The Epic Ride Part IV: Italy

We were feeling very disgruntled as we passed beneath the tin roof that served as a border point between France and Italy. The traffic was incredibly slow and there were still no campsites to be found. We were cursing ourselves for not having stopped at the 4-star campsite near Nice, but being in France we hadn’t anticipated such a long wait between sites. Finally we saw a sign for camping and turned off, not much caring what the site ended up like. And luckily we didn’t care. A very friendly young Italian bloke took us on a tour; the site was basically just the slope down from the main road, divided into terraces. There was no grass, and only a couple of metres between fences where you were supposed to set up a tent, so anyone walking by would be passing very close. The bathrooms were just stalls out in the open, and you had to pay for a hot shower. We got to choose between one strip of dirt where two tents were already set up, or a slightly larger patch of dirt where a whole family had a little tent city going on. We chose the smaller strip and asked how much for the night; imagine our shock after French prices when he said it would be 20 euros! We decided we didn’t have much choice at that point and agreed. So we set up our tent in the dirt (lucky it was still muddy from our night in Apt) and then headed out in search of food, and the beach. Despite our difficult afternoon, I was still hoping for a nice relaxing beer and maybe some food, overlooking the Mediterranean. That would make up for the heat and frustration. Unfortunately, at the top of the campsite driveway we turned right instead of left, and ended up walking for half an hour to...nowhere. Along the street, basically. We passed a couple of dodgy-looking coffee bars and that was all. No food, no beach, nothing. Very disheartened, we went back to the campsite and to the supermarket/coffee shop across the road where we bought a road map and some lemonade and got yelled at by the blokes in the shop for some reason, and sat outside feeling a bit sorry for ourselves. Italy was my favourite country on our last trip to Europe and I had been so looking forward to visiting again, but it just wasn’t going as well as one might have hoped. Once we’d fortified ourselves with some lemonade, we bought some dinner items at the supermarket, unfortunately restricted by our lack of Italian skills. There was some lovely looking fresh pasta and sauces behind the deli counter but I didn’t know how to say ‘200 grams’ and didn’t fancy being yelled at again, so we stuck with the packaged stuff. Once we’d dropped our groceries back at the campsite we decided to try one more time to find a beach of some kind.

Luckily we were more successful by turning left at the main road; it was still more difficult than it would be in Australia with those helpful ‘beach’ signs on the street, or France’s ‘les plages’ but we walked down a footpath with brick walls on both sides, past fancy-looking gates to hotels and apartment complexes. Finally we passed through a gateway onto the ‘beach’. It was rocky and pebbly and being fairly late in the evening, grey and windy. But we’d found the water, and something about the sea air was very refreshing so we reluctantly returned to our feral campsite for dinner. Like Apt, they had an area under cover where you could cook and eat but unlike Apt, it was just a shed. Literally, a tin roof shed with a concrete floor, mostly open sides, a couple of dusty tables and broken wooden chairs like you have in primary school. So we cooked our gnocchi in pesto on one of the tables, trying to ignore all the unfriendly Italian campers around and just wanting to get to bed. We discovered you needed to pay for the hot showers, and I discovered I felt very unsafe in the open stall design. (Thank goodness for unisex cubicles so I could take my bodyguard with me, celeb-style.) After we’d finally gone to bed, the family in the terrace down below us decided it was time to have a party, and cranked up the music. They had babies and small children so I didn’t think it would take too long before they retired, but I guess Italian babies are ragers because it felt like the party went forever. Needless to say we were not impressed with Italian camping style. Compared to the quiet, introverted French experience, it was not very pleasant at all. Who builds a campsite next to the Mediterranean with no beach access? Craziness.

The next day we had our breakfast in the shed and then it started to rain. So it took a while for us to get our tent and everything packed up, although we did watch in awe as one girl managed to pull her entire tent into the shed and pack it all up herself in about five minutes. Finally we were ready to hit the road; given our awful experience the day before we decided to just get on the motorway and get to Pisa. We took a wrong turn initially and ended up winding our way up a tiny road to a hilltop village; it was very picturesque with the amazing views across the ocean but also rather nerve-racking with the tight corners and blind spots. Finally we found our way and got onto the motorway with no close calls. But unfortunately the motorway didn’t really prove much faster than the secondary roads; the traffic was still appalling but made easier by the fact that we decided to do as all the other bikers were doing and use the centre line as an extra lane. Due to our bigger size we couldn’t do that all the time but sitting in the sun in full gear breathing in all those car fumes was just unbearable. We passed what seemed like a neverending sprawl of beige housing spread over green hillsides and I was wondering why anyone would ever choose to live near the Mediterranean. It looked horribly crowded and dull, even with that gorgeous blue ocean in the distance. The best thing about the Italian motorway was how removed it was from the rest of the roads, being so high and giving such great views.

The traffic got a little easier in the afternoon and we managed to get all the way to Pisa. We had a disappointing stop in Lucca first, where we failed to find a campsite or a tourist office or even somewhere to park, so in the end we decided to push on to Pisa. We were very lucky and saw a sign to camping very quickly; the campsite was huge and very well-kept. You could probably call it a holiday resort. There were more rules than we were used to, including having to get them our passport, and it was super expensive, but there was also a pool and a pizza restaurant on-site. Once we got the tent set up we went for a little walk into town to try and find the leaning tower. It was less than a kilometre away so it wasn’t difficult to find. Although the walk was slightly marred by so many people trying to sell us stuff, once we got to the square with the tower we were absolutely blown away. Here was the reminder we needed as to why we loved Italy last time, and why we’d taken the effort to get there this time. The tower was breathtaking; it really was leaning. The photos do not do it justice. And even without the tower, the square had other buildings, beautiful, austere, impressive buildings that were enough to see on their own. It really was the perfect antidote to our difficult couple of days in Italy; we were so glad we’d made the time to get off the motorway and see something beautiful.

We tried to go to the supermarket to buy dinner items; we stood in front of the glass doors with a very obvious sign saying it closed at 8pm. It was 7:40pm, and very clearly closed. This was not an isolated experience in Italy but at the time it was very frustrating. So we went back to the campsite and went to the on-site restaurant for pizza and beer. The receptionist had given us a brochure for a campsite company that owned the one we were in; we agreed that due to our unpleasant experience the night before we would stick to this company from now on as much as we could. They were expensive but it certainly beat the concentration camp we’d been in the night before. So over dinner we used the brochure to plan out the rest of our time in Italy, including two nights in Rome and some time on the Adriatic coast. It was an odd feeling to be more in control of our destinations and have an idea of where we wanted to camp, but Italy was proving to be so challenging we decided it was the way to go.

The plan for the next day was a quick trip through Tuscany, finishing up in Rome in time to meet with Toby’s boss Bob and his family for dinner. The weather was terrible, something we’d gotten used to, so although some parts of Tuscany were quite pretty, for the most part we were looking at low grey clouds. The traffic remained fairly heavy, with lots of campervans trundling about, and we also had our closest call when a little while Fiat hooned onto the motorway and immediately tried to overtake without realising we were in the other lane. Luckily being on a bike we had more room to get out of their way than if we’d been in a car; but I still managed a little squeal that reverberated inside my helmet and I did give the guy a rude gesture as we sped away from them. We got to Rome okay but as we started circling the city, we ran into some issues. The camping brochure had instructions for how to find the campsite but the instructions assumed you were coming down the A1 from Florence, which is what we’d intended but failed to do.

