So, last post included a ridiculous video of me shouting out speeds I was doing and talking about the weather. While totally avoiding to mention what was going on or where I was going or why I was going there. However, trust me when I say, this is all part of my concept.

So, although this video is not based on the Isle of Skye, nor will it refer to Scotland, it certain will explain what I’m trying to do with all this video chatty stuff. Self evident I think I thought.

So with thoughts inline with my American trip (which is for the record, a long long way away). I am hoping to bring this trip in a new dimension. And that dimension, I hope to be if not just text and photographs… but also in video format.  So from the trip to Scotland last week, I experimented with filming and having a microphone in the helmet.  This is how it came out:

Hi there,

So I have been back from Scotland a few days now, and I had a lovely time.  It was quite a revealing trip for me. However, I’ll come to this later. Firstly, allow me to tell you what we (Noel and I) got up to, and where we went.

As you can tell from my previous posts, I rode from London to the Lake District (Kendal), to meet Noel. There we loaded our bikes on to his trailer, drove to Fort William, left the van and the trailer, and drove to Skye (this part was very unpleasant) The drive to Fort William from Kendal took us approximately 5 hours in sporadic rain, taking the bikes off the trailer was in nice sunny weather which was encouraging but then the proceeding 3 hours to our camp site was in heavy rain. Thankfully, the place had a tumble dryer.

The following morning (after waking up at 4:20, and waiting patiently till 8 for Noel to wake up), we proceeded to ride round the island to Elgol where thankfully the weather stayed sunny.

With the weather on your side, most things seem fine and nice, I certainly enjoyed that day quite a lot.

From there we rode back to the mainland, proceeded to get a little lost before finding our way to the high pass leading to Applecross (highest pass in the U.K. so we were told).  That night we wild camped near a car park where there was a bench… much to be said about having a somewhere to sit.

The following day, as I mentioned before we rode round the Applecross peninsular north, where Noel ran out of fuel just before Sheildaig, which unbeknown to us, did not have fuel, so my half-litre loan of fuel later turned out to be a further litre of fuel. We stopped at Sheildaig for cake and coffee and then proceeded to search for fuel. At a town called Kinlochewe Noel found fuel, and as we proceeded to drive east we were greeted with dark skies that could only be described as “night”, we swiftly turned around, drove back to Kinlochewe, and made for lunch. After a few minutes of unpacking our cooking gear, the same dark skies gravitated over us. Making use of a bridge with low water level, we sat and cooked up spam and eggs for lunch.

By the time we finished eating and chatting the rain subsided. We then proceeded to ride south. Following a road to the old ferry crossing to Skye in a small bay was a little village called Glenegl where we camped on the beach, where there was tonnes of drift wood, so a fire was no problem at all.  The lighting was perfect and so was the backdrop so I proceeded to make my Redhead Windscreens parody video (mainly because I didn’t receive it before I left on the trip).

The following day we made our way back to Fort William in hard rain, which made for horrible riding, I was frozen to the core and couldn’t wait to get into the dry.

So in conclusion I should share with you that: I found that my waterproofing isn’t waterproof: trousers/jacket/boots, could do with replacing… but I could have told you that over a year ago.  In addition, I could also point out that on route I found that Daisy has developed a drinking habit, oh yes, she’s out of control. In the past 300 miles since returning from Scotland she has consumed an entire litre of oil.

I now declare Daisy: decommissioned (until rebuild is complete). 

Yesterday, we rode from Sligachan (Skye) to the other side of the island, to a small fishing village called Elgol (very picturesque).
Then back tracked to the Skye bridge, with various photographic stops on the way then to take the high pass to Applecross (highest in Britain). Great bendies. We then circulated round the peninsular to a discreet place where we pitched up for the night.

Today, a rode round the rest if the peninsular to find Noel had ran out of fuel, after lending him some of mine, we limped to a small village called Shieldaig, where we had no luck in finding fuel. So a little more of a loan out of Daisy’s vast supply we proceeded to Kinlochewe were he was saved. After a brief battle rain, taking shelter under a bridge and having lunch. We then headed down Glen Carron back south. Now rested on the shore, with a drift wood fire on a bay near the Kylerhae ferry crossing.

Tomorrow we’ll head back to Fort William to load or bikes back on the van and go back to Kendal.

Hi guys, just a short line to tell you I’m in Skye with Noel. Drove up yesterday in his van with our bikes on his trailer.

Weather up here from the lake district was intermittent, at Fort William the weather was promising with the sun shining on us. This is where we left the van. 10 minutes on our bikes we were greeted with a wonderful display of Scottish rain….for the next 2 hours it rained until we arrived at our campsite. I was frozen, my boots leaked so much my soles were numb. Thankfully, the campsite had hot showers and a tumble dryer.

