We finished work today at 2pm and we were on the road by 2:30pm. We had packed everything away the night before and the scooter was already on the trailer hooked up ready to go. We were heading for the site in Nairn as we had arranged to stay there to see the managers Ivor and Nola as well as the assistants Jim and Margaret who we did our induction with!
We had a good journey and arrived about 4:30pm and went into the reception to see Ivor and Nola. Both were busy so we waited a while until they became free. We had a good chat about the job and how we were still enjoying it very much. The site was looking good as they had had a lot of trees lopped and now lets a lot more light in.
After we parked up Margaret came over and invited us in for a coffee and a chat. They were busy with family visiting but it was nice to have a chat before we went back to our van. Hopefully when we go back next time we will have more time to speak to them.
One of the main reasons for going was because we need to have a new tyre fitted on our scooter and the nearest place we could find was in Inverness. The motorcycle dealer is Mitchells and it is a half hour scooter ride from the Nairn site.We were booked in for Monday morning.
The plan was to have the new tyre fitted and have a quick look around the bikes before heading off for a bit of retail therapy (mainly for Angela). We ended up seeing a bike we liked and ended up going out for a test ride! First I went out on my own then came back for Angela who was by now terrified at the thought. (As I was before I went out).
I have held a full motorbike licence for 25 years but have never owned one…….apart from the current Scooter. The bike’s power was awesome and something I will need to be aware of. I was very rusty on the gear changes as I have been so used to a twist and go (Angela still has a stiff neck).
On our return we went into the office with Kevin the director and discussed a trade in. I told him that if we traded our bike in we would need to buy a set of protective clothing each. 2 jackets, 2 trousers, 2 pairs of boots new gloves and new helmets. He gave us a good price for our scooter and agreed 25% off of the clothing. Result!
Now for the good bit……………..We are going back to collect the bike on the 28th June. It is a 2008 Suzuki V-Strom 650GT (http://www.v-strom.co.uk)
We will be posting lots of pictures when we get it.
One of the reasons for buying this type of bike is that it has double panniers and a big top box so we can do some touring with a small tent (also we can do our shopping). Where we are at the moment we see lots of groups of bikers from Germany and Holland touring around. Some have stayed on our campsite.
We left the motorbike dealer and scootered into Inverness town centre. We did a bit of shopping and went to Pizza Express for a nice lunch before heading back to the campsite in Nairn.
We jumped straight into the van and drove the half an hour to Tesco’s to do our big shop and fill up with diesel at a reasonable price…..good old Tesco’s
The following morning we set off back to Poolewe as we were back on duty at 1pm.