So somehow we ended up riding in circles around the centre of Rome. Yes, that was as scary as it sounds. No, I wouldn’t recommend it. Yes, sometimes I thought I was going to die. Yes, it was hot and frustrating and we had no idea where we were going. Then we thought we’d finally cracked it; we’d found the ring road and would soon be on our way. But no; instead we ended up in a sterile factory outlet retail park. Starving. And hot. We’d been ‘in Rome’ for two hours, and were no closer to finding anything. At this point we decided it was time to get out the GPS, so we did that and put the campsite address in; thank goodness we had an idea of where we wanted to camp at least. Otherwise I am sure we would have ended up in a dodgy, expensive Roman hotel.
Finally, thanks to the GPS we found our campsite on the outskirts of Rome by the Tiber river. It was much like the one in Pisa; huge and with lots of facilities. It had a real hostel feel about it with lots of young American college students running around. They also had rock and pop music playing in the bathrooms, and a beer garden and a pool. Oh, and a laundry. When you are touring on a bike, a laundry is a godsend. We decided that as we were spending two nights there and needed a good rest and somewhere safe for our bike gear, we would hire a cabin for the time. It wasn’t a full cabin with a kitchen but it had two proper beds and a little ensuite bathroom which was certainly more comfortable than a tent. Once we were settled we got in touch with Bob and got directions to find where he was staying and then off we set on our journey into Rome. This involved taking a bus from the campsite to the train station, then getting on the train into Rome. Then it was the metro, and then we had to find a bus from the metro. We couldn’t figure out how to buy a bus ticket so Toby rang Bob; he said just get on and he would pay the fine if necessary. Luckily that wasn’t necessary, and we managed to get off the bus at the right stop and only took one wrong turn before Bob found us wandering the streets.
It was a strange thing to see a familiar face in such an unfamiliar place; we had a warm greeting from Bob and then he took us up to his daughter’s apartment where his family had gathered for dinner. They were all very lovely and welcomed us to their night, which started with bubbly and some delicious Italian-style nibbles at the apartment and then moved to a neighbourhood trattoria down the street. Bob’s daughter works for DFAT and she and her husband had been living in Rome several months, although they were being sent home a few weeks later. It was great to have some Italian speakers in the group as they could talk to the waiters for us. We had some lovely wine and perfect, simple pasta. For dessert I shared a tiramisu with Bob’s sister-in-law; it was one of the yummiest things I have ever had. It was such a great night and really refreshing to spend time in a nice restaurant with pleasant people we could actually converse with. Conscious of the fact we had a long drive back to the campsite we left fairly early to get a cab and snuggled into our nice cabin, full and sleepy and looking forward to our day off.

The next day dawned bright and sunny and – shockingly – stayed that way. Our first day without rain. We had breakfast at the little outdoor table setting on the concrete outside our cabin and then got the bus to the train station. Then the train into Rome. This time we decided to walk from the station since it was a part of Rome we hadn’t seen before, although we intended to re-visit a few of our favourite places from the last time. The first exciting thing that happened was we came across a movie set in a piazza; we looked around hoping to see a famous face but unfortunately it was an Italian movie and we didn’t know anyone. We had to wait a bit while they shot a scene of people crossing the street and then we could cross through and find THE MOST AMAZING SHOE SHOP I HAVE EVER SEEN. Words do not do that shop justice. They had lots of signs saying no photos so I have no proof of it, but I did spend a fair bit of time looking in the windows, mouth open. They had a sales rack of shoes for the bargain price of 99 euros and I almost certainly would have bought a pair and shipped them home if I had found some that I liked, and that fit my wide white girl feet. Unfortunately none of them fit the bill so we had to leave it at that.

The rest of the day we spent doing some more window-shopping; visiting the Trevi fountain and Piazza Navona; looking at the Forum from the walkway above and the Colosseum from the outside; eating gelato and listening to street performers. It was a glorious day of sunshine and nice food and we definitely tried to enjoy every minute we were spending not on a bike. We bought some dinner things at the supermarket to take back with us; when we got back to the campsite we put our swimmers on and went to the pool but it was cooling off by then so we just relaxed with our book/DS Lite before cooking. We also took the opportunity to do some laundry even though it was a total rip-off that cost 9 euro. It was worth it to get all of our clothes clean which they hadn’t been since we left Oxford.

In the morning we packed up the bike again and decided to try and find our way without the GPS, since we were so close to the ring road we couldn’t possibly get lost. Ha ha. We were proved wrong but this time, instead of riding in circles for two hours we pulled into a petrol station and got the GPS out to help us get to the highway. Our aim for the day was to reach Pescara on the Adriatic coast, and then move a little further north to find a campsite listed in the brochure. Once we were out of Rome and heading along the highway through Abruzzo, we started falling in love with Italy again. The mountain scenery was spectacular and the traffic was non-existent; we started wondering why anyone would spend weeks campervanning in Tuscany with hundreds of other people when there was this corner of the world just waiting to be explored. I believe this was also the day we discovered the amazing Italian motorway restaurants which were so much better than anything we’d seen before it defied belief. The variety of food was brilliant; it was all so fresh and simple. Bowls of salads and fruit, desserts, steaks they’d cook you on the spot, hot pasta and gnocchi dishes, fresh bread – it was fantastic although we found it strange that also on offer was beer and wine. At this point I was avoiding meat and I never had trouble finding anything to eat at those places. The other interesting thing was watching these burly Italian men tucking into their salads, and their fruit; you would never see that at a rest stop in Australia and it made me realise just how seriously they take their food there.

Our reason for going to Pescara was that back when we were planning our overseas adventure, we had initially thought we might go to Italy for a year. We weren’t sure we could handle Rome but after some research on real estate and jobs we ended up looking more at Pescara. So we wanted to visit and see what we would have been doing, had I not gotten cold feet and declared we needed to go to an English-speaking country instead. Pescara was quite nice; it had a very different feel to other Italian cities we’d been to. It was very flat, and had a chilled, coasty vibe about it. We went for a walk through an outdoor mall to the beach and then strolled along the esplanade, stopping for some gelato (of course) before going back to the bike. We weren’t far away from our campsite but it was late-ish on a Friday afternoon and the traffic on the main road up the coast was horrendous. It took us a long time to get up to Guilianova, but we found our site eventually. At least I think we did; there were three big holiday resorts all in a row and it was difficult figuring out which one we wanted. In the end it probably didn’t matter as they all looked very similar. We pulled in next to the front office (which was really a big house on a hill) and were promptly tucked into a golf buggy and whisked around the corner by a chatty old Italian man. He showed us two different spots and then delivered us back to the front office to book in for the night. It was rather an odd ritual especially as the spots he showed us were so close to where we’d been and we could have easily walked. Anyway we got settled in for the night and then went for a walk to find some food and the beach. The beach was ‘private’ for that resort and covered with sun lounges and umbrellas, which we’d come to expect. The water was nice and warm but we weren’t quite up to swimming at that point so instead we got some dinner things from the on-site supermarket and went back to our tent. I have memories of it beginning to rain at that point, and needing to wait until it eased off before we could venture out and cook our dinner in the dark.

The next morning we were eating our breakfast – standing up by the tent as usual – when a man came over from his campervan nearby and gave us two little folding chairs, and a table. We were quite overwhelmed by his generosity; he said we could ask for them anytime. They were a Dutch couple on an extended holiday complete with bicycles strapped to the back of the van (a very Dutch thing to do) and were heading off on a trip through the mountains that day. It was a much more comfortable breakfast than what we were used to.

