Al's tried out a new feature on iMovie to make a 'trailer' for trips and came up with this bit of a taster.... He thinks he's a movie maestro now...
Anyway, plans made and Al has decided that we'll be wild camping (what on earth is that?) and using youth hostels (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ouch, that'll be another rib broken!).
Sunday 26th October 2014
We set off at daft o-clock, well not really, quite a modest 9.30 in the morning and head slowly north. The plan is to take in a few sights using a scenic route up the A1 too. I know, I thought that as well, the A1 - scenic??? but actually he's right, not bad at all.
Once north of Tyneside it is typically one lane each way and diversions off are easily tempting. Here's our brief stop at Warkworth Castle
You know it's not that cold considering the time of year, It was 6deg C when we set off, but soon warmed (!) to 14deg C - steaming!
Up the Northumbrian coast coast was stunning. The views as you navigate the coastline of the north sea are beautiful and at first you don't realise it because we're so close to the sea, the main rail line is between you and the sea. Must do that line sometime as it must be terrific on a good day.
Up through into Scotland and the wind is getting up, as the clouds get lower. Al's getting bounced round quite a lot and I just hide in the panniers. It's lashing with rain as we head out of the Edinburgh area and all the signs are warning that the Forth Bridge is shut to 'high siders' due to wind. Al says 'it'll be fine, I'll just ride alongside a van as we cross over. It doesn't say we can't go over.....yet'.
Sure enough, the signs start to include 'no motorbikes' so we divert and get lost!!! At least it stops raining. Al thinks he can do better that the suggested route and although we find some lovely roads we also find Grangemouth too. What a shit-hole (oops sorry, but it is) One h-u-g-e- oil complex, at least the petrol's cheap, so we fill up nearby.
Once over the bridge (not sure which one) we head on; the sun comes out and the views return, fantastic!
We head onwards and upwards. The weather stays clear and we join the A93 from Perth. What a cracking road! At Braemar we see the light is starting to fade and the temperature starts to drop, but then we are really climbing....
Into the Cairngorms proper, now. The last run towards Tomintoul was terrific but whoa was it windy.... At one point Al had the bike leaning to the right, but heading round a sharp left bend with a severe drop to the left... the wind was trying to push us over the edge. Al made out that it was fine, but I could tell it had been a strain as he later complained about having stiff arms and shoulders from this ride, blaming the extra weight from my luggage - cheeky so and so!
We arrive at Tomintoul for a night in the Youth Hostel, it's dark now. It gets darker up this far north a lot quicker than it does down south. Al sneaks me in so we only have to pay the £10 per night fee once!
We don't get ourselves organised properly to go out for our tea. Al is too busy chatting to two of the others stopping here tonight, so it ends up being packet savoury rice, quite tasty really.
One of our new friends was a guy from down south, he'd booked for five nights here. Using the train he'd brought his pedal cycle here for a ride/walk holiday based round here (bit hilly me thinks!), the other is a girl from,Belgium, or was it Holland? She was on a motoring holiday in a hired Fiat 500 (ha good luck on the uphill stretches then!). She seemed to live for travel and only worked long enough to scrape enough together to get away once more.
Off to bed to find our dorm stank... the cyclist guy clearly sweats in his cycling kit during the day and so it 'dries' off in the dorm, hanging over the bunk bed ends. 'No worries' says Al, it reminded him of his trip in 2000 (when????), on the ferry back after a couple of weeks of hard travel to and from Nordkap, camping, but with few showers. He'd shared a small berth on the ferry and could even tell that his own boots stank so much, he made himself feel ill! - something about pay back he thinks.
Up early doors and we're off. I hear Al tell the hostel woman that he'll see her later. It seems we're doing a round trip today....
Monday 27th October 2014
We head back down towards Braemar. The roads and the weather are great. Heading up we pass by those ski-lifts for the winter weather, but it's still too warm, thankfully.
We stop at the Lochnagar Distillery...
We stumped up for a tour. It turns out to be quite a small set up, but is used as a training centre for the distillers.
Gordon Muir lead us around. There were a group of Dutch tourists in the group. What they didn't know about whisky blimey!
A good tour, with wonderful heady aromas, mmmmmmm
We carry on, but I'm a bit concerned... Al had no breakfast and now he's had a wee taster dram... that can't be right can it?
On towards Aberdeen we go. It's a big town, seems friendly but we happy to get out the other end and hit the coastline heading north.
We carry on northwards.
The roads are fantastic as they hug this coastline, up and down, twisting one way and then the other.
A young lad in a scooby-doo is making the most of it behind us and Al keeps him up to the challenge, yet we are seriously loaded! Weeeee!
Our last target for the day was to get to the Scottish Dolphin Centre.
It's open until 5pm and we get there with just 10 minutes to go. The cafe is shut although the lady at the counter did her best to get the boiler fired up for us. She was really nice and stayed open for another 20 minutes, just chatting to us about the centre.
