Stu's Rusty Bucket

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Fort William

Well, the Scottish trip was a BLAST! It was fantastic. Camping was great, the mountain biking was great and the company of Kiwi Stu and Helen was also great… (in a nutshell).

I did get a few pics, hope to get them into my gallery about.. now! (done).

The train ride up (first class) to Darlington was great. So peaceful and quiet in first class. Free tea and coffee and biscuits.. oooooh I’m adicted to first class. Extra space, no noise… ooooohh..
The first night up we stayed in a campsite in Glasgow, right in the city somewhere… That was an experience…

Breakfast that morning was a Little Chef in Tyndrum.. the LC’s charge like a wounded bull for toast and tea… Stu put away enough for 5 people (beans, fried egg, potato, snags, bacon, etc). Me, I stuck to the toast…

That saturday morning we arrived at Glen Nevis campsite right at the foot of Ben Nevis… It was.. awe inspiring. Scotlands largest mountain…

First I’ll cover the MTBing… It was awesome! First day we saw the cross country races, these poor folks were riding 5 laps (42km) around a mountain on all kinds of terrain.. It lasted 2 or 3 hours.. We saw a great mix of bikes, mostly hardtail, some full sussers. Some poor blokes lost a seat, but kept his seat post, another lost his seat post!! Imaging riding 42km around a mountain and not being able to sit down!!! aaaaaaargh! torture.

Later that day/evening we watched the 4x. That was pretty cool. Basically its a short BMX track using mountain bikes… We waited ages, scored a good spot and some wanky TV/Photo geezers rocked up in front of us with a ‘sorry’ yeah sorry my arse!! bastards. :( Someone landed on their head? in the 4x warmup.. ambulanced off. very unlucky.

Poor old Steve Peat pranged and had some nasty full back graze/bruise and what looked like a limp.

We also walked down the downhill course, damn, was that hard to just walk down it!!

Next morning we had brekkie at Safeways for 1/10th the cost of the Little Chef.. Nice breakfast too. Fried egg on toast and tea for 1 pound 70!.

Second day saw the downhill (YEAH!) this rocked. Saw some great stuff (one poor bloke lost a CRANK! Dunno if he made it to the bottom with only one crank, but if he did, he deserved to win!). Saw some mad stacks and crashes, no serious injury today that I saw.

Steve Peat was carrying injury and only managed to land 19th place… Better luck next year peaty…

Today also turned out to be Stus birthday!! We went to a restaurant and then had a few drinks in the pub.

The campsite we were at (Glen Nevis) was good. A great clean shower block, hot showers. I got a chance to test out some new gear (The Petzl Zippka rocked). Was not all that impressed with my tent (Mountain Hardware PCT1). I’ll need to do some seam sealing on it. Being a lightweight 1 man tent, you have sacrifices… Gotta get dressed laying down. And if the fly is wet you get soaked getting out, trying to put your boots on. Also no room for the pack in there… Which reminds me I need to shorten my foam mat.

Stopped at Stu and Helens house on the way back for a few hours before the train home. They have a nice little two story house built on the old Middlesborough footy ground. Very tidy little court area.

The train home from Darlington was another nice treat with First Class.. mmm those free bickies and tea…

Got in at 10:15pm and realised I had left my good blue fleece up with Stu in his pack… doh!

overall, a fantastic weekend with good friends.