We decided not to go very far that day; we were enjoying the Adriatic coast and considering the traffic we’d had the previous day we weren’t sure how far we’d get anyway. So we just went a couple of hundred kilometres up the coast towards Ancona and turned off just beforehand to try and find our campsite (listed in the brochure of course). Being us we got hungry before we got to that point so we stopped at a beachside restaurant for some food. It was a bit more upmarket than what we’d been aiming for, plus we were almost the only ones there (except for a few people who seemed to be related to the waitress), but we persevered and got a table out on the verandah right on the beach. This sounds very peaceful and it should have been, except for the gigantic crane right in front of us that was moving sand from its tray into the water. No idea what that was about. We got charged for the basket of bread they put on the table and our food (gnocchi for me, calamari for Toby) was very salty and didn’t come with any vegetables which would have been nice. Anyway. We were fed.

We ventured further down the esplanade, past more restaurants and ‘private’ beaches, thinking how different it was to the Australian way where the restaurants are on one side of the road and the beach is on the other, open to everyone and none of this ‘exclusively for members’ business. Considering how much beach they have, it seemed so silly to make it so difficult to access. We found our campsite at the end of a road and the girl at the front office gave us a map to show us their two available spaces for tents. This was the craziest campsite I have ever seen. It seemed to be full of long termers, who would park their van in a site and take up a neighbouring site with tarpaulin roofs and entire outdoor settings. It looked like a refugee camp with the number of temporary structures they had set up. It was unbelievably crowded. Of the two sites we were directed to, one was just a corner of grass where the bike would barely fit and the other was in the middle of lots of other vans. There were no people around so it was difficult to tell what we were getting ourselves in for. Considering we were hoping to spend more than one night here, we weren’t awfully impressed but decided we could probably live with it considering what we’d got last time we’d tried to be picky.

So we went back to the office and told the girl which spot we’d take; then we said we noticed the front gate was shut (we’d parked outside and walked through a hedge) and how would we get the bike in? It was then she told us we couldn’t actually check in for another hour or so. Just one of those things which makes sense in a hotel but less so at a campsite with three staff currently on duty. It didn’t take us long to decide we didn’t love the idea of hanging around in our full bike gear, so we thanked her and went on our way. As we left the road they were on, we noticed their ‘private beach’ and assumed we could have waited there until check in time. I don’t know why the girl didn’t tell us that; she could have saved the sale. Anyway. We found another campsite that was more expensive but far less crowded, and lovely and shady too. Its beach access was direct (underpass beneath the main road) and there was a shop and restaurant on site. So there we stayed. We set the tent up under some trees and headed down to the beach which was awfully rocky. The water was cooler than it had been further south but we still managed a swim. The annoying thing was that we were very thirsty and the camp shop was shut so Toby had to go off in search of a drink. In such a popular spot in Australia you wouldn’t have to go far to find a takeaway of some kind, but he really struggled and ended up with a bottle of sprite from one of the fancy restaurants. The strange thing about it was the number of men trying to sell random stuff on the beach, like jewellery or sunglasses or melons. If one of them sold bottles of water I think they might find they do better business. Anyway. For dinner we had pizza in the restaurant on site and the waiter made me try some kind of Italian aperitif at the end which was kind of gross. We went to bed looking forward to our peaceful campsite only to be kept awake for hours by what I assume was a rave happening in the next paddock over. It was amazing how loud it was and how long it went on for. Not happy Jan.

Our sleep was further disrupted the next morning by a guy deciding to edge the grass at 8am. Not sure why it couldn’t wait. Not sure why he was edging perfectly short grass especially when it meant we got little rocks being ricocheted onto our tent. Not fun. It was during this frustrating time when Toby realised he felt ill. Really, really ill. I got him back into the tent and we tried to figure out what to do. Eventually I went to the office and asked about the bungalows they had; she took me to see one and it was a very simple cube, with half taken up by a wee kitchen and sofa, and the other half split into a double bedroom and a bathroom. It also had a verandah, with table and chairs. There was nothing luxurious about it at all but it looked perfect to give Toby a proper rest away from the edge clippers, and me the space to do other things. So I booked it for that night (even though her boss didn’t want a single night booking on a weekend – she was nice and lied to him for me, they were hardly at capacity and we’d already stayed one night so it seemed a bit mean to me) and set out moving Toby into the bed and then packing up the tent. On my own. Which I did just fine. And it was here we spent the next two days, Toby drifting in and out of sleep and me making use of the laptop and enjoying having a kitchen to cook proper meals for a change. We booked a second night in the end as Toby still wasn’t up to riding and it seemed silly to push ourselves when we had such a good spot set up. I was very worried about Toby especially being so far away from a hospital, unable to speak the language and unable to use our own transport, but luckily he got better through rest and panadol. We kept saying if he could just hold on until we got to Austria, where we had greater faith in the medical system. Once he was feeling better, we could enjoy where we were a bit more and went for some walks along the beach and a swim in the pool. If we had to get stuck anywhere, I’m glad it was there with the little bungalow and the English-speaking staff. Unfortunately they didn’t have a clothes dryer (only a washing machine) but that was their only fault. I think I may also have made friends with the family who ran the little shop; at least they were always very nice to me even the woman when I inadvertently got her to pick up a gigantic block of cheese to cut me a slice. None of them really spoke English so it was always interesting trying to order things from the deli or ask for bread. It was fun though.

Finally on the fourth day we decided we were ready to leave so we packed up the bike and headed towards Bologna (brochure again). It took a few hours, including a stop at another fantastic motorway restaurant, and we managed to find the campsite without any problems. It was more like the Rome or Pisa campsites, well set out with lots of facilities (including a laundry, yay). Once we got set up there we got the local bus which stopped in the carpark into town. Bologna took us by surprise I think; it was a very trendy place, full of expensive shops and people dressed in beautiful clothes (I even saw one lady sailing down the street on her bicycle, hot pink pashmina blowing in the wind behind her). The buildings and public squares were lovely too. We bought some dinner items at a supermarket and then got the bus back to the campsite where we went to the bar for a beer. The European Cup was on (which we hadn’t realised) so there were lots of people at the bar watching the game which was France vs Croatia I think. I expect it was the nearest bar for miles for the people living in that part of Bologna, as we were surrounded by fields.

In the morning we decided to go back into Bologna; Toby had done some internet research and decided his illness was due to worms, and I needed a new book to read. We tried one pharmacy where the resident English speaker had no idea what he was saying, even when he tried saying it in the Italian he’d gotten off the internet. I kept telling him to draw a picture. In the end she figured out ‘tapeworm’ but said she couldn’t help us as you needed a prescription for it. Slightly disheartened we left that shop and went in search of books. We found another pharmacy on the way and went in; the resident English speaker there did know what we were talking about so we were given some drugs (even though Toby thought those were the drugs he’d read about on the net as being outdated) and were very much relieved. I also managed to find some English books in the second bookshop we tried; it was called ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy and the reason I mention it is that it’s one of the best books I have ever read and I highly recommend it.