It'd be nice to come back here again when we've more time. Outside it is now really dark.
We head back to the hostel in Tomintoul for the evening. The weather is drizzling, but it's still mild. A long day but a great one. Tired, but happy, and an early turn in tonight.
Tuesday 28th October 2014
Today we travel further north. The plan is to go to the Culloden museum before hitting the are of Inverness, but we are running late even before we set off. Don't know why, we're just not up early enough or with the energy for a swift get away.
We do head off and beyond Grantown-on-Spey we make a turn off the road onto a small side road. I spot Al's GPS telling him it's a cup-de-sac but Al knows better, ah that's what he was doing this morning, looking at the maps. I'd forgotten that until now we were doing routes that Al had planned and put into the sat nav last week.
We come across Dulsie Bridge, and this one is worth a stop at all right. It's high up and the water crashing about below is fun to watch.
After a few more miles on the quiet back lanes we arrive at the Culloden museum. In we go but it's clear that the expensive entry fee would not be worthwhile for the time we've got. The clock is ticking and Al says we're camping tonight. As it gets dark early this far north we need to be at the camp area by not long after 3pm if we're to get set up properly in daylight. Perhaps we can fit in a visit on the way back south later in the week, it looks to be worth it.
We spot this bridge just before Culloden and I was dead excited, it's the Harry Potter Bridge isn't it?
No, says Al, that bridge is the Glenfinnan Viaduct towards the west coast. This one is at Newlands on the B9006. I'm so disappointed because it looks just like it.
After soup, coffee cake and a coffee we're off again. Al's bought a broach in the shop at the museum for Sandy. He had to pay 5p for the smallest paper bag, the charge is a legal requirement up here now, just like Wales.
Into Inverness and Al stops at a McDonalds! Seems like we'd only just set off but when it's lunchtime, it seems you have to have lunch!
From there we join the A9, up the slip road and then a bit of a wobble.... Al is looking down. It seems that he'd not properly zipped up the tank bag and something fell out and hit him before bouncing away onto the road at 70mph. We do a circuit of 5 miles before we get back to the same point. Ali's spitting feathers for being so stupid. A check fails to find whatever it was. A check of the contents shows that the iPhone, iPad and Kindle are still there... so what did fall out? It seems to have been Sandy's present. The paper bag had caught the wind and been whipped out of tank bag as a result. That 5p paper bag seems much more expensive now :-(
The A9 views are enough to cheer Al up though. This is the bridge we cross as we go over the Moray Firth - spectacular!
On wards up the A9 we go. The road hugs the coastline bit like the A1 does in Northumberland but better, closer and with more impressive views. This is really a good road to ride and we don't stop at all being so toed up in the thrill of it.
We arrive at our site for the night and start to set up the tent, having called in at a shop for food goodies (we're camping remember?)
Al spent some time working out where to pitch the tent... he had done this before hasn't he?
It seems that where we've chosen is only just off the beach, behind a concrete block that's used to protect the shore from big waves. Now is it just me, but is this really a good place to pitch a tent? Al's looking hard at the waves, the state of the tide, the weather and then states confidently, "It'll be fine, doesn't look like these blocks have been pushed around by the waves too much"
Time will tell I guess!
All sorted then Al realises he must have lost the lighter to fire up the stove, along with Sandy's present, so he's off muttering about catching that shop, 8 miles away, before it shuts.
We get the stove off and running and soon there's a good tea going, fried sausage (quorn) buns and a large cup of tea - wonderful. The beach is ours alone and it's getting dark, storms are brewing in them skies.....
Al wanders off to find a phone signal and has gone a mile when he finally gets one. Then starts the most frustrating session of maybe 25 calls made with signal-lost signal, one sided calls and dropped calls. It takes a further five calls just to say forget it, we'll try again tomorrow!
Back to the tent and it's dark. Really dark, properly dark, There is no light pollution here and the clouds stoop the stars too. All you can hear are the waves crashing away.....
Ah well, might as well go to bed then... hang on, it's only 6.30pm.! But what else is there to do?
It's going to be a l-o-n-g night.... Out comes the Kindle and Al's really pleased that he didn't lose this earlier. He's reading Hornblower, very topical what with the sea just outside!
The night passes slowly. I keep thinking, that was a loud crashing wave, was it a big one, or was it just close? - or big and close?
Out of the tent for a natural, or so says Al, not checking the surf eh? "Wow!" he shouts, not about the waves though (phew...), the sky is huge, zillions of bright stars on cloudless sky now. Beautiful.
Anyway the night passes and we're up in time for dawn.
Stove lit to get some heat going. Warmed hand round the flames and soon a steaming cup of tea is on the go.
Al fires the bike up (so he knows it's fine and spots the temperature gauge - it's 3deg C). No wonder it felt cold!
A walk along the beach (ours remember) and we're stalked by a curious seal, bobbing up and down about 50m away in the gentle swell. We don't mind sharing our beach with you mate
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