RNLI Fundraising trip
Round the Coastline of Britain

Day 6 - 17th May 2005
Aberdeen to John O'Groats (295 miles)
Visited 7 RNLI Stations

With another early start from Aberdeen, we filtered out against the morning traffic, heading north up Peterhead and Fraserburgh. The weather was very overcast and we could see dense rain showers passing across our path all the way.

The guys in Fraserburgh RNLI station insisted that we stop for a welcome cuppa and then we were riding east through Macduff and Buckie before crossing the Inverness bridge and looping round to the Station which was right under the bridge. We were freezing cold again and went in for another cup of tea (Japanese Miso soup in my case) and a chat with a bunch of RNLI trainer people who were holding a meeting at the station.

As were were riding away up the side of the firth, I realised there were loads of seals lying on the rocks just off the shoreline. Having 3-4" of blubber obviously helps cut the windchill factor.

We hammered on up the A9 to Invergordon and then onto Wick. The air temperature was around 2 celcius and there were plenty of freezing rain showers. Even with two set of thermals, a teeshirt and a fleece under my thermal lined riding gear I was still freezing my t*ts off.

Several times, as we rode high on the slopes above the coast, we were able to see oil rigs far out to sea. As we left Wick I had a couple of scary blackouts which could only have lasted a microsecond, but made me realise we really needed to stop soon. By a miracle, the overcast cleared and the sun broke through some nice fluffy clouds. Even with the freezing wind, our suits picked up some radient energy and we both felt a lot better for it.

Another 1/2 hours riding and we reached John O'Groats. The weather was still sunny and there were some great views of the Orkneys. Chris wandered off to buy some postcards and after a walk round, I returned to the carpark to find another F650GS had appeared. Coincidence is a strange thing.

After settling down in the local YHA, a Tardis like little house, we rode down past the old Queen mum's castle and had a nice meal in the local hotel. Chris went out for a final photosession, while I showered and kipped down for the night.