After that early morning adventure we went back to the campsite and packed up. It was turning into a really hot day at this point so we tried to hurry and then got onto the motorway, headed for Verona. Our handy brochure didn’t have anything listed as being in Verona, but I googled ‘camping in Verona’ and came up with an address so we knew we wouldn’t be stuck. The ride to Verona was very quick until just before we hit the city limits, and then we were forced to cut between the traffic again. A police car had passed us earlier and we were wondering if they cared about bikes snaking through traffic; the answer is no. We got into Verona and the GPS helped us find the campsite but only to a point. We had to climb up a very steep hill overlooking the city, and we did see a sign for camping but no obvious driveway so we kept going and ended up at Castel San Pietro, a massive building on top of the hill. The views over Verona were absolutely incredible, but we did need somewhere to stay so we ventured back down the road again and finally found the entrance to the campsite, which was tiny and just an opening in a fence really. Compared to the big holiday resorts we’d been in so far, the Verona campsite was very different. It was started around 100 years ago by a botanist, so it was full of interesting plants with little signs on them. It had very old city walls running through the campsite too, which was more a series of terraces set into the hillside than anything else. The first terrace, which you drove straight into from the road, was rather crowded but included a huge paved area with lounge chairs and the most wonderful views over the city. From there you walked down a very steep cobbled driveway to the next level, which had the reception building (also the shop, toilets and showers), a covered area with the sinks, and another paved area where the views weren’t so good but there was lots of tables and chairs set amongst potted plants. The girl in reception spoke very good English and explained all the rules to us and then showed us where we could camp. Unfortunately because they were a bit crowded and they were ‘saving’ the spots on the first terrace, our only option was a small patch of grass beneath the sinks area, and only a couple of metres away from the reception. We weren’t thrilled with the position but we loved the site and wanted to explore Verona so we were sold. Toby had been wanting to deal with some bank issues and the girl in the office was kind enough to allow him to print some documents and then the next day we were also able to use their fax machine. Small actions like those really made a difference for us on the trip.

We spent some time that afternoon exploring the nearest parts of Verona to us; the walk into town meant going back up the main road to San Pietro then following a set of stairs through some lovely, typical Italian houses, across the river and beneath an archway into a square where we found the best gelato we have ever had. It was a tiny shop with really interesting flavours like cinnamon, so we lined up along with all the locals and got ourselves some cones to eat on the bridge overlooking the water. One of those magical moments that made the more stressful times on the bike feel worthwhile. For dinner we picked up some things at a little supermarket and then headed back to the campsite where it promptly began to rain. And rain. And rain. And then hail. We were stuck inside our tent waiting for it to stop so we could cook our dinner, and hoping we weren’t going to wash away during the night. It wasn’t fun; when it stopped it was dark so we cooked our dinner in the sink area under the lights and ate quickly. The fun continued when someone forgot to turn off the big light outside reception when they left, so our tent was almost as bright as day all night. The noise coming from the reception area made our less than perfect position even more so.

In the morning after doing some banking and washing we decided to head back into town and find Juliet’s balcony, and visit the Arena. Of course it’s not really Juliet’s balcony, and of course we never managed to find it (realised later it was closed) but the walking around was fun and you could certainly imagine Romeo & Juliet running around those streets getting themselves into all kinds of mischief. It is a really romantic place.

We got swept up with all the tourists walking through the centre of town towards the Arena but managed to escape them for some lunch on a little side street where I ate my first spinach and ricotta pizza and we got charged for some bread sticks we didn’t order. Love those scams. After lunch we went to the Arena and decided to pay some money for an attraction since we’d come all that way and hadn’t visited the Colosseum in Rome. We ended up being glad we went in, even though we’d seen more impressive theatres in Turkey; part of what was so interesting was they were getting ready for opera season and we could watch them deal with a gigantic head and two matching hands on the stage.

For dinner we visited some nice deli places on our way back to the campsite, buying olive tapenade and bread and some cheese and other things. Well we had intended to just go to the supermarket but we had another typical Italian experience of being there at a time that said open on their sign, but they weren’t at all. Unfortunately the cheese ended up being out of date but we enjoyed the other parts of our dinner, sitting on the terrace. And we enjoyed our second visit to the amazing gelato shop as well. We couldn’t leave without going there again. I remember having a quieter night without the lights left on, and it didn’t rain at all that day which was lucky as we really needed our tent to dry out before we went anywhere.

The next morning as we were packing up we had a good chat to another Aussie guy who was there with his missus on a motorbike tour. They had much grander plans than us, including getting up to Sweden and Norway, and weren’t sure when they’d be going home. He had a German passport I think so was thinking of finding work; we were sure to recommend Edinburgh as a good option. They had brought their bike over with them; I’m not sure Toby approved of doing that given it was a Harley but it was good to share some common experiences (including the gelato) and know that we weren’t the only insane people out there on a bike. And then we were on our way out of Verona, heading north for Austria.

The Epic Ride Part III: France

We didn’t really have a plan for France; one of the problems with being on a bike is lack of space, particularly for guide books. So our first port of call was to find a petrol station and a map. I’m sure Toby was nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road; I know I was. Getting off the boat was quite nerve-racking especially as we had no idea where we wanted to go, just that we didn’t want to go into the town centre of Dieppe. So off we went, nice and slowly, in the opposite direction. The first weird thing we passed was a big pile of car tyres that were being burned in the middle of a roundabout. No idea why; it was a bit strange and the smoke was pretty awful. We found a petrol station and bought a map and decided we would aim to head east along the coast and find somewhere for the night.

Of course that was much easier said than done; we had a few false starts and started getting hungry so stopped at a patisserie in hopes of a tasty French snack. All they had left was sweet tarts so we had fruit flans for lunch in a little park and then headed back the way we came, still trying to get east. We passed through some cute litle seaside villages without seeing anywhere; finally we pulled off the highway to follow a camping sign up a country road; through a little village and into a group of fields run by a woman who couldn’t speak any English. That’s okay, because the words ‘camping’ and ‘tent’ are the same in French so it was easy enough to let her know what we wanted to do. We were the only campers there and it felt quite isolated but we put that out of our minds since we had a challenge ahead of us – driving into a big town and finding an ATM. We drove to Fecamp, about 10 minutes away, and attempted to find a bank which was rather stressful. We found one eventually and then bought some sandwich things for dinner as well. Luckily we found the campsite again; it rained that night so we ate sandwiches in the tent but they were delicious sandwiches, with good French bread and cheese and fresh tomatoes and other nice things. Very tasty. Being the only campers, it was a quiet night so we didn’t have to worry about being kept awake by noisy kayakers or anyone else. The showers were hot but the toilets had no seats or toilet paper; something that was to prove more common than you might think. You need to be prepared for all eventualities.

We paid 16 euros for that first night; it sounds reasonable until I tell you that is actually the most we paid for camping in France. The next morning we ate our muesli and tea and then headed south. Riding on the wrong side of the road started feeling a bit easier the second day although still not natural. The scenery was unfortunately rather uninspiring; very flat farmland, and not much else. We didn’t see many campsites during the day so after looking at the map decided to head towards a green state park area, thinking we might have more chance of finding camping there. And we did. We arrived at a really lovely little village called Senonches, where we camped for 4 euros in a lovely spot by a lake, all tucked in between hedges so you had a bit of privacy. The lady told us where we could get a kebab for 5 euros, so we did that, even though we’d had them for lunch as well, and ate them under the eaves of the toilet block since it was raining (again).




In the morning I walked into town to buy some milk and other things; I started to realise why people dream of moving to rural France. The morning ritual of visiting the patisserie is really quite a lovely, satisfying one. We packed up the bike and continued heading south, since we’d decided to try and make it to Italy in a few days’ time to catch up with Toby’s boss from Australia. We were driving through the Loire region, so it started looking a bit more interesting but still not quite the amazing France we’d been hoping for. We made the effort to get off the highway at one point to go and check out a castle, since the map looked full of them. We didn't go in but at least we saw something.



