Table of contents
- On the way: reunion with Scotland With the BMW R 1200 RT through Scotland
- With the BMW R 1200 RT through Scotland: Part 2
- Info
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24 pictures
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Piping Competition or Bagpipe Competition in Glenfinnan.
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In the vastness of the highlands, sun and rain alternate.
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The steepest passes in the Lake District challenge the fat BMW boxer.
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Small versus large: the pony examines the BMW R 1200 RT with great interest.
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Green areas wherever you look.
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…or tree trunks, mostly done by men with upper arms like beer kegs and thighs like whiskey kegs.
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For the Scots, whiskey is the water of life.
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The Highland Cattle is the most beautiful cattle in the world.
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Life pulsates in Edinburgh.
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The red cell, a British original.
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Breathtaking landscapes are nothing out of the ordinary in Scotland.
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The Lake District pleases with its mysterious paths.
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Not only haggis, the Italian around the corner also has it all.
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Wherever you look, Scotland reveals fascinating landscapes.
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The setting at Eilean Donan Castle also impressed Hollywood filmmakers. Highlander, Braveheart and a Bond were filmed here.
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People in Scotland like to light a pipe.
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Goodbye to Scotland.
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The Sandy Bell`s pub in Edinburgh…
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Scottish tradition: the kilt and the dagger in the right stocking.
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…convinces with a good mood, beer and music.
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The Isle of Mull is one of the rainiest islands in Scotland.
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Shipwrecks on the Isle of Mull.
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Blue hour in Ullapool.
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At the Highland Games, you practice bizarre sports like hammer throwing…
to travel
Out and about: Through Scotland with the BMW R 1200 RT
On the way: reunion with Scotland
With the BMW R 1200 RT through Scotland
Herbert made his first motorcycle trip to Scotland 30 years ago. This mystical land has been fermenting in him ever since. Because he was about to test drive the new BMW R 1200 RT anyway, he traveled again to see whiskeys, kilts and bagpipes.
Ramona Black
03/18/2010
Scotland. Herbert Schwarz was there for the first time thirty years ago. A tour that never left him. So he persuaded his wife Ramona to go again. The memories of the old journey flowed into the new one. That’s why Herbert first has to tell about the first tour before Ramona reports on the current trip and the Scotland tour gets really round.
Herbert: Her name was Sylviane. I had a total crush on her. It was because of you that I bought my first motorcycle. I even broke the law because of her…
My parents, who always wanted only the best for me, put me in an all-boys class from fifth onwards – a new experiment at our grammar school that ultimately failed. Proponents of this type of teaching agreed that the gender segregation climate would have a very positive effect on my personal and intellectual development. I disagreed.
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When I was 17, the student exchange with France, where there were mixed classes, left my testosterone levels messed up. After four weeks, Sylviane drove back home to Brittany. I had to see her again! Quickly! Vannes was 1,150 kilometers away. My moped was in the basement. After doing it secretly “technically revised” the top speed was 40 km / h – downhill and with a tailwind. 25 km / h was officially allowed. For four days and nights I drove what the mill gave. Then I hugged Sylviane. It could not go on like that! To increase my travel speed, I bought my buddy his 13,000 kilometer old Suzuki GT 550, a three-cylinder two-stroke engine, for a thousand marks. At a forced pace, she swallowed 13 liters per 100 kilometers. That corresponded exactly to the tank volume.
In a dream I saw myself alone with Sylviane on an exotic island. Air tickets were unaffordable. When I virtually scanned the world map in my head, I got stuck with Great Britain. Close and still lonely enough. Sylviane liked the idea of a motorcycle tour around Scotland. When the planning was in the final stages, my rose-colored glasses got cracked. My girlfriend had just gone to Reunion in the Indian Ocean – on the wrong island in the wrong sea. And what was even worse: without me!
I still wanted to go to Scotland. Against my broken heart, I had prescribed the endless expanse of the Highlands. The sympathy of my big sister Erika went so far that she stepped on the Suzi behind me in jeans, hiking boots and a blue rain suit. In this terrible state, she couldn’t possibly leave me alone.
