We were stopping the night in Lochinver that evening so it was important we left bright and early. Everyone took this onboard and for once we were all ready on time.
Our first stop of the day was a small golf club where we enjoyed tea and scones, very civilized, the man and wife (or brother and sister, or maybe both) couple were charming with the old boy warning us about the one unmarked police car in Scotland.
We took it in turns to take the lead but it was Mark Stobart Breeze who drew the short straw over the Applecross Pass. OMG talk about dodgey. Zero visibility, slating rain, tiny twisty near vertical (ok maybe a small exaggeration) slippy roads with Kamikazi camper van drivers coming at you in the opposite direction. Mark took his responsibility as leader of the group in true TopGear fashion heading to the to with barely a concern or look back to his teammates behind him. Last to the top was Gavin Looking less than impressed with the danger we had just put him and his beloved Triumph in (mainly the Triumph). Hanible Lee Hughes shook his head on reaching the to exclaiming that in all his 62 years riding that was the "stupidest thing he had ever done on a bike". We had a choice to make, head back the way we had come which would have cut many miles out of our route to Lochinver, or continue down the pass and take the coast road. There was a unanimous decision that there is no way any of us wanted to go down the road we had just ridden up and so we soldiered on to the sea.
Richard Forsyth then took the lead and headed out to Eilean Donan castle which we all knew from films such as Highlander and The World is Not Enough. We were glad of an opportunity to get off the bikes as the weather had been shocking. Forsyth, enjoying his escape from the nursing home enjoyed his time in front of all them there "whipper snappers"
We made it to Lochinver and took a wonder to the pub and then on to Peet's restaurant. We were tempted to tell them the obvious spelling error but decided not to just in case they did something to our food.
As young blokes we all get the privilege to pass on the legend of the beer scooter. A mythical machine that come the morning is the only possible explanation for how you got home after the pub. Well we discovered not one, but two of these magical machines upside Peet's restaurant.
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