McBeer Hunters VIII... another perspective

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Okay, Chris has done his report... here's mine... less words, more photos

Sunday 24th August
Me and Wrong Way sauntered up to Chris's on the Saturday and met up with Snoopy on the Sunday morning. To save Chris having to do the cooking and washing up, we decided to have breakfast at Morrisons in Hawick. Snoopy managed to stay with us until then, despite having break-in a brand new Hein-Gericke faux Twat Suit. I was impressed by his green/yellow HID "I'm coming, don't hit me" front light... until he turned it off just before crossing the border into Scotland.
ChrisKelley, Wrong Way and Snoopy just after breaking the devastating news that he'd decided to go back home...

 

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Snoopy muttered something about putting his DRZ400 on eBay, eat his breakfast and... this was the last we saw of him...

 

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We got to Fort William and found our B&B not far down Glen Nevis... it began to rain, but was fine again when we set out to find the Ben Nevis Inn (thanks GC, for the heads-up). Several miles down the glen, we came to the Youth Hostel.

Realising that we'd gone too far, we crossed the river... and walked several miles back again...

...before seeing it halfway up the mountain. You can tell that WrongWay wanted to continue up to the top of Ben Nivis, but Chris was having none of it... the pub had beer, and we were the reason it existed...

We had a couple of pints of their own brew and, because we couldn't get anything to eat, went down into Fort William to The Grog & Gruel, the sister pub of The Clachaig Inn in Glencoe...

I think the pigs were flying that night...

I love coffee...

And I love fish&chips...

 

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Monday 25th
Started out towards the other side of Scotland, but were soon stopped by a nice young Police Cadet (it must be the uniform ). It looked like someone had gone trailriding in the forest in an Astra, or something... it was raining, after all...

Lunch was taken at the Ski centre at the top of Glenshee, I think it had stopped raining by now...

We found our digs in Inverness and hotfooted it to the Clachnaharry Inn, where WrongWay was praying for, er, something?...

We agreed that there were citizens of Lesbania in the pub, some of whom didn't want to be identified...

Staggering back, we admired the pretty lights of the Caledonian canal...

 

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Tuesday 26th
Unfortunately, WrongWay had to leave us this morning, so he had an early breakfast and headed south.
Chris and I continued north and eventually came into the land of the legendry Fluorescent-Back Sheep...

We rounded the north coast and stopped at the Pie Shop in Lochinver... excellent pies, but WAY OVERPRICED
Arriving at Ullapool, our next night's stop, we sought our next B&B...

Ooops... not that one. We quickly showered and changed and got down to the serious business of eating and drinking... fresh fish&chips (again)...

I like toilet humour as much as anyone else but, are they serious?...

 

[ballistic]

Wednesday 27th
We said goodbye to Ike, our host... Woodlands B&B, £22, prize-winning sausages and black pudding, bakes his own bread, smokes his own kippers and wifey makes all the preserves... top quality...

Chris is so happy that his bike has done 40-odd thousand miles without a problem...

We pass through Gairloch. I once stayed at the Youth Hostel in the days when you had to do a "duty". Ours was to climb down the cliffs to the beach and gather a sackfull of seeweed for the garden... those were the days

Rounding the Applecross peninsular, with stunning views of the coast, we could see the hills of Oonyackistan in the distance...

The obligitory pint of Skye Brewery's finest and a pint of prawns, and no, the cider bottle wasn't ours...

Then up and over the Bealach na Baa...

And over the bridge into Oonyackistan...

The view from our B&B, very similar to His Majesty's view, I believe...

Material offerings of friendship to The King...

 

[Mr K]

....

Sorry... I think this is traditional though...

 

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Thursday 28th
Whilst Mr Kelley and The King were recovering in bed (seperately, I hasten to add) I went for a walk to suss out the state of The Kingdom. I have to report that the natives are not all friendly...

And they have trained mighty warriors to fight their battles...

Whilst the peasants live in squalour and poverty...

The King himself lives in a grand mansion surrounded by internal combustion warriors...

By the afternoon, my erstwhile drinking companion had recovered enough to fire up Skinny (his 1200), so I lead him to the Cuillin Brewery at Sligachen, where I forced him to drink some of the healing potion called "Black Face". I'm still not sure he knew where he was...

Just for the record... we sampled all three...

A short trip north and we were in Portree. If you look hard enough, you can see Chris on the bench on the left... everyone else was under the trees sheltering from the rain. I don't think he'd fully recovered yet...

 

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Friday 29th
The day started badly... it was raining, and we had nearly 300 miles to do to get to our next brewery... er, I mean B&B.
We kitted-up and I set off, doffing my helmet to The King as I passed. After a couple of miles, I realised Chris wasn't behing, so I retraced my steps and found him still at the B&B looking glum. Skinny wasn't having any of it today...

We called the RAC, it continued raining, we continued waiting...

Eventually (2 hours 20 mins) they came, armed with printouts of the fuel-pump fix. By virtue of OonyackiTelecom, Johnny and RobMac (thanks guys) had furnished our KnightInShiningCitroenVan the relevent information and the fix was implemented, although we had to supply the toolkit, as KnightInShiningCitroenVan hadn't brought any with him

Bike fixed, we set off in the rain, only to find that it wasn't raining anywhere else.... just the NW part of Oonyackistan... The King has mighty powers.
We got to Failford in record time, coated ourselves with Skin So Soft and headed off to The Failford Inn... with it's own brewery at the back, run by a Brewster (female brewer, to you)...

Amazingly, for a Friday evening, it wasn't crowded, so we sat in the corner and drank, and drank, and thanked our lucky stars...

After drinking, we ate... fish&chips again... I kid you not...

 

[Mr K]

Actually, mi amigo, I had a 12oz sirloin with peppercorn sauce - best feckin meal of the trip and a draw for best beer.

 

[ballistic]

Saturday 30th
After a Sleep of the Gods, we had an incredible breakfast (where's my camera when I need it the most?). Our B&B was "Woodend" (www.woodend-cottage.co.uk), just 500m up the road from the Inn and totally secluded and safe. We had the entire East Wing to ourselves, a suite of rooms, including a large lounge and bathroom bigger than some of the bedrooms we'd been staying in... a fabulous place... and £27.50 a night...

I said goodbye to Chris and headed south, he headed east. A quick blast round Ayreshire and Dumfries & Galloway and I was on the dreaded motorway home... boring, but necessary. One last photograph marked 20,000 miles on my GSA... something's going to go wrong now

 

[Mr K]

Nah!

You're safe for another 22k... or untl our next visit to Oonyakistan,,



Brilliant week: Roads, beer and grub..

 

[brassmonkey001]

Nice report fella.

Shame about your photo subjects.

 

[ballistic]

Shame about your photo subjects.

Yeah... I have a special camera lens that won't crack

 

[Mr K]

Shame about your photo subjects.

Yeah... I have a special camera lens that won't crack

You two are so funny....

Give me five minutes to stitch my sides back-up....