Wednesday Left Applecross to go up Bealach na ba, what a road, glad it wasn’t busy so had a pretty clear run, quickshifter packed up on the way down. Followed the NC route to finish it in Inverness, had several very heavy hails storms again, dropped to 2 c. There had been some snow overnight. Followed Loch Ness as far the the road that goes to Skye, some amazing scenery, but again some very heavy storms. Staying at witchwood guest house at Kyleakin, seems to be part of a few houses that have had all rooms converted, also part of is bar and restaurant, pretty basic but seems ok and was good. They are a few restaurants here, several coaches turned up at between 6-7pm so I assume it can get booked up for meals, so as with everywhere on the route pre-book a table. A lot of foreign bikers staying here, so it may be one that recommended on a forum or something
Thursday Left Skye, was meant to be showers, heavy rain nearly all morning, headed towards Fort William, stopped at the Commando memorial, with Ben Nevis and mountain in the background with snow on top was a good picture. Straight through FW as staying there tonight. Stunning scenery once you get towards Glencoe. Wanted to do Glen Etive, which is the skyfall road, have to say I was a bit disappointed, probably wasn’t helped by pouring rain and so many people that haven’t a clue how to drive, saw 2 Aston Martins with 007 number plates, and a Jag XK8 which was just silly. Again great views past the Glencoe ski area, then took the A85, a nice road to ride even in the wet, to end up eventually back at Fort William. I staying at The Distillery guest house, another building completely converted into bedrooms, it seems good, secluded parking. It doesn’t have a restaurant but does do breakfast, so had to wander into FW, ended up just having fish n chips, as most places you’d want to eat were booked up. Was quite shocked how dirty the high street area was fag butts everywhere and other rubbish, not great for such a famous place. I tried getting some petrol from one of the many un-manned self serv places the day before, did the card bit, tried to put fuel in, nothing came out then the pump stopped. Went to check for a receipt but it just said next customer type thing. Check my credit card this morning and noticed that £100 had been taken, luckily I was going back past the same place so called in, they were very helpful she looked in her computer and it showed I had zero fuel, she printed it off for me, apparently it’s just a pre pay amount and will be returned after 2-3 working days. Need to be careful, they are very common up here.
Friday Forecast was for rain for a couple of hours in the morning, but yet again the intensity was more than the day before, there was a lot of standing water, and little rivers across the roads, took about 2 hours to do the first 80 miles. So it ended up taking over 9 hrs to do 407 miles, had to stop for fuel twice, and an in-rushed mug of tea at Jedburgh. I did 1801 miles in total. How things performed Bike- was amazing it coped with some pretty poor conditions. Quickshifter packed up, still doesn’t work. BSD, light came on twice, it was due to the amount of crap that built up on it, wiped and fine. Metzeler Roadtec 02, performed brilliantly, they coped with a lot of water and temps down to 2 degrees, never gave cause for concern. Dainese Sport Master jacket, I never used an over jacket for extra protection. This jacket never leaked, kept me warm, I only wore an under amour base layer under it. Dainese over trouser, these are the really thin packable type, never leaked and nice tight fit so don’t flap about. I wear leather trousers so the over trousers were my only leg waterproofing Daytona Evo Voltex boots, the leather outer gets saturated but water never got the goretex on the inner boot, only downside is you have soaked leather around your foot, this does make your feet cold as the cold air passes over them. A laminate outer would be much better. Richa street tourer gloves, never leaked schuberth S3, never leaked, comfy all week. Ducati panniers, top box, no leaks at all, was pleasantly surprised. Only issue is the lock on the top box gets full of muck as it swirls behind, got quite hard to get the key in the last couple of days. Cheap Chinese waterproof little bag thing, not waterproof at all, shite Ducati tank bag, stayed dry until yesterday, saturated.
Thanks Andrew for sharing that, I took a not too dissimilar route the week after you. I too was due to take my wife with me but she had to stay behind with health issues. I went with a gang of other bikers (2 from Ireland) who we met up with at the Cairnryan Ferry. We had brilliant weather, variable hotels, and a very long detour on the day we did Skye because the ferry booked up all day. Having suggested that you kept a diary; I failed to follow my own advice and spent the evenings enjoying the food and drink. though I do have the route on Garmin Basecamp. It was my second ever trip to Scotland. I hope to return again one day with my wife.