The next night we stayed near the village of Nanacay, another cute little place although the campsite wasn’t nearly as nice. It was huge but very overgrown and full of bugs. Given the recent rain it was also very muddy and it took us a while to find a suitable place for a tent. Luckily it was cheap; we also chatted a bit to some English people who were caravanning around and gave us some ideas for where to go. More specifically, where Provence was since we had a pretty useless map. The answer, for future reference, is ‘anywhere between Avignon and Digne.’



Although it had rained every day since we left Margaret’s, it didn’t really get serious until the next day when we found ourselves navigating mountain roads in hail. (At the time we didn't realise that huge swathes of Europe were actually experiencing very heavy rainfall and floods - we did pass some amazing river scenes with the tops of trees just visible, but luckily we seemed to always be passing through a day or two after the worst had passed. I only got an idea of the seriousness of it when I got a worried message from Mum to make sure we were managing to avoid the floods.) After the excitement of hail, we decided we deserved a hotel room so when we stopped at a petrol station with a hotel over the road, it was easy to go and get a room for the night. It was a nice hotel and gave us a chance to dry out all our gear and get a decent feed at the pizza restaurant next door, even though they used emmental cheese which was a bit strange. I watched some of the French version of ‘Come Dine With Me’, a show I’d gotten addicted to in Edinburgh thanks to my friend Carole, and enjoyed it even in another language.

The weather had cleared the next morning so we ate our muesli (minus the tea, since they don’t believe in tea & coffee facilities in Europe and I am too much of a nervous nellie to use a gas burner in a hotel room) and headed south towards St Etienne. It was around this time we decided to stop messing around on slow secondary roads and hit the motorway. It was expensive, but the amount of ground we covered was fantastic. We got to Avignon that day, a nice drive along the Rhein made more exciting by passing signs for Vienna and other exotic-sounding places. Since Avignon was meant to be nice we decided to stop and have a wee look around. This is not as easy as it might be in a car, since you are carrying a lot of stuff and wearing heavy, non-walking-friendly boots. You are also a bit worried about mean people unhooking your occy straps and making off with all your camping stuff, which would obviously be a disaster. We gave it a go anyway, walking through some lovely old walled streets and sat down for some gelato since it was getting pretty hot. We went up to a town square where a local radio station was having a dance-off although the only person game was a boy who looked about eight. He had some moves though.


After Avignon we started veering west towards Apt, following the English lady’s instructions to just go somewhere between Avignon and Digne. The countryside was getting more and more interesting, especially compared to the flat farmlands we’d seen at first. It started to rain just as we got into Apt – of course – but we found a campsite pretty quickly and it stopped raining just long enough for us to get the tent up. It wasn’t a particularly nice campsite – quite crowded and directly below a major road with scooters going past constantly. After we were settled and the rain stopped properly, we wandered into town and realised it was much prettier than it had looked from the ride in. It was full of lovely cobbled streets lined with shops selling pretty clothes, candles and yummy-looking food. It was all very Provence. We splurged a bit on items for dinner, buying proper sausages and quiche from a charcuterie and some nice olive tapenade and bread and other bits and pieces. The nice thing about the campsite was it had an indoor kitchen area so we could eat dinner at a proper table out of the rain. And then go to sleep, hoping our tent wasn’t going to be flooded as we slept.

The next day we packed up our slightly muddy tent and hit the road, aiming for Digne. It was an absolutely fantastic ride, warm and sunny and through tiny villages full of houses with bright blue shutters, and rolling farmlands and orchards. We finally felt as though we’d arrived in France, and cursed the days we’d spent moseying through the boring north. I perfectly understood the pull we all feel towards a villa in Provence; I think Jung called it the collective consciousness. I even felt like maybe I’d been there before just because it looked exactly as how you would imagine. We stopped for lunch in Digne, a nice little town nestled beside some mountains, and ate our picnic on some grass in the sunshine. Of course we admired the mountains without actually realising that was our next route. Yes, we’d arrived at the Alps without knowing it, because that happens when you are without guide book or decent map.
If we thought the morning provided a great bike ride, we were in for a treat in the afternoon. The Alps provided everything you want from a ride. Scary heights, lots of corners, gorgeous views. There were lots of bikers around and it was easy to see why. We passed lots of pubs in lovely places, doing excellent business, but Toby’s main focus was enjoying the road so we mostly rode through. It is very difficult to describe in words just how fantastic that ride was...we cannot recommend it highly enough. It certainly made us think we had made the right decision in bringing a motorbike over to Europe; nothing else would have been comparable. After the Alps, the highway twists its way downhill towards the Mediterranean. Another gorgeous ride as we went towards Grasse; you actually could smell the wildflowers on the side of the road. (Sometimes you are glad a bike helmet has a gap in the bottom for smells to come through; sometimes it’s a curse.) Rather than heading towards Grasse or Cannes like we had originally planned we decided to go towards Nice and try to find somewhere to stay the night. We only rode through Nice but it did look like a nice enough place to spend time; like a smaller, coasty Paris with glimpses of the perfect blue ocean visible between those lovely French buildings. After Nice we decided it was time to look out for a campsite so we continued along the coast towards Italy...and looked...and looked...and looked.

The traffic started getting heavy as we entered Monaco, which absolutely reeked of money. We stopped on the main road and took a few minutes to stretch and take some photos before joining the rat race again. The coast road from then on was not nearly as enjoyable; extremely crowded, poorly organised, and the views of the Mediterranean didn’t really make up for it. I started wondering why anyone would ever visit the Cote d’Azur for a holiday; it was looking a lot like hell on earth. Like the Gold Coast, if Schoolies and the grand prix were on at the same time, at New Year’s Eve. And full of sunburnt English people. And still no sign of any campsites; just lots and lots of big fancy hotels. Feeling more and more hot and frustrated, we continued on our way and all of a sudden we were in Italy.

The Epic Ride Part II: England

We’d always known England was going to be a bigger trial than Scotland. For nine months we’d avoided crossing the border, memories of the drive to and from Oxford when we first arrived still fresh in our minds. Even looking at the map was stressful; from Scotland’s acres of green with simple, clean lines going from A to B to C, none of which were very big, you were looking at a mass of lines going from A to C to B and back to A again, some thick and yellow, others thin and red, still others thinner and green. The thick and yellow was what we wanted to avoid; Toby’s shoulder was playing up and the idea of constant throttle for hours on end as we hurtled down the motorway was not tempting. On the other hand, get behind the wrong truck or pensioner on a secondary road and you’d be looking at hours and hours of flat English scenery with no end in sight.

In the end, we did stick mostly to the motorway. As soon as we crossed the border, the traffic seemed to quadruple; it was like every driver in England was out to slow us down. The secondary roads were far too slow, and given we were driving through Yorkshire, it wasn’t the most interesting scenery. We drove to York first but it didn’t take, so we decided to head further afield in hunt of a campsite. This seemed an easy enough proposition, but unfortunately we got all the way to Doncaster without seeing a single camping sign. Okay then, we decided. We’ll stay in Doncaster, find a B & B or hotel since it’s getting late. We got from one end of Doncaster to the other – in peak traffic – without seeing a single place to stay. Finally we came across a Premier Inn nestled into one of those awful retail parks, so we decided that would do. There was a Pizza Hut next door and an evening spent gorging ourselves on pizza and enjoying a nice soft bed was starting to look good. But there was no room at the Inn. The girl gave us some other ideas and we went up the road a bit to one of those Formula 1 hotels, which normally look a bit dodgy, but this one went beyond dodgy. It was all flat grey concrete with tiny windows. One of the windows had a half naked man hanging out of it, smoking. The carpark was full of white commercial vans. It looked like the kind of place where people got killed. We tried one more hotel but it was full too, so we got back on the motorway and headed towards Sheffield, where we magically found another Premier Inn. This time I went in alone, after removing my helmet and big jacket; we had started getting a bit paranoid that receptionists just didn’t like the look of us. Apparently there was a concert on nearby so the room rate was ridiculously high, but I was so grateful to be given a room we didn’t really care. For dinner we went next door to TGI Friday’s and had gigantic plates of fatty American food. Our waitress was planning a round the world trip including Australia so had lots of questions for us about poisonous snakes and fruit picking, topics on which we are clearly experts.

