Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding... | Page 130 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Quit our jobs, sold our home and everything in it, gone riding...

We've checked the forecast for the next few days and there's going to be quite a heavy rainfall coming up. So when we arrive in Edinburgh we find a cheap(ish) AirBnB to bunker up. But we don't stay inside very long because we have a dinner invitation!

We met Gino and Fiona last year while we were riding through the Lago de Como region in Italy. We've kept in touch since then and now we're going to catch up with them at their place in Edinburgh. Such a small world! I love it when people we meet on our travels show up again later on our blog! It gives our trip a feeling of continuity - that our journey isn't just made up of stand-alone episodes but a tapestry of threads that weave itself in and out of our lives over time.

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Gino welcomes us with good food and great Scottish whiskey!

Gino gave us an exhaustive rundown on the history of Scotland, which seemed to consist mainly of their millennia-long conflict with the English. Seems the English aren't very well-liked in Scotland!

Our hosts are fellow motorcycle world travelers and we talked at length about our trips and what it meant to finish up a long tour and settle down again. This has been on my mind constantly - what will our lives look like when all of this is over? From talking to Gino and Fiona, life after a long trip is basically planning for the next long trip. I thought as much. We've met so many long-term travelers that we identify with closely and almost all of them yearn to be back out on the road again once their trip is over. So the lesson I'm taking from this is, why stop in the first place if you don't have to...? Hm....

Since this is Gino and Fiona's neck of the woods, we pick their brains about the best route to take through Scotland. There's absolutely no shortage of ideas.

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Fiona gives us a very polished presentation on the best motorcycle roads through Scotland. We had handouts with speaker notes and everything! :)

We left their places with our stomachs filled with good food and our heads filled with visions of twisty roads through Scottish highlands. Can't wait! But first, we need to do some regular maintenance on our bikes.
 
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Next morning, we drop our motorcycles off at the dealership just outside of Edinburgh

I met an Irish rider at the dealership and I asked him about good roads in Ireland. He said, "Stay on the west coast!" Okay, in the last 24 hours I think we've basically got our route planned for the next month or so!

The Irish guy had exactly the same motorcycle I have, same year and everything.

<ul>
"How do you like the R1200GS?", he asked me.
"I like it, it's a great bike!"
"Yeah me too."
"Except for the final drive. I've had to fix mine three times already", I moaned.
"Yes! I've heard about that!"
I nodded my head sadly. "Also, the servo brakes on our model are terrible. No brakes without the key in in the on position!"
"Yep."
"Have you heard about the known EWS problem? The antenna in the key ring sensor fails and your bike can't start", I ask him.
"My bike is in the shop for exactly that reason."
"Hm", more head-nodding, "Also the fuel pump is known to be bad"
"Wow, our bikes really suck!"
"Haha, right?"
</ul>

Bonding over bike problems! The R1200GS is a funny beast. Despite all these issues, every single owner I know still loves their bike, it's just so well-balanced, easy to ride, and does quite well on variable terrain. And these issues crop up over very high mileages. I suspect the incidences per km are no better or worse than any other brand, it's just that BMW riders tend to put on more mileage than other bikers.

We take public transit back to Edinburgh. We'll be without our bikes for the next couple of days, which is okay since we're going to explore the city a bit by foot. Rain starts to pelt the windows of the bus on our ride back. Just in time.

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Catching up on some laundry now that we have a roof over our heads

We're finding it impossible to hang-dry clothing in Scotland! The air is so humid here!
 
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We don our rainjackets and jump back onto the bus to explore Edinburgh's old town

My first reaction was: Wow, there are a lot of brown-bricked buildings here... These are medieval tenements that crowd the low skyline of the old town. Also, there are a ton of tourists here, all braving the cold Scottish rains. And everywhere, there are reminders that we are in Scotland, as if the whole town is capitalizing on every single stereotype there is about this country.

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On every street corner, there's a Scottish guy in a kilt playing the bagpipes

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A little street-diorama reminding tourists that golf was a Scottish invention
 
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New College University of Edinburgh

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Edinburgh is known as the City of Festivals. Several of them are overlapping this week. We take in the Fringe Festival

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The Fringe Festival is a huge international arts festival with official and unofficial performers lining the streets of Edinburgh

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Some of them have a stage and official playing slots, others just find a corner to jam

We had such a good time hopping from performer to performer and listening to some great music. All of the street performers played for tips, but the ones on stage were there mainly to advertise their paying gigs in bars and theaters later on in the evening.
 
Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/351.html

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We pick up our bikes from the service at the dealership.