Things this morning look promising!

Hey guys,

As you may have or may have not noticed, I have quickly (in the matter of 3 hours) knocked out a brand new design to my Neil’s In… site.  I somehow felt that “Neil’s in Africa” just wasn’t cutting it any more for my trip to Scotland. I hope you like it and I look forward to bringing you more exciting stories of my travels soon!

Next week I am planing on heading up to Scotland with me old chum Noel for a few days around Skye and the surrounding area. Daisy is looking quite happy about this. I look forward to sharing done photos soon!

Hi there, I’m very sad to tell you that I have now been back in the UK for almost a month.

Cold cold London

Yes, how did this happen? I cannot tell you! Suffice to say, despite being incredibly lethargic and depressed since returning things are good, I’ve been busy mending things around the new house, compiling a pimping CV and visiting friends I haven’t seen since the summer.

So the last country on the trip (South Africa), was somewhat a rushed thing. I cannot tell you exactly why, but looking back we seemed to do it as fast as possible. Of what I recall, our biggest event, was trying to book our bikes to be shipped home, the rest just fades off at the edges. I should point out, our bikes still haven’t arrived and we packed them up the day before flying home.  That’s shipping for you!

…in Summary:

From Windhoek, Cam, Craig, Eve (Craig’s girlfriend on the back of his bike) and I headed south towards Sossusvlei (big sand dunes, pictured as Namibia). From there headed down to the Fish River Canyon (a big gorge which has some breath taking scenery), then onto Orange River where we camped one night before leaving Namibia.  Following morning we met the Germans (Max & Jakob) at the border. Refer to the previous post with pictures.

Day 1 in South Africa (20/12/2010) we got as far as Strandfontein (Namakwa), where other than a near river crossing adventure the day was rather dull. We ended the day in some beach-resort camp-site/caravan village thing where we were following Jakob’s GPS which informed us of campsites in the area, alas, they were saturated and after poodling around for a while, discovered that that wasn’t going to work out for us. Luckily, while a couple of us waited for the others to find an alternative campsite, a local man came out of his chalet and offered us his driveway to camp on. Thankfully, the others returned to tell us there was no space in the other campsite either. So we turned to Stavi (our new host) who made our first night in South Africa amazing. Worked out he had been overlanding in Angola, and had lots of photos to show us, he also owned a vineyard and had lots of wine to offer the others, so the night ended quite merry.

Day 2 (21/12/2010) Stafi had booked us a reservation in a restaurant in Jacob’s Bay called Isabella’s, he also booked us a night in the camping ground in Jacob’s Bay, and planned our route out for us. What an amazing guy! A few hours later and there we were, eating in Isabella’s an epic seafood meal.  Off topic: check out the massive red grass hopper!

Day 3 (22/12/2010)  we arrived in Cape Town, met with Bernd (the guy in the Landy who we last saw in Tiwi Beach, Kenya) and headed toward the Cape of Good Hope where we did our little photo-shoot, turning round and heading back to Cape Town and I had a fuel starvation problem with Daisy, lost sight of the others and ended up lost without a hope. Pure Irony: I crossing Africa without a map and without tools, and at the very end when I’m at the destination I break down and get lost!? Thankfully, help came in the form of a telephone call from the others while re-fueling. I met them at the cable car for table mountain and off we went again.

Day 4 (23/12/2010) the day was spent ringing around for quotes on getting our bikes freighted home.

Day 5 (24/12/2010), Christmas eve was spent walking around the city centre for me, Cam Craig and Eve went wine tasting and then the evening celebrated with all of us (including our German friends) at a restaurant called Butcher’s Grill, meat there was amazing.

Day 6 (25/12/2010), Christmas day:  Craig, Eve, Cam and I went to the beach which was lovely to do on Christmas day, thinking that back home snow was on the ground and everyone suffering the cold. Fun to think about while lapping up the sun’s hot rays.

Day 7 (26/12/2010),  Boxing day; We went to a concert in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to watch Civil Twilight, not a band we had heard of before, but it was on, and Jakob and his girlfriend (Susi) were going to be there so we went along.

Day 8 (27/12/2010),  We climbed Table Mountain, prior to Eve heading home.  Sadly, the table-cloth was on the table (a euphemism for there being cloud on the mountain top) and the visibility was awful. After that Eve and Craig went to the airport, the rest of us went to the beach.

The following day we shipped our bikes and following that catching our flights home.  :D

Ok here are the photos I have of Namibia… explanations coming soon!

It is my great pleasure to share with you our Botswana experience. Despite being brief and being ill through all of it (and a broken lens on my camera) here are the photos: