Scotland - part 1

At about 4pm on Saturday 4 February 2006, I set off on the bike, headed for Bonny Scotland. It was raining a little but not too much. However, that was soon to change. By the time I got past Morecambe, it was raining heavily and visibility was getting poor. By the time I got to Shap, the rain had all but stopped, but the fog had come down, and it was so thick that visibility was down to about 50 yards. I slowed down, but cars were still whizzing past me at silly speeds and it was a bit scary. Bikes don't have fog lights, you know.

It was still foggy by the time I got to Glasgow and there was a nasty pothole on a bend just as I changed motorways, which made my teeth rattle. Every time I saw a vehicle with orange flashing lights, I was thinking "please don't let that be a gritter". Being gritted on a bike is not a pleasant experience, I can assure you.

I came off the motorway at Kincardine Bridge and headed off towards Perth. It was quite a nice road, but it would have been nicer if it was dry. I was very relieved to arrive in Kinross, and I was completely and utterly knackered. Dave helped me to unload the bike and then whisked me off to the pub for a reviving drink or three. When we got back to the house, I went upstairs and fell into bed. I slept like a log and didn't emerge until about 10am.

I transferred my stuff into a sports bag and chucked it in the car and we set off for Aberdeen. We drove up the A93 through Blairgowrie, Braemar and Banchory and finally arrived in Aberdeen in the late afternoon. We found Jochan's place and were dead chuffed to find that, not only had he got a supply of bottled beers and a bottle of port, he'd also got the tea on. We had a lovely beef broth followed by chilli and it was dead nice. Cheers Jochan!

After tea, we headed off into Aberdeen town centre to sample some more beer. We finally settled in a cracking real ales pub called The Prince of Wales where I tested a few pints of Old Peculier, just to check for consistency, you understand. There were a few folkie types in the back room, playing fiddles, guitars and a mandolin, so I went in for a listen and managed to comandeer a fiddle to join in with one of the tunes, much to the amusement of Jochan and Dave. I was rather pissed by this time.

On the way back to Jochan's place we called in at some nightclub place that was playing 1980s pop music. Jochan said it was for the novelty value but I quite liked it, cos they played some A-ha and I still like them. Afterwards, we had a kebab and then eventually staggered up the three flights of stairs to the flat.

The following day, we set off again, towards Inverness. It took us all day to get there because we stopped off at several places on the way, including Loch Ness. Loch Ness is a very beautiful place but we didn't see the monster.

We decided that we'd go on a boat trip around Loch Ness and up to Urquhart Castle but when we arrived at the start point, the sky turned black and the heavens opened and pelted us with hailstones, so we said "bugger that for a lark" and got back in the car. We did see Urquhart Castle, for all of about three minutes. Dave did venture out of the car for a few seconds but I dug in and stayed warm. Dave now has a cold and is blaming me for it, cos he says I made him get wet. Nowt to do with me, guv. It's your own fault for wanting to take photos of wet castles.

About ten miles down the road, the clouds parted and it was nice and sunny again. We only stopped at the roadside to take photos about forty times, so it was very dark by the time we got to Inverness. By this time, my ankle was killing me and I was getting very fed up with it.

We had a minor panic when we arrived at the hotel because they couldn't find the booking, so I got a free cup of tea whilst the hotel staff tried to find out what was going on. Eventually they decided we could stay, so we dumped our bags and headed off into town in search of food. We found a really nice (and deserted) Chinese restaurant and stuffed our faces and then headed back off to the hotel and watched 'Life on Mars' before I fell into another coma-like sleep.

On the Tuesday morning we headed off towards Tain and the Glenmorangie distillery. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the distillery, so here's the outside instead.

The tour round the distillery was excellent, very interesting and informative, and the lovely smell of warm whisky was in the air. After the tour, we had a tasting session and I ended up buying a bottle of Maderia wood casked whisky to bring home, and a bottle of Crabbie's Green Ginger Wine, which I have since mixed with a bottle of Bell's.

On Tuesday evening we decided to pay a visit to the hotel's leisure complex, so we had a swim and a sit in the jacuzzi. Dave did venture into the steam room and the sauna, but I can't stand those things so I just stayed in the pool. After the swim, we had our tea in the hotel restaurant, which was pretty nice.

On Wednesday morning we travelled over to the Black Isle and visited the Black Isle Microbrewery. If you're ever in the area, I can recommend it to you. It's only a tiny place (hence the name 'micro') but the bloke who runs the place (Dave) is very friendly and gave us a tour. They do all the brewing and bottling (by hand) on site and they produce a good selection of organic ales. I decided to buy a selection and got a bottle each of Yellowhammer, Red Kite, Heather Honey and two bottles each of the Porter and of their winter ale, Hibernator II, which is one of the nicest winter ales I have ever tasted. You can buy their beers online and they're definitely worth a try.

We then set off towards Fort William and Ben Nevis. Whilst in Fort William, I bought a new jacket, cos it was getting bloody cold and I only had my denim with me, because I'd foolishly left my waterproof jacket back at Dave's.

On Thursday morning we took the cable car up Ben Nevis, and got this very nice piccy out of the window

It was lovely on Ben Nevis. We had a short walk on the soft, powdery snow and had a damn good look at the scenery. Although it was cold, it was sunny and very pleasant. I took a whole series of pics which I intend to stitch together into a panorama, but I haven't got round to it yet.

After Ben Nevis, we headed off through Glencoe towards Callendar. At Strathyre, we called in at the Munro Inn for something to eat. Actually, we drove past it but I saw a sign that said 'Biker Friendly' and 'Internet Access', so I yelled "Stop!" and we reversed and went into the car park. I'm glad we did stop there, because it's a lovely pub, complete with pub dogs :o) We took advantage of the pub's wireless broadband access to book a B&B in Edinburgh and then set off again.

Anyway, I've been typing for hours (with interruptions) and now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Watch this blog for part 2.