It's a long way from Inveraray

I had been worried about this trip for a number of days and had already voiced my concerns to Biggsey. My timetable planning hadn't really allowed for traffic delays or that some of the guys wouldn't feel comfortable travelling at the same speed I would (I'll learn for next time), so with over 3 hours journey time to the port at Cairnryan and with Glasgow to get by, I thought we were in danger of missing the ferry. We decided we would leave a couple of hours early, hoping this would avoid traffic on the twisty roads and the rush hour around Glasgow.

We agreed on a 5:30 departure, setting our alarms (or so we thought) for 4:45. I forwent the pleasure of my earplugs, as I wanted to make sure I heard my alarm, so spent most of the night with a pillow over my ears.  I needn't have worried though, at 4:05 Grizzly's alarm chirped into life to wake us all up! Alarm silenced, I drifted back off to sleep only to be awoken again by the same bloody chirruping. Grizzly had hit snooze, de tick Irish fecker!

All now awake we got ourselves ready. Good job nobody else was up, the haggis supper was making its presence known in the toilets. I swear my eyes were watering at one stage, though I shan't disclose which Triumph rider was 'doing his thing' at the time!

We sat down to a basic 'wee breakfast', that the Slovakian girl at the hostel had prepared for us the night before, knowing we were going to be leaving early and contemplated the task in front of us. That being, to get all our gear on the bikes and get away, before we got devoured by the gazillions of midges that were circling around the bikes.

Did we make it? Read on......

Main Street, East and West, Inveraray