Day 5 on the 'Follow the Blue Dot' Tour

** Route Plan

START: 9am - Fort William - Cruachan Hotel, Achintore Rd PH33 6RQ

FUEL: Crianlarich - The Green Welly Stop, Tyndrum FK20 8RY

PHOTOS/MEET: Loch Lomond - Maid of the Loch, Pier Rd, Alexandria G83 8QX 

FUEL: Prestwick - BP, Kilmarnock Rd, Monkton KA9 2RA

PHOTOS/MEET: Ayr - Ayr Pavilion, Pavilion Rd KA7 1EQ

FUEL: Girvan: ESSO, 23 Old St KA26 9HG 

PHOTOS: Girvan - Girvan Beach Car Park, KA26 9AH

MEET: Time / Place TBC

STOP: Girvan - Royal Hotel, 36 Montgomerie St KA26 9HE

** Here we go 

Henry & Dave Riding - Fort William to Loch Lomond (Balloch) to Ayr to Girvan

Disappointingly, day 5 dawned in a somewhat grey and wet fashion. This didn't dampen our spirits though as from this, the northernmost point of the whole tour, it would be all downhill from here... right??? We had breakfast and got ready to get underway. As he had stayed at different hotel, we waited for Alan to join us and I took a few atmospheric (aka soggy) pictures that were followed by many others of the same ilk as the day progressed. For the first part of the journey, we followed the same route down as we did up i.e. on the A82, riding right along the Loch; it was bloody lovely. Just a bit moist! From the Ballachulish Bridge we continued down the A82, with me taking pictures and video as I was driving ... all very careful and legal (ish) I promise!  I have to be honest, the weather made for some seriously beautiful and moody shots (still and moving) especially around Glencoe, but the timing of taking them whilst driving, in between raindrops and windscreen wiper blades was a bit challenging.  Other than that, I was warm and dry in the van ... the boys were not quite so lucky! Even wet though, we were back at the Green Welly by about 10:30. Amazingly, even on a damp day, people had still come out to see us and we were joined by Raymond Mcleod who had ridden out from Alloa (about 55 miles away) to meet up and join us for a bit of the ride. There was also another couple there who had been in Fort William the night before and my ego says that they had driven down to see us (but they may have just been going home)! Alan's panels came off again as he was still fettling his carb but we were all soon back on the way heading south. At Crianlarich however we moved away from our retracing our previous day's journey and headed south-west, along the banks of Loch Lomond. And brilliantly, the weather brightened up a bit. 

A car park in Balloch was the home for a national rally in 1982  (car parks were definitely a theme...) and trying to pin down a place for a meet and greet without knowing any local contacts was a bit of a challenge. In the end, we just looked it up on Google Maps (other map apps available) and picked an area on the banks of the loch, somewhat out of town, that looked a bit like it could accommodate us and anyone who turned up.  By pure chance, we picked the car park by Balloch Pier - where the now dry-docked Maid of the Loch is located - and being the advance party, I pulled in and parked up about midday, not really expecting to see anyone. I turned around however, and there they were ... a host of scooterists who had ridden out from various places to meet us. Henry's Sat Nag had had a bit of a brain fart however, not directing him to where he was supposed to be, so after a brief stop and several hurried telephone conversations, he got back on track and they arrived shortly afterwards. After the now obligatory photo shoot; and still with over half the day's planned mileage to go, it was time to hit the road again. 

With somewhat changeable weather, the next stretch of our journey took us to the North West of Glasgow; leaving the A82 and on to the M8 to go over the Erskine Bridge, skirting the edge of the city before we left the motorway and got back onto our more favoured (and picturesque) A roads. As with all of our stops, at Balloch, Henry had set up his Sat Nag for the next stop - which in this case was the BP Petrol Station at Prestwick (or that was the plan) and I headed that way. I pulled into the services and met up with the waiting local scooterists - we chatted for a bit, comparing our views of the boys progress via the Blue Dot and ... watched the blue dot blithely sail right on by!  So then we were all in catch up mode - as I moved from advance party to an unexpected rear party, with the rest of our team and members of the Ayr Honest Men SC amongst others all following Henry to our meeting point at the Pavilion. 

