MotoGoLoco Sent Us On Holiday!!

So I'm pissfarting around on the internet, instead of chopping wood, washing the bike or doing anything else productive as usual.

Tapity tap tap.

Click click click.

I'm looking at facebook when I see someone has liked a page called MotoGoLoco. Whats this all about then?

I head to their website, www.motogoloco.com and have a look about. it's basically a tool to help plan routes and bike trips. There are recommended Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels, Points of Interest. You can plan your route, picking the roads you want to take and avoiding the shite boring ones, then upload it straight to your GPS.

I never had my Garmin 550 back then, but I was still interested in seeing how it all worked and I wanted to know how far one of my local runs was. A few minutes later I got my answer. Finished.

But wait! it saus do you want to save your route?

Aye, OK.

Do you want to make your route public? If you do you will be entered into our "Pick A Route" competition.

Aye sure, why not.

And that's all I thought that was it.

A few days later I got a message from MotoGoLoco.

"Congratulations! You have one a nights dinner, bed and breakfast at the establishment of your choice." Followed by a list of hotels and B+Bs.

No fucking way! I couldn't believe it, I thought there was some sort of catch, but no! I'd won a competition!! Looking at my choices I opted for the Fernhill Hotel in Portpatrick. 

I phoned HB.

"I'VE FUCKING WON A NIGHT AWAY IN A FANCY HOTEL!!!"

I was quite excited. All we had to do was arrange the date we wanted to go. I figured we could combine out stay with a night camping somewhere. I kept an eye on MotoGoLoco's website, using it to plan possible routes to the Fernhill Hotel. I was on it one day when I seen they had a Great Biking Roads photo competition. My regular reader will know how passionate I am about riding my bike in Scotland and I have a couple of photos of bikes by the roadside so I entered these two photos.

I got another e mail. I'd won first and second place.

BRRRRRIIINGGG 

BRRRRRIIINGGG

I'VE WON ANOTHER NIGHT AWAY!!!!!!

YA FUCKIN DAAAAAAANCER!!!!

I was pretty happy. 

HB and I planned out trip for the end of June. My photo had won us a night at the Belted Will Inn, just outside Brampton, Cumbria in the foreign lands of England. We'd ride down a scenic route and stay there on Wednesday, head up to Balloch O Dee on Thursday, where we had hired the bothy, before spending our last night at the Fernhill Hotel, Portpatrick.

Wednesday arrived and we set off south, riding down past St Mary' Loch, stopping for a coffee at the Glen Cafe then through Moffat to Gretna, where HB "checked us in" on facebook, causing a few "You haven't... have you??" comments. My mate Paul sent multiple texts asking if I'd got married, caring soul that he is.

HB at The Glen Cafe.

Folk getting married at Gretna. The guy driving looks the happiest person there!

We arrived at Brampton earlier than we though, so we looked around a few of the touristy sights along Hadrian's Wall, a big wall the Roman's built because they were shit scared of Scottish people.

Cumbria

Trying on helmets at Lanercost Priory

Hadrian's Wall.

The GS and an untraditionally friendly cyclist.

HB at Birdoswald.

When we got to the Belted Will they were just opening up for that evening's service. We were welcomed in by Alyson and the GS was given a nice secure parking space. We were shown to our room, which was pretty big with an extra bed where we dumped out stuff. We chilled out for a bit, got showered then wandered down to the bar. The bar and restaurant is quite olde worldy looking with the exposed beams in the roof, its a nice place to sit and relax. We were having a couple of beers, playing pool and speaking to the staff. Stephen, the owner used to ride bikes and we chatted away before he had to get to the kitchen. My phone was hooked onto the free WiFi and I was getting messages from Stelios, a Greek guy I knew through a GS forum who was on a big tour of Europe. He was heading up north and wanted to meet up to discuss routes. When I told him we weren't in Scotland and we were at the Belted Will he decided to join us. Stelios arrived just as we were trying to decide what to have from their tasty looking menu. 

The Belted Will

I had a huge t-bone steak, HB had a ribeye and Stelios had chicken. The food was tasty and the portions were huge. We had though about having a pudding but we were stuffed. We spent the rest of the evening discussing bike trips, looking at Stelios's map of Scotland and chatting with the staff and other punters at the bar. There was a poster up for an event held by the Leek Club. I'd never heard of a Leek Club before but apparently they are pretty popular in northern England, with people competing to see who can grow the biggest leek. There must be something in the water down there....

