We drove the bikes to York so we could spend a couple of nights with my elderly and recently widowed mother. It also simplified the rail part of the journey as we could catch an East Coast HST to Aberdeen and back, these trains having sufficient capacity for our three bikes. We set off from her house for the 15:51 departure. The train was very busy, and at Newcastle a bunch of Geordies working off-shore from Aberdeen teamed up with a loud group of young Scottish women, and became more annoying as they worked their way through their drink stash. We moved to a quieter coach at the first opportunity.
The weather was grey all the way, we arrived at 21:20 to mist and drizzle and rode to the SYHA hostel, a large old house. I spoke to a group of motorcyclists in the common room, when Rowan came down it transpired that he knew one of them, he was from Bangor. It wasn’t a good night’s sleep, several people came in after midnight and someone got up at 05:00, woken by their alarm. Time for us to get the holiday under way, this was our itinerary:
01: Mon 18th June Aberdeen to Turriff 51 miles
02: Tue 19th June Turriff to Elgin 52 miles
03: Wed 20th June Elgin to Inverness 51 miles
04: Thu 21st June Inverness to Rogart 60 miles
05: Fri 22nd June Rogart to Tongue 49 miles
06: Sat 23rd June Tongue to Gills 58 miles
07: Sun 24th June Gills to Houton (Orkney) 40 miles
08: Mon 25th June Houton to Stromness 26 miles
09: Tue 26th June Ride from Stromness 37 miles
10: Wed 27th June Stromness to Rackwick 5 miles
11: Thu 28th June Rackwick to Kirkwall 25 miles
12: Fri 29th June Rest day in Lerwick (Shetland)
13: Sat 30th June Lerwick to Mid Yell 48 miles
14: Sun 1st July Mid Yell to Saxa Vord 28 miles
15: Mon 2nd July Saxa Vord to Mid Yell 31 miles
16: Tue 3rd July Mid Yell to Walls 36 miles
17: Wed 4th July Ride from Walls 22 miles
18: Thu 5th July Walls to Lerwick 28 miles