RNLI Fundraising trip
Round the Coastline of Britain

Day 9 20th May 2005
Loch Lomond to Arnside, South Cumbria (463 miles)
Visited 11 RNLI Stations

We were both rather sorry to have to leave the Loch Lomond YHA, although the party of Germans who had arrived late and filled our otherwise empty dorm made for a noisy and restless night as they snored and rolled around in their bunks. A herd of Hippos could not havebeen louder.

Soon the clouds lowered and we were treated to what the west coast of Scotland does best. Rain. solid, chilly rain. Thank god we had stopped yesterday for my Contour Plus boots, as they shrugged of all the weather could throw at them and kept my feet nice and warm.

Our first stop was at Largs, where I grew up. Things did not seem to have changed much, although we did not have time to explore and the constant rain made it preferable to keep our helmets on and stay on the bikes in the hope we would ride out from under it on our way south.

After keeping to the coast on the A719 south of Ayr, we joined the bigger A77 and were immediately pulled over by the police who had about a dozen bikes, lots of cars and mobile office parked up in a large layby. They took the usual details, but didn't seem to interested in our bikes (Phew, my rear tyre had 2" of slick rubber on its centreline). It turned out that they were stopping all passing bikes as there were hordes of superbikers on their way to catch ferries to the North West 200. They seemed amazed that we were not on our way there and did not even know that it was on.

By the time we reached Stranraer, the rain had stopped and after our usual late breakfast, where I had the best Scotch Pies I have had in a long time, we moved on and onto some of the better roads of our travels. Little tracks with grass up the middle, hares hopping down them and tractors were the only vehicles we saw for a while.

I really took to the gentle scenery of Galloway and Dumfries. The town were prettier than the run of the mill Scottish breezeblock and Granite planning and the roads were well made and quiet. Perfect for burning up on a 650. Soon we were looping round the end of the Solway Firth and back into England.

After a couple of calls to YHA's to check for beds, we decided to make the run all the way to Arnside in the south east of Cumbria. This was going to be a long day in the saddle, but the weather looked like staying dry and we wanted to give ourselves an easy day tomorrow as I had arranged for a new tyre to be fitted near Flint in North Wales.

Barrow RNLI station on Roa Island gave us some great photo opportunities as the light was good and the low tide had left boats of various sized beached like something from a film set.

Soon afterwards we were off round the coast belting past the traffic in our desire to reach Arnside. As we moved east the clouds came back down and the roads got a bit wetter, so we gave up chaing the locals who knew exactly where the bends were and we just aimed to keep the rubber side down. By the time we reached Arnside we had been riding for over 14 1/2 hours and were definitely feeling it. Unfortunately it was Friday night and both pubs had bands playing which meant that no food was being served by the time we got there. Ho hum.