Next morning, we drop our motorcycles off at the dealership just outside of Edinburgh

I met an Irish rider at the dealership and I asked him about good roads in Ireland. He said, "Stay on the west coast!" Okay, in the last 24 hours I think we've basically got our route planned for the next month or so!

The Irish guy had exactly the same motorcycle I have, same year and everything.

<ul>
"How do you like the R1200GS?", he asked me.
"I like it, it's a great bike!"
"Yeah me too."
"Except for the final drive. I've had to fix mine three times already", I moaned.
"Yes! I've heard about that!"
I nodded my head sadly. "Also, the servo brakes on our model are terrible. No brakes without the key in in the on position!"
"Yep."
"Have you heard about the known EWS problem? The antenna in the key ring sensor fails and your bike can't start", I ask him.
"My bike is in the shop for exactly that reason."
"Hm", more head-nodding, "Also the fuel pump is known to be bad"
"Wow, our bikes really suck!"
"Haha, right?"
</ul>

Bonding over bike problems! The R1200GS is a funny beast. Despite all these issues, every single owner I know still loves their bike, it's just so well-balanced, easy to ride, and does quite well on variable terrain. And these issues crop up over very high mileages. I suspect the incidences per km are no better or worse than any other brand, it's just that BMW riders tend to put on more mileage than other bikers.

We take public transit back to Edinburgh. We'll be without our bikes for the next couple of days, which is okay since we're going to explore the city a bit by foot. Rain starts to pelt the windows of the bus on our ride back. Just in time.


Catching up on some laundry now that we have a roof over our heads

We're finding it impossible to hang-dry clothing in Scotland! The air is so humid here!

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We don our rainjackets and jump back onto the bus to explore Edinburgh's old town

My first reaction was: Wow, there are a lot of brown-bricked buildings here... These are medieval tenements that crowd the low skyline of the old town. Also, there are a ton of tourists here, all braving the cold Scottish rains. And everywhere, there are reminders that we are in Scotland, as if the whole town is capitalizing on every single stereotype there is about this country.


On every street corner, there's a Scottish guy in a kilt playing the bagpipes


A little street-diorama reminding tourists that golf was a Scottish invention

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New College University of Edinburgh


Edinburgh is known as the City of Festivals. Several of them are overlapping this week. We take in the Fringe Festival


The Fringe Festival is a huge international arts festival with official and unofficial performers lining the streets of Edinburgh


Some of them have a stage and official playing slots, others just find a corner to jam

We had such a good time hopping from performer to performer and listening to some great music. All of the street performers played for tips, but the ones on stage were there mainly to advertise their paying gigs in bars and theaters later on in the evening.

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I was surprised how many people were out despite the rains


It was a truly international event, with performers coming from all over the world


This mime troupe was from Japan

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Avant-garde performance art right in the middle of the crowd


Street entertainers interacting with the audience


And in between acts, we'd walk the cobblestone streets of the old town, taking in all the gothic architecture around us

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Rainy and wet


Refugees from the Fringe Festival, also doing some touristing


The colours of the previous picture remind me of this!: )

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More kilts and bagpipes


Even the dogs were proud of their Scottish heritage!

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Spent 7 years working as a massage therapist

It's an old nickname as, every time I'm around friends I get tapped to give people shoulder rubs and was once introduced to someone as 'this is J, he's got magic fingers'.

Hi Gene, Neda,
I can't believe you guys rode right past my door & up into the North York Moors ! At least the weather has been dry for the last few days (saying that - you say the blog is way behind?). Shame you didn't call in at Squires Caf in Sherburn for a coffee.

Safe riding & all the best,
Andy

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/351.html



We pick up our bikes from the service at the dealership.

"When are you leaving Edinburgh?" The service advisor asked.
"We're heading out tomorrow morning", I reply.
"There's a lot of theft of motorcycles in the UK, and in Edinburgh specifically. Did you want to keep your bikes here overnight and pick them up tomorrow before you leave?"
"Uh... no, I think we should be okay. We're not actually staying downtown, we're in a small suburb called Gorgie."
"Oh.. that's actually the worst neighbourhood."

