can whang through it without being held up.
Bassenthwaite
South of Keswick


Blind corners on a dual carriageway for the win
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[DidierD]

[Shay HTFC]

That corner was indeed the one which sounds like it's quite notorious.
There was plastic from cars sprinkled around in the undergrowth and my recovery driver said he often comes out to that corner to pick up a ditched vehicle. About a year back he said he had to collect a bike after it had gone under a lorry coming the other way. Fatal accident.

Afterwards I thought, should I have stopped leaning so far and lengthened my arc and come out on the other side of the road as there were so few cars, but on the off chance that there was a car (or lorry for that matter!) the result would have been horrendous, so best not!
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Full Motorbike License - GS500E '95

[oriel dave]

Nice write up. Will be posting mine soon when I eventually get all the (film) pictures back.

Unlucky about the off. Hows the bike?

We found camping by the coast you have less trouble with the midges because of the wind.

Dave

[ajb]

nice one. Been to skye myself and think it's great (not driven there yet though).
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CBR125R '05 > CB500 '00 > CBR600F '99

[pa_broon74]

For midge repellent try Avon 'Skin So Soft.' The Army swear by it. If you'r mum doesn't have any you can pinch, then a good cigar works too.

We also came round that road down to Armadale bay, it was in a poor condition, the traffic control was all over the place.

If you really want to see some epic scenery, go up to the North West Coast past Ullapool, its world class.


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Didn't catch anything.

[reu]

Great pictures looks like you had a good time
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125cc Pitbike <sold> Aprilla Mx50 <current>