After the not insignificant investment in a new motorcycle, I was pretty burned out financially. The money was just enough for a leather suit and boots. During the first big downpour, the water ran unfiltered everywhere into the Aldi single wall tent. With the cold, damp prospect of freezing all night in cheap sleeping bags, we decided to switch to youth hostels. The olive-green cotton duffel bag with our things was past its prime. So we wrapped it in foil to protect it from the rain, the kind that you usually put under when wallpapering. This oversized candy, lashed across the bench, made a hell of a noise.
On the road: Germany – France – Lake District, in the north-west of England. Fine drizzle. When accelerating out of a curve, a wooden beam suddenly lay on the wet asphalt. Then everything went very fast. I hit the brakes and … slipped away. My sister stayed on the motorcycle as a precaution. In slow motion, my left knee hit the beam. Then I saw something terrible. In later accounts of the cause of the accident, it would have sounded more elegant if I had slipped on an invisible trail of oil. Instead, the entire pavement was littered with fresh sheep ….
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The vastness of the Highlands also helps with heart pains.
We got up. Seconds later, a car with a feisty civilian nurse pulled up. She was on vacation in Europe with her family. “Must be sewn”, she diagnosed the deep, three centimeter long wound on my knee and piled our duffel bag, which smelled strongly of sheep, on her vacation luggage. Erika only had a bruise. “And the beam?”, I asked on the way to the nearest hospital. “It’s so common here. When a farmer drives his sheep across the road, he warns the traffic.”
Hospital – police station – back to the scene of the accident. My damaged motorcycle was confiscated in the meantime. The helpful village policeman got us a bed in a youth hostel. Half the night he fought his ears to straighten the fork again, remove the indicators and handlebars from his BSA and attach them to my Suzuki, and cover the broken headlight with luminescent foil. Before the journey continued with improvised spare parts, we glued plastic bags to the holes in our rain suits.
Change of scene: In a youth hostel I meet Schweini (Hans Peter Schweikert) with a friend who is on the road in a BMW R 75/6 in the same style as we are. He’s easy going. He’s funny. He knows his way around. Sympathy at first sight. Together we drive to the end of Scotland. “If I ever come back here it will be with a better motorcycle”, I promise myself. The opportunity arises 30 years later.
With the BMW R 1200 RT through Scotland: Part 2
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Wild, mystical land; rough, warm-hearted people.
Ramona: I blow the cobwebs off the old, tattered map of Scotland that Herbert found in the attic and slide it into the map compartment of the tank bag. The route he drew back then has faded but can still be seen. We want to follow her. On a motorcycle that doesn’t actually exist yet, at least not officially.
Herbert has achieved what many dream of and successfully turned his great passion motorcycle travel into a full-time job. His baby is called Touratech. In his accessories forge in the Black Forest, 198 motorcycle enthusiasts from 18 nations are constantly working on practical detailed solutions for everything you need to be on the road with a motorcycle for longer. In the Streetline development laboratory, the technicians are currently working on new parts for the redesigned BMW R 1200 RT the end. In search of a suitable location for an endurance test, Herbert virtually scans the world map in his head and … gets stuck with Scotland. A dejà vu. Why not?
On the road, the second: Germany – France – Lake District. In time lapse with a sonorous humming dohc boxer, we reel off the miles on the asphalt strip of the M 6, from Dover to a sign for Windermere. Pictures are lined up: black lakes shimmer in the backlight like aluminum foil, crouched houses made of gray stone, sunspots on green hills, balls of white sheep in the purple heather, narrow, steep single track roads spiral curve by curve into the rugged solitude of the Cumbrian Mountains up.
When the stagecoach still drove from London to Edinburgh, Gretna Green was the first village in Scotland. For over 200 years, the village blacksmith was a myth among underage runaways. Without much fanfare (parental permission), a fourteen-year-old could officially marry a twelve-year-old. The smith trusted as soon as two witnesses were there. What chase dramas must have happened here from time to time? Angry fathers who tried by all means to prevent the marriage at the last moment. Today’s Gretna has little to do with romance, so we continue west.
