Scotland: Thurso - Isle of Skye

Our last night in Thurso was very windy and I was freezing the whole night. Consequently I was not feeling too great the next morning. Additionally (or not?) I had some stomach problems. It was time to get out of Thurso. The weather was ok and after a short stop at Lidl we headed towards Dunnet Head and John O'Groats.

According to Wikipedia Dunnet Head "includes the most northerly point of the mainland of Great Britain". Besides the lighthouse and a few left over buildings from WW2, the birds form the main attractions. So we went there, had a small walk and took a few pictures.

Dunnet Head - picture taken by Roger

Next stop was John O'Groats and I got a big deja-vu from the North Cape. One tourist shop besides another, the "lands-end" sign was fenced and they want to take your money for taking a picture of it. The main reason I wanted to go there was that Long Way Down started from there. Good that the limited space on our bikes deny souvenir shopping ;) Well we did our "I have been here pictures" and hit the road again.

John O'Groats

The beginning of the A99 did not offer anything special. Honestly I got bored with those streets, one scenic highway/road after the next are nice... I was missing some action. Skippy as well. We found some promising gravel roads on the map and based on my GPS the road was not a through road. That sounded exciting and we went for it. After several kilometers of country side riding we were finally at the point where the gravel road started. It was such a narrow track and full of holes that we could only go with moderate speed (we did not intend to test the durability of our bikes).

At the beginning of the "forbidden road" and Lyra always finds funny places to go...

A few kilometres later we came to a halt on a barrier... "road only for private vehicles blabla blabla blabla... get permission from the caretaker" or so... The gate was unlocked and so we went through as the gravel road looked very promising on the other side of the fence :D

We kept on going and passed through one or two wide open gates, some highlighting that no vehicles allowed beyond this point and the gate might be locked at any time. OK - we took our chances. At the one and only crossing we went straight towards a house and there was even in bigger letters no unauthorised vehicles and no motorcycles (damn, they could read our mind) - ok it was time for a U-turn and we took the other road at that crossing.

The street ended on my GPS already a few km ago. I put my GPS to OFFROAD mode and we followed the temptation to continue our adventure along the forbidden trail. I started to run low on fuel and based on my GPS it was about 8km before the official road started again with a filling station a bit later.

We enjoyed the ride in a moderate speed, the sheep were a bit more sensitive (not used to so many vehicles passing by) and the landscape was stunning as earlier. Here would have been many opportunities for wild camping or find shelter in one of the abandoned-looking houses. We passed several open gates and felt lucky... until we came to the last gate. It was locked with a solid chain and an expensive looking number-lock. Damn - would we now really have to go back all the way and make a 62km detour to hit the same point from the other side? Did the land-owners in the meantime lock down the other gates behind us??? The reason I was low on fuel was that some of the filling stations ceased to exist so that might spice up our situation even more.

As a son of a blacksmith I looked at the gate a little closer and found that we could lift the gate out of the hinges ;) In worst case I would need to dig out my scissor jack to get the required leverage. We tried to lift it together and lucky us the gate had almost no weight. 2 minutes later we magically passed through the (already again closed and put back into place) gate. I am not sure what is the point of those remote located telephone boxes... maybe to call the smithy to break the lock??? 

First we were thinking to camp some more, however since this ride was a little exhausting and I still felt so lousy, we went to the first B&B which announced itself in Helmsdale and there we stayed.

Cooking with a view ;)

At the last day of June we drove to Ullapool and had many nice single track roads. Those are always good for some adrenalin. Two vehicles moving at 50-80km/h from opposite direction and some drivers seemed to see an opportunity to play a little "chicken" game.

Cute little island in Lairg.

The ruins of the Ardvreck Castle at A837.

It's said to be haunted, but unfortunately we didn't meet any ghosts...

Properly equipped biker :)

Calda House next to the castle.

My room... with a doll :D

Finding a place to stay in Ullapool was more difficult then expected. Many had accommodation available but not for us... "Ouh you got doooogs... sorry we don't do dogs" ...maybe over there..? I felt like the famous vacuum-cleaner sales guy who knocks his way from door to door. After searching for about one hour we finally found a nice en-suite B&B (we took it without the breakfast) and we stayed two nights since I was still feeling lousy.

