Day 4 - Monday 4th June
I got up at around 8am - Nig decided to skip breakfast as he wasn't feeling too well.
The weather was fantastic. Really sunny and the view of Portree from the B & B living room was amazing. After a nice breakfast we set off at around 10am. The Isle of Skye is a lovely place - it looked totally different with the sun out. We stopped near a big waterfall to take some pictures and pulled up right next to a dead decomposing sheep - not what Nig wanted with a monster hang-over!
As we neared the mainland the weather took a turn for the worse and it started raining. It continued to rain until we got a little further inland and then it cleared up and was nice and sunny again. We had a very nice ride with one noticeable exception. We came up behind a HGV following a slower 4x4. We saw a gap and went to overtake both vehicles. As I drew level with the rear of the tractor unit of the HGV it started to pull out to overtake - he obviously hadn't seem we were halfway through overtaking him. We both had to gun it to get past before we were run off the road. It wasn't a very nice experience. I am sometimes asked why I need such a powerful bike and I always answer because it's safer - this is a very good example why.
The rest of the ride was fantastic. We stopped at one point to take pictures and loads of supercars passed us going the other way towards Skye. There must have been a supercar event on or something but we saw plenty of very nice cars, including a Ford GT40 and various Ferraris and Porches.
We stopped at a pub in Invergarry for lunch - we both had a very nice BLT. Then we carried on really enjoying ourselves all the way to Glencoe.
As we were coming down out of the hills from Glencoe it started raining again, just before our petrol stop. The petrol station had no roof so we got very wet filling up. Then no more than a mile after the petrol station it was sunny again!
The rest of the ride to the B & B in Strathyre was very nice. I did nearly get knocked off in some roadworks. In a lot of roadworks in Scotland they have an escort vehicle to ensure you keep a slow speed through them - in this particular case it was a quad bike - but the driver wasn't paying attention to the lights and only pulled out in front of me when i was right upon him. As he was parked behind a portacabin there was no way for me to see him before he pulled out. Thankfully the brakes on the VFR are very good so I managed to avoid catastrophe!
We had been given the family room for our final nights stay - which was nice. It also meant we had a bath which Nig took advantage of as soon as we got in. Then we went out for a ride on the bikes - we jumped on each others bike to see what the other one was like. Nigs Z1000 was awesome. It has a very strong engine and handles like a dream. We went over to a place called Abafoyle on the most tight and twisty rode I'd ever seen.
We stopped on the way back at a nice pub in Brig O Turk for some food. I had haggis in a whiskey sauce which was very nice. Then we went back to Strathyre for a very relaxing night in the pub, playing free pool and chess.