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The Sandy Bell`s pub in Edinburgh impresses with a good mood, beer and music.
1977 ran “Mull of Kintyre” up and down on the radio. After separating from the Beatles, Paul McCartney and his Wings fled to a small studio on Kintyre to make music again. Herbert liked the kitschy catchy tune so much that he really wanted to go to this windswept cape.
Curious: the guys from the British film censorship agency were also enthusiastic. When the “Moral guardian” Looking closer at Kintyre on the map, they saw … a slightly erect penis – the inspiration for the “Mull Of Kintyre Test”. Accordingly, no penis is allowed to stand steeper in the film than the phallus-like peninsula facing the Scottish mainland.
Unfortunately, a storm thwarted our plan to follow in the footsteps of Herbert’s past on the treeless hilltop and take a look at Northern Ireland. Island hopping is the tactic we use to escape from the black wall of clouds that is constantly threatening to catch up with us. From the Scottish mainland to the Isle of Arran, to Kintyre, to the Isle of Mull, back to the mainland and over to Skye.
The banks of Loch Shiel are like a fair: sticky cotton candy is sold from small stalls; the suckling pig spit rotates over the embers; Barley juice flows freely. High spirits. Strong men with upper arms like beer kegs and thighs like whiskey kegs measure their strength on a meadow that has been converted into an arena. Highly concentrated. Spectators in kilts with sporran (wallet), rain cape and dagger in the right stocking tense watch the disciplines of heavyweights: tree trunk rollover, stone throwing, hammer throwing. Girls with pinned up hair dance traditional Scottish dances in front of strict umpires. Bagpipers blow for their lives with swollen carotid arteries while little gray-haired jurors take notes.
The grandiose backdrop of Eilean Donan Castle, as it towers quietly and enchanted over the dark Loch Duich, disappears in the rearview mirror. In front of us lies the wildest part of Scotland, the rugged west coast. The lonely roads to the roaring sea just seem to be gently laid on the landscape. Sharp beauty: a rainbow stretches across windswept plains with crippled pines and thistles.
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Shipwrecks on the Isle of Mull.
After the sheer cliffs of Dunnet Head, the northern tip of Great Britain, the landscape softens. An overcast, windless day. Picnic time. But not for us. Hungry midges attack by the thousands. It’s August – the biting season. Our blood, which does not yet taste like whiskey in direct comparison with that of the Scots, comes in handy for the females to produce eggs. Fumigating, chemical clubs, keeping your helmet on, chain smoking are defense strategies that we reject. It seems more effective to drink so much hard liquor that the tiny mosquitoes die of alcohol poisoning if they bite you. One shot tonight should be enough for us to have our rest from tomorrow.
Angel Share, the alcohol that evaporates during whiskey storage, shows us the way to Glen Ord. That “water of life”, that is distilled in this still is a single malt called Singleton. The flat, motorcycle suitcase-friendly bottle accompanies us to the monolith on the A 68. At the border stone between Scotland and England, Herbert says: “Now I know what I wanted in a motorcycle 30 years ago.”
Info
Drawing: archive
The Tour of Scotland: Duration: 24 days; Distance driven: 4900 kilometers.
Scotland, now part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was an independent kingdom until 1707. When you meet real Scots, you might think they are still independent. Your country is great for motorcycle travel if you are not afraid of water.
General:
Scotland is a very green piece of earth. In other words: it rains a lot there. “Four seasons in a day”, say the locals, referring to the constantly changing weather conditions. Not a dream destination for fog and rain-shy sun worshipers! If you are looking for driving enjoyment through atmospheric landscapes and you can take advantage of the capricious weather, Scotland is the right place for you. Gently rolling hills give the landscape in the Eastern Highlands a tranquil character. The rough west coast is very different: deep fjords, mysterious moors and rugged mountains. It is quiet and lonely in the Inner and Outer Hebrides. The Scots have a good sense of humor, which is a surprisingly positive trait given the climate. They are hospitable, helpful and immensely proud of their cultural heritage. You have researched, invented and discovered a lot: the logarithm goes back to John Napier. James Clerk Maxwell paved the way for quantum physics.