Girls got their own couch

I was basically the whole time in bed while Skippy took care of me and the girls and enjoyed some nice walks on the hills. She also got a great plan for the rest of the trip... Skippy has been very disappointed with Scotland: cold weather, raiped landscape, sheep everywhere (we all know what really happens to them!), poor veggie selection in shops.... so she needed to get a new aspect to enjoy the country. Skippy "the film geek" had a great idea to travel through Britain (and rest of the world) by visiting famous movie locations :) This we actually did in a small scale few years ago in New Zealand.

Why does Great Britain need English and Scottish pounds...? Especially when they're worth the same!

We took the scenic road from Ullapool towards Isle of Skye and faced the even bigger challenge to find an accommodation especially since we wanted to stay several days in one place. No dogs. No dogs. No dogs... I cannot remember on how many doorbells I rang in order to hear "we don't do dogs". In the end somebody had mercy and by paying a premium on the room price (the highest so far on our trip) we found a B&B place in Kyleakin for two nights. This time the search took almost two hours and I already had several walks in various places. Enough was enough and I was ready to pay, get out of the rain and rest.

My first blooper, getting stuck with the sidecar in the ditch.

The movie "Highlander" is one of our big favourites! It was shot in various places across Scotland and we wanted to explore one of the locations on the Isle of Skye: Cioch in the Cuillin Hills near Glenbrittle (see this clip 2:43 onwards). It was drizzling and cloudy as usually and we decided to stay on the beach to have a play with the dogs instead. No point of going to the top of a mountain which is covered by clouds!

The Cuillins in clouds.

Playing ball with Lyra.

Ulpu - the frisbee monster.

Trash at the beach - remember no fouling!

Everywhere is signs about picking up the dog poo, but what about littering humans!? Isn't plastic trash much worse than organic shit?!

This monster just runs to the most closest person to throw the frisbee...

Magic forest with full of human shit and litter.

...and where did this come from? Does Robin Hood live nearby..? ;)

Next morning we were heading towards Fort William and our next Highlander movie location - the Eilean Donan Castle (also used eg. in Bond films). The castle had quite a history and after being not used for about 200 years, it was rebuilt between 1912-1932. Judging from the movie we imagined the castle bigger than in reality. Nevertheless once we walked inside it was impressive, big and gave us a good picture of how life was in earlier times. We continued on the scenic routes and next stop was Fort William.

Eilean Donan Castle

Cool bridge towards the castle.

Complicated inner yard with many corners.

Old building with some modern elements.

Cool looking bench along the parking place.

... and it was not until Fort William that we noticed a major problem with Skippy's bike.

∼ Wolfi

Scotland: Falkirk/Edinburgh - Inverness - Thurso

After a nice ride through the Scottish countryside (mostly B6355) and with moody weather we arrived to Falkirk on 22nd of June. We tried to find a budget accommodation in Edinburgh beforehand, however without success. The closest which fitted our limits was the Metro Inns in Falkirk. It was an old Formule 1 motel which is a familiar chain to us from Paris. Very basic with shared facilities, but works fine for us and the doggies :)


Girls were totally tired!


Our view from the motel room towards our neighbour, who had a very interesting storage place for their stuff. Obviously the socks were extremely stinky because they were the only thing staying out all the time! :D


Next day we had a normal tourist day in Edinburgh visiting some of the usual sights. The rather cool looking Edinburgh castle is to our opinion ruined by these horrible stands. Why is it not possible to honour the architecture of the building and either have stands in a matching style or have the (Tattoo) events somewhere else...?


The Chocolate Tree cafe: THE highlight of the day! We enjoyed this delicious variety of vegan delicacies: the best chocolate ice cream ever!!! and some berry sherbets, chocolate coffee tart, soya latte (for our caffein addict Wolfi) and huge artisan hot chocolates. We can highly recommend the cafe for everyone! Just remember to book a table beforehand since the seating space is very limited. Most likely we'll go there once again before leaving Scotland...


