wully
Registered user
Well, three TBH
This is going to be short on words as it's too nice a day to sit here in front of the lappy..
Chas the organiser brought along a massive hangover to keep himself company the first day..
A bunch of us meet up at Inverary then headed down to the first of 6 ferries we would take, this one from Hunter Quay over to Gourock( was it 6? I'm not sure now...)The ferry man advised us to nip up the road to the wee shop and buy our tickets there which saved us a fortune
After a night in a new hotel outside of Ayr we caught the HSS ferry from Troon. Loading was a larf as the eastern european crewman had no idea what he was doing and manoeuvring a fully loaded GS on a smooth aluminium deck was not a lot of fun. Anyway, we soon got the bikes strapped down.
We then spent the two hour crossing lounging about.
I had been looking forward to a cooked breakfast but the food on the ferry was shit...
Anyway after leaving Larne we headed south to the farthest east point with me leading as Chas had managed to loose the route off his GPS. All went well until we hit Belfast where my GPS screen went blank at a junction on the motorway...Seems the Irish have been busy building new roads as well as loads of new houses and not for the last time on this trip my Zumo had me riding through fields while I rode along a nice smooth new road.
Once clear of the city I started following the road that should have taken us to Portavogie but since I had fallen out with the Zumo I missed the turning and we ended up at the Strangford Ferry
No one was keen to backtrack so over we went.
Since we would be in the north for only a few hours I was waiting until we got to a cashline south of the border- seems Fruitcake was thinking the same so we didn't have enough money for the fare...The second nice ferry man of the trip just shrugged and said' Just give us what you have'
Once off the ferry we hoofed it down the motorway until the first toll booth where I found out that between the ten of us we didn't have enough euros to pay the toll The queue of cars behind us was getting a wee bit impatient so the nice toll booth girl said with a shrug ' It's stupid asking bikes for money, just give us what you have'
First night campsite at Rush.
An extremely happy camper who'd just been given four oatmeal blocks
(They go very well with 25 year old Springbank BTW )
Happy Fruitcake sorting out our palatial accomodation.
(A Vaude Slyfox - a great tent with plenty of room to stand up and move around in, packs to 9 kgs and is very good in strong winds and pissing rain)
End of the first day.
This is going to be short on words as it's too nice a day to sit here in front of the lappy..
Chas the organiser brought along a massive hangover to keep himself company the first day..
A bunch of us meet up at Inverary then headed down to the first of 6 ferries we would take, this one from Hunter Quay over to Gourock( was it 6? I'm not sure now...)The ferry man advised us to nip up the road to the wee shop and buy our tickets there which saved us a fortune
After a night in a new hotel outside of Ayr we caught the HSS ferry from Troon. Loading was a larf as the eastern european crewman had no idea what he was doing and manoeuvring a fully loaded GS on a smooth aluminium deck was not a lot of fun. Anyway, we soon got the bikes strapped down.
We then spent the two hour crossing lounging about.
I had been looking forward to a cooked breakfast but the food on the ferry was shit...
Anyway after leaving Larne we headed south to the farthest east point with me leading as Chas had managed to loose the route off his GPS. All went well until we hit Belfast where my GPS screen went blank at a junction on the motorway...Seems the Irish have been busy building new roads as well as loads of new houses and not for the last time on this trip my Zumo had me riding through fields while I rode along a nice smooth new road.
Once clear of the city I started following the road that should have taken us to Portavogie but since I had fallen out with the Zumo I missed the turning and we ended up at the Strangford Ferry
No one was keen to backtrack so over we went.
Since we would be in the north for only a few hours I was waiting until we got to a cashline south of the border- seems Fruitcake was thinking the same so we didn't have enough money for the fare...The second nice ferry man of the trip just shrugged and said' Just give us what you have'
Once off the ferry we hoofed it down the motorway until the first toll booth where I found out that between the ten of us we didn't have enough euros to pay the toll
The queue of cars behind us was getting a wee bit impatient so the nice toll booth girl said with a shrug ' It's stupid asking bikes for money, just give us what you have'First night campsite at Rush.
An extremely happy camper who'd just been given four oatmeal blocks
(They go very well with 25 year old Springbank BTW )
Happy Fruitcake sorting out our palatial accomodation.
(A Vaude Slyfox - a great tent with plenty of room to stand up and move around in, packs to 9 kgs and is very good in strong winds and pissing rain)
End of the first day.
)