"When are you leaving Edinburgh?" The service advisor asked.
"We're heading out tomorrow morning", I reply.
"There's a lot of theft of motorcycles in the UK, and in Edinburgh specifically. Did you want to keep your bikes here overnight and pick them up tomorrow before you leave?"
"Uh... no, I think we should be okay. We're not actually staying downtown, we're in a small suburb called Gorgie."
"Oh.. that's actually the worst neighbourhood."

Okay, now I'm scared. But it's a 45 minute bus ride to and from the dealership and we want to head out first thing in the morning. So I thank him for his offer and decide to take our chances with all the bike thieves that live in our neighbourhood.

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In the morning, it's sunny! And our bikes are still in the parking lot. What a bonus!
 
We're embarking on the route that Gino and Fiona laid out for us. It won't get that exciting until we're a couple of hours outside of Edinburgh, but we manage to find a couple of interesting things along the way.

In Newport-on-Tay, a policeman stops our bikes and we have to give way to a motorcade. Except it's not a motorcade, it looks like a scooter rally!

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Neda gives a thumbs up to the scooter from Quadrophenia as it zooms by. It's been upgraded somewhat since the 70s...

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Riding with the scooter brigade over the Tay Road Bridge to Dundee

This was a huge rally of two scooter clubs, the A92s and the Kingdom Scooter Club. They were crossing the Tay Road bridge on its 50th anniversary. I know this because there's a YouTube video of them. Sadly, we were only allowed to cross when the main scooter rally passed us, so these were the stragglers that we were riding behind, so we didn't make the video. :(

You can see the Quadrophenia scooter go by though!

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Neda got photobombed by a bumblebee. It probably thought her yellow and black bike was a cousin
 
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As we rode through the town of Perth, there seemed to be some kind of medieval fair going on. So we stop to investigate.

It's the 750th anniversary of the Treaty of Perth, so the town is hosting a family fun festival. The Treaty of Perth put an end to the fighting between the Vikings in Norway and the immortal Highlanders, so that Connor MacLeod from the Clan MacLeod could go on beheading people into the 21st century.

Because there can be only one...

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The kids fascinated by pottery - actually doing something with your hands other than swiping, tapping or clicking a screen!

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We thought we heard bagpipes, it's this instrument - a hurdy-gurdy!

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When you turn the crank, it makes a droning noise like bagpipes, but then you play a melody over it with your left hand and it sounds like a fiddle
 
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This is the grunge version of Scottish medieval music

After they played, they threw their bagpipes to the ground and stomped on them. I wanted to say that that sounded exactly like when they were playing their instruments, but that's not true. These guys were quite good!

I found out later, this band is Clanadonia. They did the music for the TV series Outlander.

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Tried haggis for the first time! I love it!

OMG, where have you been all my life, haggis? I'm glad I looked up what haggis was *after* I tried it. The "meat" is sheep's heart, lung and liver minced with oatmeal, onions, spices, salt, fat. So savoury and tasty! It was traditionally cooked and served encased in sheep's stomach lining, but thankfully not many places do it this way anymore. Because eating the heart of a sheep is okay, but if it's inside its stomach? Then that's just gross!

Haggis is illegal in the US. Because of the ban of sheep lung for human consumption.

I don't care what the USDA says. I have a new quest in Scotland: Find the best haggis in the country!

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This is where they make the haggis
 
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A graffiti wall where passersby can scrawl and doodle whatever they like.

I drew two motorcycles riding on top of a globe. But it turned out looking like a pile of haggis. I blame the brown marker.

From Perth, we turned north and hit our first geographical highlight of Scotland. Cairngorms National Park! This actually marks the start of the Scottish Highlands. The line that separates the Lowlands from the Highlands is both a geographic boundary - the Highland Boundary Fault is the meeting of two tectonic plates in Scotland - as well as cultural: there is a marked difference between the industrialized and heavily populated lowlands and the sparsely populated agricultural lands north of the border that still recall remnants of feudalism and tribal cultural systems.

Gino told me that once we hit the highlands there would be very little to no traffic. Especially at this time of year. Looking forward to it!!!

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We thought North York Moors had nice heathers. They're way more bountiful up here!

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So purple and cool!
 
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Patches of purple alternate with green like quilt-work on the countryside. Or like a super-villain's costume!

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This patchwork is actually intentional!

In the off-season, when the birds are in the moors breeding, the parks management people burn off the longer purple heather to create patches of shorter green heather. The purple heather provides suitable shelter for the birds when they return, and they are able to feed in the shorter green patches. They're trying to increase the red grouse population in the park. Why? Um... for hunters to shoot them in the fall... :(
 
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So pretty here!

