FROM HIPPIES TO HIGH ROLLERS IN SCOTLAND
On the road north from Gairloch, the rowan berries were out in force, which my wife would say heralds a hard winter and, at Ullapool, biking buddy Peter Murtagh and I sat and drank coffee on the sea wall as we watched the ferry to the Shetlands pull out.
After a year and a half of being enforced hermits, how fine it was to be out in the world, to chat to fellow travellers, dip briefly into their lives, then saddle up and ride on north through stunning scenery to Durness, where John Lennon spent childhood holidays and where, in the 1950s Cold War, the RAF built an early warning station to listen out for those nasty Russians.
Never used, the prefab buildings were later rented then sold to arty, crafty hippie types, who, in what’s now called Balnakeil Craft Centre, live in one end of the buildings and sell their wares at the other.
I felt a strange, sad empathy for the place, not just as a pilot because of the RAF link, but because my sisters and I grew up in the back of a Nissen hut while Dad ran his little motorbike garage in the front.
Turning east, we made slow progress along the north coast on more single-track roads, thinking what a gridlock this must be in the summer.
After the compulsory photo stop at John O’Groats, in the dying sun we rode south to Wick, having done 249 miles that day, at least 50 of it on single-track roads.
Still, it had been a glorious mix of rugged coast, wild moorland, baffled sheep and bleak farmhouses beside lonely lakes, just crying out for Jessica Lange to come striding across the heather in a scene from Rob Roy to cheer them up a bit.
Instead, we cheered ourselves up with succulent lamb shank washed down with local ales in Mackays Hotel in Wick, just around the corner from Ebenezer Place, the world’s shortest street at 6ft 9ins.
Our final night was at the lovely old Royal Golf Hotel in Dornoch, which has won several awards for both it and its golf course, and deserves more for its food.
We were having a drink on the terrace before dinner when a significant helicopter landed and was met by a limo with tinted windows.
“Was that someone important in the helicopter last night?” we asked the waitress at breakfast.
“No, just someone with money,” she said.