Considering the amount of ground we’d covered the day before, and our difficulty in finding campsites in England, we decided we didn’t want to dilly-dally anymore so rang Margaret to ask if we could arrive in Oxford a day early. Luckily she didn't, so we had a quick ride down the motorway and arrived just after lunch the next day

Traffic island where we ate our lunch on the way to Oxford.

We spent a few nights in Oxford, recuperating from our busy week and doing laundry and stocking up on supplies and things we decided would be handy (like a windshield for the gas tank). The biggest drama we had in Oxford was related to Margaret’s cats, which are lovely creatures but we are quite allergic to them. Both of us started feeling wheezy and asthmatic, and this is when we realised that somewhere on our travels, we had lost our Ventolin. In Australia, this wouldn’t be a big deal as you would go straight down to the local chemist and buy some more. Unfortunately it turned out this doesn’t happen in the UK; the lady in Boots told me there was no way to get it without a doctor’s prescription. Great. We made some calls to Margaret’s doctor’s office where the receptionists didn’t even know what Ventolin was, and were rather confused about the fact that I was an Australian who was registered in Edinburgh but staying in Oxford and not going back to Scotland. Eventually the receptionists spoke to an actual doctor who obviously said yes of course I’ll do a prescription, so after a couple of hours I just walked down to the office and picked it up without ever having to speak to a doctor. A rather strange set of events that made me appreciate the Australian health system all the more. On the Saturday, Toby had a nerd date with a mate in Edinburgh and holed himself and his laptop up in Margaret’s spare room so I took myself into town to do as many free museums as I could, since I’d never seen any of Oxford’s. It was a great way to spend the day; I particularly enjoyed the Pitt Rivers Museum which is still in the same design as when it was first built; the idea being it is not only an anthropological museum, but a museum museum so you can see what they used to be like. The answer is dark, and crowded. So dark they give you little torches to look into the cabinets. Afterwards Toby met me in town so we could go and see a silly romantic comedy followed by dinner at one of those new-fangled gourmet burger places. It was a great day.

We had planned to ride down to Brighton the day before our ferry to France, to walk along the pier and have fish and chips and so on. Unfortunately when we woke up it was pouring with rain, and there was no sign of it stopping. So we didn’t bother rushing to pack up the bike, but eventually it was clear we were just going to have to ride in the rain. And this was not the usual English drizzle, but actual rain. So on went all the waterproofs and we said goodbye to Margaret around midday. It rained the whole way to London, and then the whole way around the M25, all through lunch at the Marks & Spencer road stop, and all the way down the highway where we saw the sign for Brighton and decided it just wasn’t the right weather for an afternoon at the seaside. So we turned to Newhaven instead, where the ferry terminal is and where we’d booked a night at the Premier Inn given our early start the next day.

I think I expected Newhaven to be a bit more interesting, and picturesque, just like the English seaside towns you see on TV. But it was a pretty uninspiring place. Luckily it was still raining so we had a good excuse to not walk too far and instead just holed up in our room watching telly and eating the dinner we’d bought from the giant Sainsbury’s next door. The next morning we were up before 5 to get to the ferry on time, even though as usual I made sure we got there too early. We weren’t the only motorbike there; there was a couple of other blokes on a blokey week away so there was a bit of standing around grunting at each other’s bikes before we got ushered into the belly of the ship. The bikes got to go first, so we rode all the way through to the other end and then the bike was strapped down so it wouldn’t go anywhere.

Inside the ferry.

I had been looking forward to travelling to another country without having to deal with an airport or flying, but in the end our ferry trip was pretty uncomfortable anyway. Apart from being tired due to the early start, and the general queasiness that comes from being on the ocean, half the boat was filled with diesel fumes which added to the discomfort. There is only so much that a can of Sprite and fresh air can do to make that kind of trip a good one. Added to that, they didn't sell newspapers on board so my plan to pass the time reading something I didn't need to pack in my luggage was shot. Note to travellers on the Dieppe ferry: buy your paper from the kiosk in the carpark. Luckily it was only a few hours long and before it was lunchtime, we were looking over the railing at the white cliffs of the Normandy coast.

Arriving in France.

The Epic Ride Part I: Scotland

Yes, I know we're at home now, and it's all over, but we need to have the story written down if only for our own memories. Lots of people have told us they enjoy the blog (even though we remain surprisingly comment-free...) so in the interests of public service, I will endeavour to get the full ride uploaded over the next few weeks...

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15 May 2008

It was a Thursday afternoon, and we were suddenly homeless. Homeless, and unemployed. We did not have a set of house keys. We did not have a job to go to the next day. In an age of global communications it was going to be difficult to disappear for very long, from many people, but we were going to try. It was going to be us, and a big BMW motorbike with yellow sides and a blue sports bag strapped to the back. Us, the bike, and the road.

Edinburgh was cold, as it almost always is, and it took an age to get down Corstorphine Road to the Forth Bridge. The traffic was heavy and we quickly realised that our test pack, and test ride, two weeks earlier had been hopelessly inadequate. Everything felt squashed. We were not going to make it, we and all our stuff did not fit on the bike. But then we were going over the water, feeling the wind whip around helmets and armoured sleeves, and the sky was grey and the fields on the other side were bright, bright yellow – and suddenly it felt like we were really on our way.
We stopped at the gigantic Tesco on the outskirts of Perth; we needed petrol, and something to eat. Toby walked around the bike, checking his straps and buckles and then – ‘the pannier’s burning,’ he says, and I look to where he’s pointing. So it is. The pannier had had a little incident involving a concrete block several weeks beforehand, and it was a little broken. Just a little, enough that when we put a bit of stuff in it and rode around the carpark at home, it was fine. And just enough that when we filled it with a weeks’ worth of clothing and shoes and then rode on the highway, the wind pushed it lower so it was right where the exhaust was releasing all its hot fumes. We had a hole in our pannier, a small hole with melted edges and a strong smell of burning plastic.

So we bought a Tesco sandwich and got some petrol and then set about trying to rearrange the pannier so it would be more flame-proof. To go back to Edinburgh and buy a new pannier? But where would we sleep? We have already said goodbye to our friends, and it always feels awkward to see someone again and have to go through the ritual for a second time. Accommodation is expensive. We are on our adventure, dammit. So we didn’t go back to Edinburgh, we left Perth and continued north through the magical Scottish countryside with its lakes and mountains and bright yellow fields of rapeseed until we reached Pitlochry, where we finally saw a camping sign on the highway and turned in. From the road it did not look like anything special; sterile caravans in shades of cream and beige sitting on flat concrete blocks, and not much else. But we perservered down the dirt track and were eventually rewarded by a girl from Western Australia in the office, who gave us a campsite for 9 pounds and sold us some sausages and a salad from their shop for dinner. There weren’t many people at the campsite; a couple of lone walkers, with their tiny triangular tents and pots of baked beans or soup for one, and a group of young people (I can say that, because they were younger than us), with hair dyed funny colours and not much clothes on, as though it was Australia in summer and not Scotland in spring. We cooked the sausages in our tiny frypan over our tiny gas stove, and drank a tiny bottle of Moet we’d saved from when we weren’t homeless or unemployed. We went to sleep feeling very pleased with ourselves, and only slightly worried about our pannier.