Edinburgh was a bit disappointing in the architecture... not so much old buildings what we thought, but at least some sweet colourful surprises here and there :)


The rhododendrons grow as huge trees here in Scotland (in Finland usually just bushes) and even wild almost everywhere! These sights of course made Ilta "the flower power girl" very happy! :)


At the last day of our Falkirk stay Wolfi went to see the famous Falkirk wheel. A true engineering masterpiece. This is what Wikipedia says: "The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Scotland. It connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. Named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, the lift opened in 2002. The two canals it serves were previously connected by a series of 11 locks, but by the 1930s these had fallen into disuse... On 24 May 2002, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Falkirk Wheel as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations" and she said it will last 120 years.
What Wolfi found fascinating is that: "Despite its enormous mass, it rotates through 180° in five-and-a-half minutes using very little power. It takes just 22.5 kilowatts (30.2 hp) to power the electric motors, which consume just 1.5 kilowatt-hours (5.4 MJ) of energy in four minutes, roughly the same as boiling eight kettles of water."



After Falkirk we headed north towards Inverness via Devil's Elbow and Cock Bridge in Cairngorms National Park. Somewhere along the way we found a nice spot for a break where girls could run free and play. Lyra is clearly our "table doggie".


Hertta was guarding the place (as usual) while "the kids" were playing :)


Lyra found the place perfect to stay and didn't want to leave at all anymore! Eventually had to carry her to the sidecar! btw. it was a chilly and cloudy day (again!) that's why girls needed their pullies on.


We had big hopes of finding a nice place for wild camping, but it was (and is) almost impossible here! Basically every place is fenced, full of sheep (and shit!) and there are not many accessible tracks which would lead a few metres away from the main road. In Loch Garten we still had small hopes to camp wild, but the road was blocked from bikes and anyway it was way too full of tourists! And then there was this sign... How ridiculous is this demand to pick your dogs poo in the middle of the forest where all the wild animals are also leaving poo everywhere! Just makes no sense for a Finn!


So finally we went to a camping place in Auchnahillin for two nights, where we had plenty of rain and Lyra wasn't too happy about it...




In the few short moments without rain girls got to enjoy the almost empty camping place with some ball and frisbee games. We're really happy that Lyra likes her new ball (with the throwing stick), because so far she has preferred balls only indoors and outdoors she has always needed to have a stick! It's not so easy to find a new stick every time she's in the playing mood...


Our search to find a shop in Inverness which would have vegan dog food was not successful. The city itself did not offer anything to our interest and we continued towards Urquhart Castle. Dogs are not allowed inside the castle site so we took what we could and this was the best (free) view from the distance.


Going towards north... Lucky us - in the same moment we found a good spot for a break the sun came out in all its mighty! It got so hot that we took all biking gear off and let the skin sniff the sunlight for a moment :) Lyra and Ulpu - the ballerinas - are having their usual panic when we stop and of course expecting to get some goodies. Amazing how well behaving they can be if they want to be :D

In the background you can see how brutally the forest is cut, presumably to get more fields to grow sheep and/or cattle. In many cases those cut-down areas stretch for many hundreds of meters! These scenes made Ilta really sad, not sustainable forestry at all! :(


When we have a break Lyra is always the first who wants to drink some water.


We hit the scenic road coast (A836) towards Thurso and in the middle of nowhere was this telephone box... ok, why not?


At the evening of Thursday the 27th of June we reached Thurso where we decided to go another time for camping. There was only a little wind and the air felt fresh and mild, how lovely for a change! The camping site is directly at the beach/cliff promenade and offers a cool view towards the Atlantic Ocean.


Basically just behind the tent (with only a tiny stone wall and the promenade in between) there was a steep cliff and one could see the rocks on the bottom in low tide. BTW - we were able to capture a UFO which seemed to be heading towards Orkney ;)


Evening atmosphere at the camping place with the light tower of Dunnet Head in the background. That was the evening before the storm. The night brought stormy winds and heavy rain and this continued until mid of next day. No way to find any sleep! All the time the flapdiflapdiflap of the tent. On a positive note there are no midges either when the weather is like this :D

Finally in the afternoon the sun was coming out a little and we could crawl outside the tent. We did a small walk along the beach and found this cute stone bench. Lyra conquered it right away!

Wolfi needed a rest as well :) As you can see it was rather chilly even though the sun was shining. 

Lyra invented a new kind of ball dance. Click here to watch it.

Next day we headed towards the "North Cape of Scotland"...


Ilta & Wolfi