Okay, now I'm scared. But it's a 45 minute bus ride to and from the dealership and we want to head out first thing in the morning. So I thank him for his offer and decide to take our chances with all the bike thieves that live in our neighbourhood.


In the morning, it's sunny! And our bikes are still in the parking lot. What a bonus!

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We're embarking on the route that Gino and Fiona laid out for us. It won't get that exciting until we're a couple of hours outside of Edinburgh, but we manage to find a couple of interesting things along the way.

In Newport-on-Tay, a policeman stops our bikes and we have to give way to a motorcade. Except it's not a motorcade, it looks like a scooter rally!


Neda gives a thumbs up to the scooter from Quadrophenia as it zooms by. It's been upgraded somewhat since the 70s...


Riding with the scooter brigade over the Tay Road Bridge to Dundee

This was a huge rally of two scooter clubs, the A92s and the Kingdom Scooter Club. They were crossing the Tay Road bridge on its 50th anniversary. I know this because there's a YouTube video of them. Sadly, we were only allowed to cross when the main scooter rally passed us, so these were the stragglers that we were riding behind, so we didn't make the video.

You can see the Quadrophenia scooter go by though!


Neda got photobombed by a bumblebee. It probably thought her yellow and black bike was a cousin

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As we rode through the town of Perth, there seemed to be some kind of medieval fair going on. So we stop to investigate.

It's the 750th anniversary of the Treaty of Perth, so the town is hosting a family fun festival. The Treaty of Perth put an end to the fighting between the Vikings in Norway and the immortal Highlanders, so that Connor MacLeod from the Clan MacLeod could go on beheading people into the 21st century.

Because there can be only one...


The kids fascinated by pottery - actually doing something with your hands other than swiping, tapping or clicking a screen!


We thought we heard bagpipes, it's this instrument - a hurdy-gurdy!


When you turn the crank, it makes a droning noise like bagpipes, but then you play a melody over it with your left hand and it sounds like a fiddle

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This is the grunge version of Scottish medieval music

After they played, they threw their bagpipes to the ground and stomped on them. I wanted to say that that sounded exactly like when they were playing their instruments, but that's not true. These guys were quite good!

I found out later, this band is Clanadonia. They did the music for the TV series Outlander.


Tried haggis for the first time! I love it!

OMG, where have you been all my life, haggis? I'm glad I looked up what haggis was *after* I tried it. The "meat" is sheep's heart, lung and liver minced with oatmeal, onions, spices, salt, fat. So savoury and tasty! It was traditionally cooked and served encased in sheep's stomach lining, but thankfully not many places do it this way anymore. Because eating the heart of a sheep is okay, but if it's inside its stomach? Then that's just gross!

Haggis is illegal in the US. Because of the ban of sheep lung for human consumption.

I don't care what the USDA says. I have a new quest in Scotland: Find the best haggis in the country!


This is where they make the haggis

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A graffiti wall where passersby can scrawl and doodle whatever they like.

I drew two motorcycles riding on top of a globe. But it turned out looking like a pile of haggis. I blame the brown marker.

From Perth, we turned north and hit our first geographical highlight of Scotland. Cairngorms National Park! This actually marks the start of the Scottish Highlands. The line that separates the Lowlands from the Highlands is both a geographic boundary - the Highland Boundary Fault is the meeting of two tectonic plates in Scotland - as well as cultural: there is a marked difference between the industrialized and heavily populated lowlands and the sparsely populated agricultural lands north of the border that still recall remnants of feudalism and tribal cultural systems.

Gino told me that once we hit the highlands there would be very little to no traffic. Especially at this time of year. Looking forward to it!!!


We thought North York Moors had nice heathers. They're way more bountiful up here!


So purple and cool!

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Patches of purple alternate with green like quilt-work on the countryside. Or like a super-villain's costume!


This patchwork is actually intentional!

In the off-season, when the birds are in the moors breeding, the parks management people burn off the longer purple heather to create patches of shorter green heather. The purple heather provides suitable shelter for the birds when they return, and they are able to feed in the shorter green patches. They're trying to increase the red grouse population in the park. Why? Um... for hunters to shoot them in the fall...

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