The next day dawned bright and sunny, and the young people continued to laze about on the grass with not much clothes on. We bought fresh milk from the shop once it opened, and ate our muesli and tea on the grass, and went for a walk along the riverbank. Still feeling very pleased with ourselves – we are awake, and being healthy and exercising, and today we will ride to Inverness, or further. And we really need to do something about that pannier. The day got hotter as it went on, and by the time we had the tent pulled down and the bike packed, we were both feeling rather hot and bothered. This wasn’t helped by packing the sports bag differently, just to experiment, and getting on to ride away only to realise that we were completely unbalanced and wouldn’t get very far like that. So we had to stop by the office again, strip off all our riding gear as it was so hot, and repack the bike. Of course being Scotland, by the time we were repacked and ready to go, the weather closed in again and we were suddenly chilly and wishing we’d worn warmer clothes. This is part of the magic of Scotland, the way it is part of the fun of Melbourne or a person with a split personality. You just never know. So we rode to Inverness, feeling the chill as we entered the highlands, and got rained on, because that’s what happens in Scotland, and got hungry enough to just stop by the side of the highway to eat our tuna and bread rolls standing up in the light drizzle.



Just before we got into Inverness we saw a tourist information office, where we asked for campsite suggestions and to use their phone book to find a bike shop. The woman gave us two addresses, although the man thought one had shut down ‘a while ago’, and off we went. The man was right, the shop was long gone. So we continued through town, which looked quite nice really, and then along the shore of the lake, and I was just starting to think we must have somehow missed it when there is was. A bike dealership on the edge of the lake; surely the best location in the world. They sold us some soft panniers and let us throw the melted one into their skip; I also had to throw out my thongs as one of them was now half the size. This is what happens when rubber thongs get too hot, apparently. We sat in their carpark, repacking our panniers and feeling rather relieved – if a little poorer – now that we didn’t have to worry so much about melting plastic anymore.





Feeling quite pleased with ourselves again, we decided to head to the Black Isle to find somewhere to camp for the night. We found one campsite, a narrow strip of land between road and water with nothing really to set it apart – no trees, no hedges, no walls. Just the grass. There was also no people evident, although there was a small mobile home that could have been an office. The door opened and an old lady told us it would cost 12 pounds for the night. I am not sure why, even now, but the whole place gave me a funny feeling like we might wake up minus a kidney, and I just didn’t want a funny feeling on my big adventure, so we said we might be back.
We weren’t back, because we couldn’t find anywhere else to camp and then we couldn’t find a petrol station and then we were feeling a bit tired and fragile so we decided to treat ourselves to a B & B. At the old-fashioned petrol station, so old-fashioned the petrol was put in the bike by an old man wearing grey overalls, we were given directions to a nearby hotel that sounded easy enough, but weren’t.


There was a B & B on the main road that went from village to village along the Isle, one of those double storied houses where the steps to the front door lead down from the footpath and there is no space between road and house. The guy who ran it was outside when we pulled up; he was very apologetic and told us he couldn’t really take any guests as he was selling the property and had an inspection in a few minutes. I was annoyed that he didn’t have a ‘no vacancy’ sign up somewhere, and annoyed that I’d been so adamant about not staying in the creepy campsite, but we decided we would try to find something else closer in to town. While standing by the bike making this decision, the guy came back from the house to say he’d spoken with ‘the boss’ (we later realised he meant his wife), who had said that as long as we weren’t around when the inspection was on, we could stay the night. A bargain at 25 pounds. Each. He acted like he was doing us a favour, tired and frustrated as we were, although thinking about it later (when we weren’t so tired), we realised we were actually doing him a favour by agreeing to leave the house for a period of time, and surely they could have done us a discount for that inconvenience. But it was too late by then. He told us the other guy staying was a student; he was a driving instructor who had people stay with him for ‘intensive’ week long courses to get their licenses. Privately we agreed this was a ridiculous notion, and Toby with his own driving instructor’s hat on was particularly amused by this business, but we didn’t say anything to the man about the appropriateness of his courses. We put our bags in a downstairs room that felt a lot like a room you find at grandparents’ houses, full of odd bits of furniture like old high chairs and record players that have nowhere else to go. But the bed was big and soft, covered in a surprisingly modern patterned white doona, and the bathroom was clean, so we were happy enough. We got changed and went to one of the two options in town for dinner, a pub up the road where everyone looked up when you went in, just like in the movies, although I was used to it since I’d gone in earlier to ask for directions to the petrol station.


We ate gigantic steak and ale pies and piles of chips while listening to the Eagles’ Greatest Hits and feeling like slight failures after our tedious, frustrating afternoon of driving up and down the Black Isle looking for campsites and petrol. We returned to the B & B just as the potential buyers were leaving, so we could finally get into our room and watch the TV which was one of those old bulky ones on its own little stand. That room was like a time warp, although we were to see worse on our travels.






Breakfast was served up a small staircase in a room on street-level, which looked like it had been a pub at one point, albeit with a nautical theme; the glass panel in the door was advertising some kind of brew and there were various ships in bottles and other paraphernalia around as well. In one corner was a disco ball and a gigantic stereo set up; I asked the guy who told me his wife was a karaoke fiend and were we big karaoke fans? We told him we’d dabbled once in Japan, and were sorry to have missed what looked like a great party, because you should never insult the wife of the man who is about to cook your breakfast. It was a decent breakfast, although the ‘tomatoes’ that came with my scrambled eggs were actually little red balls from a can that had been heated up. I suppose it wasn’t really tomato season, nor would it ever be tomato season on the Black Isle, but still it was a little odd. We felt very civilised though, what with sitting at a table drinking tea out of proper cups and eating warm buttered toast – a far cry from eating your muesli standing up in the outdoors, out of a blue plastic bowl.


After breakfast we packed up the room and then asked the guy if it would be okay for us to continue using his carpark while we sorted out our bike. Luckily he said it was, so we set about organising our soft panniers and doing some bike maintenance as well. We weren’t sure what to do about our hard pannier, the one that hadn’t burnt; it was worth a lot of money and still perfectly use-able. In the end I went to the post office down from the B & B, and the guy there helped me put stickers straight on the plastic to send the pannier down south to Margaret’s. It only cost 9 pounds so it seemed a better option than putting it in the bin. I also went to the hardware shop (for such a small village we were lucky the B & B was in a stretch of buildings that included these shops, open on Saturday) to buy a hacksaw to fix the rack on the bike. I returned it a few minutes later, once we were done with it; hopefully the guy will be honest with the next person who needs a hacksaw for ten minutes, and let them use it rather than buy a new one (even though it only cost 3 pounds, which was a bargain).


After all that drama, we were ready to hit the road again so off we went in hunt of Nessie. The monster, that is. We had lived in Scotland for eight months by this point and still had not seen Loch Ness, so it was high on our list of priorities. The countryside around there was fantastic so it was a great ride back through the Black Isle and down to the loch, and we stood on the banks looking for a hint of tail, but alas there was no Nessie to be seen. We were very glad to have seen it in the end, although we agreed that Loch Lomond was a far more spectacular setting. Toby’s theory is that the monster is an invention by the local tourist office to lure people away from the majesty of Loch Lomond and up to the relative ordinariness of Loch Ness. He is a cynical man sometimes.




