Scotland, June 2003
I can't believe it has been 5 years since my last trip to Scotland on a motorbike, but that was really the case. It must
have been the poor weather I had at the time. But now I was luckier in this respect and the Triumph and me enjoyed a
fantastic week in the Scottish borders. If you don't really need to see the hoghest mountains you don't have to go
any further north than this. On the way up there were maybe 15 bikes on the ferry, a nice quiet crossing as well. From Newcastle it's just an hour and a half to Duns.
Although I am not really mad about dogs this puppy is an exception to that rule. Like a teddy bear isn't it? And Kim is showing off her new trendy hairstyle... You see the strangest creatures on Eyemouth golflinks. This (scuba)diver came climbing up the cliff. I spoke to him later in St. Abbs harbour. Apparantly he spotted an octopus near the cliffs and also picked up 168 golfballs. Mine wasn't one of them, this time I managed to clear the gap.
You can shoot a thousand pictures like this. If steep cliffs and the seaside are your thing you've got to get here. This particular spot is at Dunbar. The cliff on the right shows loads of seagulls nesting, right in the middle of the town. Well, the seaside of town, obviously.
Have I seen any of the tourist sites? Sure. The Royal Mile in Edinburgh for instance. As I've seen Edinburgh Castle before I gave that a miss. On the A1 near Berwick on Tweed there's a layby with the exact english-scottish border. From that spot to the scottish west you get this view. The little white house you can just see by the seaside is where Paula used to live in Burnmouth.
The road to Scotts View (near Galashiels) is quite steep. But not steep enough for an old age pensioner on a pushbike! He took this picture of Kim and me at this viewpoint. In wintertime you can see the run of the river in the valley, in the summer it is pretty enough as well. About 30 miles further to the southwest is a nature reserve with this beautiful waterfall. We didn't get up to the lake uphill as motorbike leathers aren't the best climbing gear on a hot day. For any bird-nerds, there is a nest of perigrine falcons and we did actually see that fastest bird in the world fly by.
Time flies as the saying goes. On my way back to Newcastle I visited the St. Abbs lighthouse (with huge foghorn). On the return ferry the number of bikes had multiplied by 10 due to the dutch grandprix that many UK-bikers visited on a daytrip. The end of a very good week. It won't be 5 years untill the next visit.
