We were looking forward to seeing Scotland, we had both not been there since we were kids, so the International rally in the Scottish Borders was a good excuse to make the trip and extend it. We were definitely riding up and as usual the group started as the two of us, me and Pete. Then Big John rang to say that Gary Stark and his family were flying over with his bike and were looking for someone to travel up country with. Now the group was three bikes, one Motorhome, four adults and three teenagers.
Gary & family flew into Heathrow and were staying a couple of days in a local hotel. With the help of Andy Donald, he arranged to collect his bike (flown in separately) fuel and oil her up and get her back to the hotel. Then it was off to the Motorhome hirer to collect the luxury camper that Gary’s wife, Dana, was going to be driving. (At this point I will say she deserves a medal, driving a large vehicle on the wrong side of the road and having a manual gearbox, she did a lot better than some of the locals and some of those Scottish lanes were a challenge for smaller vehicles.)
We planned the route and decided to go up the West coast, do the rally, then do a highland tour and return home via the East coast of the country. A total mileage of around 2500 miles over 2 weeks.
Our journey started on the Tuesday with a short leg from our house near Canterbury to Heathrow, for an overnight stop at a cheap Travel Lodge and to meet up with Gary & Co in their nearby hotel. The journey up on the M25 is always fraught with the usual traffic problems and there is no quick way to do this on the back roads, so the first 80 miles were motorway, fully loaded and yes, it was raining.
We met the slightly jet lagged Stark’s again the following morning at their hotel for the real start. Again, a lot of motorways, M40, M6. 250 miles to our destination, Blackpool, for our overnight stop. This seemed like a good idea when planning the stop, a typical British seaside town with some evening action for the girls and the fact that there was a big roller coaster sealed the deal for the youngest girl. Being from sunny California Gary’s wet suit got its first airing on the M25 as it started to rain not long after we left. By the time we were in Scotland he was living in it and had mastered getting in and out of it quite quickly, however the first time was a bit of a learning curve and the police caught us on the hard shoulder to give us their advice, we left Dana in the Motorhome to discuss the finer points of safe parking as the bikes shot off (OK, sedately joined the traffic flow).
Blackpool was another eye opener. By the time we arrived and refreshed ourselves in our Premium Inn hotel, we arrived at the fun fair as it closed, there goes the roller coaster. The town was having major road repairs and traffic cones abounded, the traditional fish n chip shop we chose was run by Greeks with limited English and it was wet & windy. Welcome to England!!
Day three we left Blackpool and a stroke of luck and several phone calls, we managed to catch a couple of other travellers coming up country. We agreed to meet at the services on the M6. A stroke of luck never to be repeated. We met up with Bill & Lorraine Herbert, Lorraine driving a converted van and Bill on his Chief, Will the brother in law driving a car with bike on trailer. We also managed to meet up with Eddie Baines driving a borrowed van, he was escorting some more Americans, Tony from Rockies Indian and his girlfriend Tracy. Tony had also flown his bike over. The convoy was now 4 Chiefs, 1 Harley, 2 vans, I car & trailer and tail end Charlie was Dana in the Motorhome. Not easy to keep everyone together but we all rolled into Innerleithen without losing anyone. The ride from Blackpool north, about 170 miles, was on nice sweeping roads, the traffic getting lighter the further north we went.
We arrived on the rally site Thursday afternoon and it was already half full of people. We were lucky to get camped on a reasonably level piece of ground. Anyone who arrived Friday onwards were on an ever worsening slope. We did the usual rounds of catching up with friends, erected the tent, chucked everyone off the bikes into the tent and then went and sussed out the local pub and supermarket. By the time we got back to site it was dark and we needed the torch, which was buried somewhere inside the tent with all the stuff chucked off the bikes earlier. Here is a tip for you, blow up your air bed before you hit the Jack Daniels!! That’s all I’m saying on the subject now.
We did the rally and there have been other write ups on this. There was a highland tour being organised after the rally and some were booked up for this. As me and Pete had ridden up, we did not want to ride around with all our gear and keep pitching the tent every night, instead we picked a really nice campsite with everything you need just outside Fort William, which had everything else you might need – mainly a McDonalds with internet access. Having to do a bit of work whilst on our trip, we would go here for Breakfast and spend a few hours catching up on things. Anyway, we based our self at Fort William and went out for day rides, meeting up with the highland tour at some point during the day. There were also a lot of other small groups of Indians riding around the Highlands. We quite often got stopped during the day to ask about the group that just went past etc. It seemed the big group did not always have time to stop.
We had some great rides to some great places, the scenery was fantastic and the weather was mainly wet and just makes the landscape look more dramatic. The most memorable weather was as we were crossing into the highlands through some mountain passes, so wet and windy and very very moody. We had to come back this way on the way home and it was a totally different place with the sun out. We were lucky at our campsite, although we had rain at some point during every day, we only had one evening where it rained all night. We had pitched our tent just under a small tree. Very handy, we named this the drying tree (see photo). The advantage of travelling in a small group was being able to stop whenever you saw something, the only problem was you wanted to stop all the time, we did managed to see Nessy though (see photo).
We met up with the Highland tour on the last leg to carry on with Big John and the Aussie group on their trip to Whitley Bay for a couple of nights stop in The Avalon, a biker hotel set smack in the middle of the hen/stag party capital. It was a bit of a rude awakening to our foreign visitors but by the second night they were seeing it all as a bit of harmless fun. I am sure the Aussies have some very incriminating photos somewhere!
From Whitley Bay we travelled on to York, via the Yorkshire Moors for a visit to Whitby, home of Heartbeat, and Scripts Garage. Pete had to get a picture for his mum, who lives in Spain, a bit heartbeat fan. (see photo)
From York we left the others, they were continuing on to Hull and crossing over to Belgium for a few days. He started our journey home, travelling South via A roads this time. We stayed over night with Keith Bird in Lincolnshire, knew he would come in useful one day. Then made the rest of the journey home the next day. This was Tuesday 4th August, exactly 2 weeks since we left. Both bikes were put through their paces and covered 2500 miles during this time in some very wet weather at times. The only thing to let us down was the Speedo drive on the Chief wore out, which meant having to guess my speed for the last few days of the trip. What was very weird, Pete’s Harley speedo drive wore out two weeks later whilst on another 500 mile trip. If you are going to have something break this would be the thing, it does not leave you on the side of the road and when the camera flashes just smile and wave!!
We loved Scotland so much we want to go back very soon and do some more riding. Anyone up for it???
Boudicca 