After Loch Ness we headed westwards to the Isle of Skye, and if we thought we’d had good riding up to that point, we had a surprise in store. Approaching the bridge to Skye the scenery became dark, and tall, and menacing; it was very easy to imagine armies of Celts and Vikings spilling down the rocky hillsides and splashing through the streams, yelling and brandishing their weapons. We found a campsite by a lake near the village of Dunvegan, which was almost deserted. The guy in the office, once he found out we were Australian, asked if we were in the area to do family research. I said no, although ‘my mother is a McKinnon,’ I said, and his eyes widened. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Skye’s just crawling with McKinnons, I’m sure you’d meet a relative or two.’ Then he said he shouldn’t make assumptions about Australians and their connections to Skye because he’d once asked an Aussie guy the same question only to be told, ‘Well that would be a bit silly since all my relatives are in Croatia.’


The memorable thing about Skye is the amount of light they get up there. We would eat dinner in clear daylight, and at bed time would put eye masks on since otherwise it would be impossible to sleep in the light tent. The first night I needed earplugs as well since there was a group of middle-aged men on a kayaking trip who set up later in the afternoon, and they sat around all night drinking and talking. In truth, they weren’t that loud and it probably wasn’t all night; it’s just when you’re in a tent, everything is loud. And when you’re trying to sleep, it feels like it’s all night. The other thing about Skye was it was cold at night. I slept in my thermals (pants and shirt), plus a jumper, plus my explorer socks and my fuzzy neck thing I wear on the bike, and to snowboard. I don’t think I needed a beanie, but it was still the most dressed I have been for bed since an Outdoor Ed trip to Wee Jasper in Year 10, when I did need a beanie. The days were warmer though; sometimes warm enough to get down to a T shirt, although you would need a jumper on hand for the cool change which was likely to come any minute.




Another thing we enjoyed about Skye (and riding through Scotland in general) was the fact it was springtime and all the baby animals were just finding their feet. Skye in particular was full of baby lambs and we spent a lot of time watching them playing and figuring out how to be sheep. They had a lot of personality and this was around the time I started thinking about being a vegetarian; all of a sudden lamb just didn't seem that appetising anymore.

We decided to take a day off in Skye and just stay put, so we asked a different guy in the office about walks in the local area and although Toby was tempted by the four-hour ‘mountain’ walk he suggested, due to lack of equipment (and food) we decided to stick to the easy ‘two churches’ walk instead. On the way we stopped by the small general store where we’d bought our dinner the night before, but being Sunday and almost the end of the earth, it was closed. We managed to get some water and muesli bars from the petrol station and headed off on our walk of the two churches, the idea being to start at the ruins of the old village church and walk through some fields and what-not to the new village church. The best part of this walk was the beginning, with the ruins of the old church sitting in an overgrown cemetery. Even though it was the old church they had continued to put stones and plaques up for different families and clan chiefs; I didn’t even know they still had clan chiefs, but apparently they do. I found one McKinnon grave which was actually one of the sadder ones, put up by a male McKinnon in memory of his wife, who had died in October of 1925, and his daughter, who had died in December of the same year, aged six months. After the church ruins you walked through some fields and down a country path and then along a headland, looking out to sea, which is where we stopped and ate our snacks. The scenery changed again for the next part of the walk, when it turned into dark woods with dried pine needles on the floor and a distinct Narnia feel about it. We kept our eyes out for deer, the way tourists in Australia look for koalas, but unfortunately there was none to be seen. We came out again into sunlight by the new church, which was built sometime in the 1800s. It looked very new though, with its straight white walls and clean stained-glass windows. We didn’t go in; as it was Sunday there were people milling about in their nice clothes so it didn’t seem right for us to go blundering through in our shorts and sneakers. We saw a sign for Dunvegan Castle up the road so decided to follow that; unfortunately when we finally got to the gate we realised you had to pay to see the castle AND its grounds, and we just weren’t willing to do that, so back to town. There weren’t many options for a cheap lunch so we bought baked beans and some ‘long life’ bread rolls from the petrol station and took them back to the campsite. I think it’s safe to say that was the worst meal we had on the whole trip; after reading the ingredients list on the bread rolls and finding that it contained ethanol and some kind of acid, Toby refused to eat any and I threw mine out when it was half finished. Oh, and we were trying to conserve gas (it was very windy on Skye and we didn’t have a windshield yet, so just boiling the water for tea was using up a lot) so we had the baked beans cold, straight from the can. Yes, that was the worst meal.

We left Skye the next morning and headed south, via Glen Coe which was very, very chilly but incredibly gorgeous. The exciting thing that happened on that ride was we saw the new Knight Rider car being driven incredibly slowly on the highway. Well, I didn’t realise it was KITT of course, I just noticed a black car with American plates that looked like it should have been going faster than it was. But Toby was most excited. We stopped in Fort William for lunch and ordered burgers from a takeaway in the main shopping strip. The lady serving me asked if I wanted salad, and I thought well there’s salad on the burgers so I don’t think we need more, so no thankyou. Of course once we’d taken them back to the park and opened them, I realised she was asking if we wanted any salad at all. So we had slabs of meat and cheese between two bits of bread.

From Fort William we headed into the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park to find somewhere to stay the night. We decided on Tyndrum, which was just inside the park border, and asked at the tourist office for accommodation. We saw an ad for a campsite nearby that had wigwams for rent so thought that looked like fun, and a bit easier than putting up the tent again. The campsite was actually a farm a bit out of town, where we could camp in a paddock for 12 pounds or get a wigwam for 25. We decided on the wigwam, which was essentially just a tiny cabin with two gym mats on the floor, but there was a heater and a little window so it was quite cosy and a bit more comfortable than a tent. The meal we had that night was one of the best; they had a kitchen you could use, as well as a farm shop, so we ate pork and venison sausages with some vegetables off proper plates, sitting at a table. We sat up late that night doing laundry and chatting to a man from Glasgow who was walking to Fort William with some mates to raise money for a hospice. It never mattered how brave we felt for camping on a motorbike, we would always meet someone who made us feel like we had taken a pretty easy route. We paid for his laundry as a donation to the cause.

The next day we had a lovely ride through the national park and past Loch Lomond, even though it was quite slow at times as we got stuck behind lorries and the UK doesn’t believe in double carriageways. We arrived in Dunfermline that afternoon and got some directions for camping from a friendly old man in the tourist information office. Unfortunately, they weren’t very good directions, or else he hadn’t actually been to the campsite he suggested, because we ended up at a narrow bit of grass next to a lake, mostly taken up by caravans. The owner wasn’t there but some other guy who I’m sure was a guest but seemed quite knowledgeable pointed up the hill so a bit of grass next to the road and said that was where the tents went. Being introverts, we like our privacy and this just wasn’t what we wanted. Toby called in a favour from when he let me veto the campsite on the Black Isle, and said he didn’t want to stay there. So around we rode, looking for other options and wishing we weren’t so picky. It all turned out okay in the end though, when we followed a random sign up a long road and ended up camping in the grounds of a castle. We were the only campers there; our little orange dome looking very lonely in the middle of the flat green field. But they had a wee shop where we could buy noodles for dinner, and a book exchange, and another group of Australians who looked like they were about to invite us to dinner, as though we’d have something to talk about. It was a good place to end our little tour through Scotland.