A weekend of travelling planned!

Up at 6.30am on Saturday to get the bus down to the airport at 7.25am

Flight went on time at 9.05am from the IOM to Belfast City airport

Not a huge plane :D

Simon from the Honda Trail Bike forums met me at the airport and took me to his place for a cuppa and a muffin cooked by his lovely wife.

At noon, we went over to his friend Steve's motorcycle workshop where my new bike was waiting for me:

Here it is, a 1999 Africa Twin with the grand total of 4,292 miles on it

Steve had fitted a new chain as he thought the old one looked a but manky, and the tyres look fairly new (if mis-matched - TW on the front, Tourance on the rear)

Said goodbye to Simon, and headed for the Hein Gericke shop in Belfast to do some shopping. I was going to buy some new pants as mine were damaged in the accident, but in the end I couldn't be bothered

I then had the ferry to catch at Larne, so rode up on the motorways and main roads, following the road signs - a very blustery ride, with some rain just as I arrived in Larne

I went to check in, and the heavens opened! The guys in the security shed beckoned me in to cover as I had a wait of an hour or so:

I had a snooze on a wooden luggage rack, and they told me to wait around until they called me to go straight on the boat

The European Highlander is a pretty good-sized ferry run by P&O Irish Sea:

Tied down ready to go, with the sailing starting at 4.30pm

The crossing, bearing in mind the howling winds that the British Isles have been seeing in recent weeks, was very smooth, arriving in Cairnryan in Scotland at 6.15pm, in the dark, and cold (forecast was 2C or 36f - very cold when no heated gear!) for an 80 mile ride to Dumfries where I had a B&B booked

I'd estimated that it would take around 90 minutes to do the journey, but I was caught in amongst all the artics that had come off the ship with me. We were doing 40-45mph for 20 miles or so, although some of them were passing other heavies on corners, brows anywhere!

The road eventually opened out a bit (still only undivided single carriageway in each direction in the main!), and I was able to get up to about 65mph or so (and with less of a problem of spray from the heavies covering my visor), and I actually arrived at the B&B (including a detour when I got lost in Dumfries!), right on schedule at 8pm

I was pretty knackered by this time, so after Margaret (the owner) had shown me the bathroom, toilet and my room, I pretty much vegged out on the bed, watching a movie on TV and munching on biscuits

Slept well that night, and woke with my cellphone alarm at 8.30am - went down to breakfast where I could've had the works if I'd wanted - OJ, cereal, tea or coffee, toast and a full English! I'm not a big eater, so made do without the cooked breakfast

I set out on the final leg of the trip down to Heysham for the ferry home (I was booked on the evening ferry from Liverpool, but wanted to change it to the afternoon one from Heysham). The journey down was very blustery, making me glad I wanted to change the ferry as the evening one is a Sea Cat, not a real ferry, so would be more likely to be cancelled

I made good time, and got to Heysham in plenty of time for the 2.15pm ferry and was able to change my ticket. They then got security to open the gates so that I could put my bike in out of the wind - they didn't want it to fall over, I think, and neither did I!

In the end there were four bikes on the sailing - a Kawasaki GPX600, a Gilera scooter, a Chinese trail bike of some kind and mine, so the real bikes were out in the clamps (the scooter's wheels being too small for the clamps - he was tied to a rail)

The sailing was, umm, uncomfortable and took 30 minutes longer than normal - I managed not to blow chunks though somehow - and boy was I glad to be home

Hmm, the bike had done 4,292 miles when I picked it up, which is roughly 600 miles per year - I did 235 this weekend, almost 1/3 of that annual average

Route taken with the bike

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