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This is one of our very few rest stops inside Cairngorms National Park...

Why? Midges. Millions of tiny little flies. Argh!!! I hate midges!

Every time we stop, dark clouds of midges descend on us and fly up beneath our helmets and buzz around our mouths and into our nostrils. And they bite! After awhile it gets unbearable and we have to ride off to get away from them.

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Sun's getting low in the sky, gotta find a campsite
 
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We stop in Braemar, a small town right in the centre of Cairngorms Park

This area is very popular with bikers. After our tent is set up, we sit around and chat with our fellow motorcyclists. Most of them are up from England.

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They introduce us to a most excellent insect repellent, called Smidge

It's made in Scotland and specially brewed to combat the Scottish midge. It smells a bit lemony and I basically douse every inch of exposed skin with this lotion. What a difference! It's like I have a force-field about 6-inches away from my skin that the midges just bounce off of. Sweet!

This might get a bit confusing, but I've taken to calling the Scottish midge, Smidges. Just like the product. So, for the sake of clarity on the blog, I'll call the insect S-midges.

I'm so glad it's not raining anymore, so we can camp instead of staying in expensive AirBnBs. As the sun set, we crawl into our tent. Many s-midges follow us inside and I spend the next 20 minutes with a flashlight, pinching every single one of them to death as they land on the white walls of the tent so we're able to fall asleep in peace without any of them buzzing around our faces at night.

I hate s-midges!

Ah, finally I've murdered every last single one of them so we can sleep in peace.

Until a couple of hours later, Neda exclaims, "I have to pee!"

"Noooo! Can't you hold it in till the morning?!?!" I'm so mad at her. Actually, I'm ****** off. At her bladder...

I shine my flashlight out the mesh window of the tent. An angry swarm of s-midges is waiting for us outside, attracted by all the carbon-dioxide emanating from our tent the entire night...

She unzips the door and invites all of them inside. *sigh* I just zip up my sleeping bag over my head and suffocate on my own exhaled gases for the rest of the night.

I hate s-midges!
 
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Next morning, we release all the s-midges from the inside of our tent and set off again through Cairngorm

It's an overcast morning and we ride some great roads east and then back up north. It clears up beautifully once we reach the coast of the Moray Firth, the triangular bay right underneath the top shelf of Scotland.

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Over the communicator I hear a *THOK*. "What was that?!?!" At the next stop, Neda shows me her new helmet decoration... Juicy!

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We stop in Elgin for a late lunch

We are really enjoying Scotland. Much better than England actually. Edinburgh was such a vibrant city full of young people and everyone up here in the small towns and villages are so friendly! And everyone speaks English. I love that. I thought we'd settled on living in Chiang Mai for a while after our trip is over, but after having spent the last few weeks in an English-speaking country, I don't know if I can go back to being illiterate again...

We spend a good long while outside a real estate office, perusing all the For Sale pictures plastered on their window. Houses here in Scotland are very cheap compared to where we lived. Single family homes are about a third to half the cost of a place in Toronto. I'm just thinking that when Brexit goes through, the pound is going to drop like a brick and it might be a great time to swoop in with our Canadian dollars and just buy up everything in Scotland!
 
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Pretty town of Elgin

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We are here to further my quest to find the best haggis. This is a hamburger topped with haggis!

If we're going to live here, we're going to have to learn the Scottish language. Some of the items on the menu are unrecognizable. Neeps and Taters? I can kinda guess what taters are: potatoes. But what the heck is a neep. Google to the rescue... Neep = Turnip. Tur-Neep. Haha!

The haggis burger was delicious. Next I want to try haggis nachos!!! :) Get in muh belly!!!

Good to see the other national dish of the UK is on the menu: Chicken Tikka Marsala. Think I'm joking? Just Google "National Dish of the UK"...

I wonder what curry and haggis tastes like? I think it might be good!
 
We spend longer at the pub than we thought we did, because it's late when we leave Elgin.

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So we find another campsite, which is actually on a farm in Kinloss, just 15 minutes outside of Elgin.

The farmer that owns this land told us that we are cutting it very close to the end of camping season this far up north. He warned us that the next couple of weeks could see more closures of campsites the further north we ride. We're just trying to squeeze in as much riding as we can!

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These are our neighbours at our campsite!

At first, I thought that it was so cute that our neighbours were a flock of sheep. And then the wind changed direction, and blew all the smell of the sheep manure towards our tent... Not so cute anymore...

*sigh* I just zip up my sleeping bag over my head and suffocate on my own exhaled gases for the rest of the night.
 
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