The next morning we headed down for breakfast. This is where the Belted Will really stood out. their breakfast was awesome. We both had a full english breakfast with one of the best sausages I've ever tasted. 

Bellies full, we chucked our stuff in the bike said our goodbyes to Stelios and the Belted Will family and headed off. 

Me, HB and Stelios

Go here, here, here, here and here, Here's good too, and here, here.....

My GS and Stelios's K1600

Stephen and Alyson had recommended going over the Hartside Pass the night before, so we rode over there to Penrith before carrying back up to Scotland. Now the Hartside Pass was pretty good and there's a nice cafe at the top which is known as a local bike meet but, and this is a big but, the AA have it down as one of the top ten drives in the world. Yep, in the world. It's good, but its not that fucking good.

We followed the same route as I rode with Ben a few weeks before through Dumfries and along the A712 New Galloway Forest road. 

Instead of lugging our tent around HB and I had hired the Bothy. The bothy is a single room building that can sleep seven people. There's a wood burning stove for heating and cooking on. Pots, pans, plates and utensils are all supplied. All you need is bedding. For £45 a night it's a bargain. We spent the evening chilling out, feeding the chickens, particularly a greedy guy called George, and eating burgers cooked on the stove. Later on we joined the owners Dad around his fire.

The AA need to get out more.

The Bothy

Inside the Bothy.

George

The Roundhouse. That's £40 per night.

Wee horse eating the flowers.

After a breakfast of fresh eggs on rolls we set off for Portpatrick. Portpatrick was only a 40 mile or so ride if we went the direct route so instead we headed up the A714 then over the B734 which ends with nice views of Ailsa Craig a big rock island in the Firth of Clyde. We stopped for a photo and a pee then carried on down the surprisingly fun A77 to Stranraer then on to Portpatrick.
Riding into Portpatrick we found the Fernhill Hotel easily, we parked the bike up in the car park and walked into the reception.
WOW!
The view overlooking the town from the huge window in reception blows you away. We were welcomed by a member of staff who gave us a complimentary sherry then showed us to our room, which also had an incredible view over the town, a big bathroom and a massive bed. We got the bike unpacked, arranged a time for our dinner then headed down to have a look around Portpatrick. It was still quite early so we got lunch from a chippy van at the harbour, looked round the shops and had a beer in a few of the seafront pubs.

Ailsa Craig.

At the Fernhill Hotel

The view from our room. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Chippy van ran by a crazy woman.

The Fernhill Hotel is just above the green building.

Portpatrick.

At around half six we headed back up to the Fernhill for dinner. The restaurant is in the conservatory of the hotel. Everything about it was really impressive. Fergus, our waiter, was friendly, chatting about mountain biking with us. We treated our selves to a bottle of Sancerre to accompany the stunning food. It really was seriously enjoyable sitting in the conservatory. HB ordered a fish dish and I had chicken, which was perfectly cooked. 

After our meal we headed back down into the town to watch a band in one of the pubs on the way there I stopped to climb in a big barrel in the park. HB took my photo and we wandered on to the pub. We'd just arrived when I realised that I'd left my blue jumper beside the barrel. I nipped back over to get it only to find that someone had pinched it!! No more blue jumper! I must be more of a fashion icon than I thought. 

After a great sleep in the gigantic bed we tucked into a great breakfast before loading the bike up and heading off. We both really enjoyed the Fernhill Hotel, it gets a full five chainsaws.

We decided to just follow the sat nav home. I thought it would take us a boring route but we ended up going along the A702, also known as the Dalveen Pass, an incredible road, really worth doing if you are heading to Portpatrick or Balloch O'Dee.

We had a great few days away. Big thanks to Faithir for letting me borrow his camera as I still hadn't got my new one through since I knackered it on the Bealach Na Ba.

Thanks also to the following people/organisations. 

MotoGoLoco for giving us the prize! www.motogoloco.com

Stephen and Alyson and the rest of the team at The Belted Will Inn. http://www.beltedwill.co.uk/

Hazel at Balloch O'Dee. http://www.ballochodee.com/

All the staff at the Fernhill Hotel, Portpatrick. http://www.mcmillanhotels.co.uk/fernhill-hotel/index.html

Mike.