Ayr hosted a single rally in 1981 and all the information we could find about the campsite of that rally was "between the docks and the railway yard" so again it was hard for us to find a place to meet and greet folk and / or take pictures. This is where that scooter related serendipity comes into play AGAIN and takes us to another sidenote!  Earlier in the year, Henry had taken advantage of the Portrush scooter rally to add Ireland to the vast list of places that he has ridden his SX to. On the ferry on the way back though, he met a scooterist called Pauline from Girvan and told her about our plans. Pauline isn't on FB but her other half Bryan is and by the power of Greyskull (oops sorry wrong topic) it wasn't long before he reached out to me. It turns out that Bryan is from Ayr and we had several conversation planning both our Ayr and Girvan stops. For Ayr, he confirmed that the campsite was called Newton Shore but the stalls and do would have been at Ayr Pavilion. He even took the time out to go for a quick scooter ride and take pictures of where the campsite had been and send them to me for consideration. Any excuse Bryan ... Any excuse! Eventually though, we decided that as the Pavilion building is still in place, (even though repurposed) it made sense to make that our our stopping/meeting/photo opp point. I didn't consider parking though! My bad! When I finally found a parking spot (that I could safely get into whilst retaining a degree of credibility) I had to then walk (for what felt like) miles, back to the Pavilion to see a impressive array of scooters parked up. I took a few pictures (of course) and met the lovely Archie Thom who I had also been corresponding with. Archie and his family are going through their own struggles with Alzheimers but he had taken the time out to meet us and ride along. I wasn't emotional about that at all.  Sooner rather than later though, it was time to move on and it was at this point that Alan decided to leave us; he had continued to have carb issues despite many attempts to diagnose and resolve so thought it better to head home in daylight rather than following us to Girvan and adding time, waning light and mileage onto his trip home.  Thank you Alan for your company on our epic trip. 

Our last stint of Day 5 was only 20 odd miles but it was made longer by the trek back to where I had parked the van and the drive to where all the scooters were waiting for me.  Oops.  We rode down some fabulous roads to get to Girvan, ably led by Bryan, Pauline and friends passing the somewhat ugly Trump Turnberry Hotel and Resort. I think I might make disparaging remarks on this on the video ... considering this all took place some 7 months ago, and bearing in mind the current circumstances, I have no apology for that at all and no f*cks to give! 

Girvan hosted national rallies in 1986 and '87 and both rallies were based at Hamilton Park (home of Girvan FC); coincidentally, this was on our route and Bryan pointed it out to us as we went past but for lots of reasons, we had picked the Memorial Fountain on the seafront for pictures, so went straight there, arriving at around a fabulous 4pm.  Needless to say, despite the early finish, we chatted a lot and faffed around a lot more before finally getting to our hotel just before 6 with plans for the evening ahead already agreed.  Completely going against the grain, we found ourselves in the alien surroundings of the bar of our hotel not long afterwards, meeting Bryan and Pauline again, who had brought along original clippings from local newspapers published after the aforementioned rallies. We were a despicable bunch - allegedly. Although cynically, opinions seem to be divided between those who wanted to make money from us, and those who didn't!  From the pub we went to find an open Chippy for tea - which was bloody marvellous; just what we needed - and then on to another pub where we met up with a few other scooterists from earlier in the day. A couple of them work for a local distillery and had brought presents in the form of both club merch and alcohol. Sorry East Lothian SC - your gift of local beer was trumped (but only by a little bit)!  After a few drinks and a great evening, we retired to our hotel for the night. 

In my excitement to get to the pub (oops sorry, the hotel); I forgot to screenshot the Blue Dot map so it is missing from the pictures and video page. Sorry folks. I will ask His Lordship if he took one, and if he did ... then this paragraph will mysteriously disappear and a photo will miraculously appear on the 'other' page!