The adhesive postage stamp was a practical invention by James Chalmers. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. James Bruce found the source of the blue Nile, the great David Livingstone the Victoria Falls. Amusing: A Scot founded the world famous Bank of England.
Cliche or not. It would be a shame to turn your back on Scotland without having seen, experienced and tasted it: a venerable castle, the traditional Highland Games and a real single malt.
country:
Capital: Edinburgh
Area: 78772 km2
Foundation: 843 AD.
Currency: pound sterling
Population: 5,094,800
Directions:
Coming from mainland Europe, you can take the train through the Eurotunnel in 35 minutes (a strange feeling to know these enormous masses of water above you) or take the ferry from Calais to Dover in an hour and a half. From there it is another 750 kilometers on asphalt to the Scottish capital. The night ferry from Amsterdam, which docks in Newcastle after 15 hours, is much more relaxed. It is another 200 kilometers by road to Edinburgh. A price and route comparison between the individual shipping companies is worthwhile.
meal & Sleep:
Scottish cuisine is simple and nutritious. A typical culinary day could look like this: porridge or black pudding (blood sausage) for breakfast, haggis (offal cooked in a mutton’s stomach) for lunch, tea and scones in the afternoon and smoked haddock (smoked haddock) for dinner, rounded off with a shot of whiskey.
In larger cities you can find overnight stays in all categories and price ranges. It gets more difficult in the remote Highlands. The B is classic&B. Reservations in high season are advisable. There are plenty of beautiful campsites, including wild ones, but camping is really only for weather-proofing with good equipment. It can get quite cold in the mountains at night. The Midges are at their best in July and August.
Recommended B&Bs:
Mrs Catherine Fraser, 4 Glebe Road, Inverinate by Kyle, Highland (5 min. From Eilean Donan Castle), Tel. 01599511338, £ 60 / double room
John Bryden, Craiglea, Lochailort, Inverness-shire PH38 4LZ, Tel. 01687470404, brydens@craiglea931.fsnet.co.uk, £ 15 p. P..
Motorcycling:
Switching from right-hand to left-hand traffic is faster than you think. In a careless moment, however, you can easily fall back into well-worn behavior patterns and suddenly find yourself on the wrong side of the road after turning.
In the secluded highlands you are alone with yourself and nature. There is little traffic. As a rule of thumb, always fill the tank up when the opportunity arises. The same goes for the stomach, by the way. The road conditions can be really good or really bad. While experienced motorcyclists have pure driving pleasure on the narrow, winding single track roads, those who are inexperienced in curves can really be challenged. Oncoming traffic can cut the curve at any time. On rough, partially torn asphalt, you have a lot of rubber, i.e. tire tread, checked before the trip! Beware of free-range sheep, highland cattle and what they drop! Don’t forget rain gear and thermal underwear.
Maps, books & GPS:
Detailed maps from Ordnance Survey on a scale of 1: 250000: Western Scotland (ISBN 978-0319240601), Northern Scotland (ISBN 978-0319240595), Southern Scotland (ISBN 978-0319240618), together EUR 17.80.
For a complete overview: Michelin 501 Scotland 1: 400000 regional map, ISBN 978-2061007877, 7.50 EUR. Well researched: Scotland motorcycle travel guide, Highlights Verlag, ISBN 978-3933385291, EUR 11.90.
To get in the mood: illustrated book Scotland (Fascination Earth), Kunth Verlag, ISBN 978-3899442458, 19.90 EUR. GPS: Garmin Map Source Europe.
Internet:
www.schottland.de
www.dfdsseaways.com
www.visitscotland.com
www.undiscoverscotland.co.uk
www.bedandbreakfast-directory.co.uk
www.beduk.co.uk
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