Isle of Man – billrider2013

Isle of Man

I arrived into Douglas on the Isle of Man late in the afternoon on the Steam Packet ferry.

I had researched a place to camp. It was a farm about 4 klms from the town. I decided to have a meal before heading out there.

This turned out to be long meal at the Queens Pub. Locals and other tourist were interested to chat. A young couple in the conversation had a very friendly, if somewhat daft, dog. It is a mixture of Poodle and Coker Spaniel.

I finally headed out the farm and pitched my tent in the dark

Camping on a Farm

In the morning, I had a long chat with the farmer. He told me that he had started the “camping caper” about 10 years ago when he saw other farmer do it in the TT Race weeks. He applied for a permit and the council inadvertently gave him a “year round permit”. He has not told them of their error.

The facilities are a basic as, but who cares given the cost is only GBP 5. My London host is planning to go to the Classic TT in late August. I think his wife would like the farmer charges GBP 100 too much. She would have to be paid to stay in such conditions.

Riding North

I rode into Douglas for a coffee. This wasn’t easy to find. I then headed north. I came across an on mine which is now a major tourist spot. This is because of its huge water wheel that was used to pump water from the mine. It is a classic piece of Victoria era engineering.

I decided to hop on the Electric Railway to Ramsey. This is great little ride along the coast.

The road south from Ramsey is part of the TT course. I could see why it is such a dangerous race.

Chat in Pub with TT Marshal

I found a really good camping ground and headed off to the local pub. The walls were covered with photos of bikes on the TT.

I got into conversation with the locals. One of the blokes is a marshal for both the main TT (held in May/June) and the classic TT (held in late August). He spoke a lost about both races.

One of the issues is that there is pressure to improve the roads on the course. This includes altering the ‘off camber’ corners. The bloke said that this was actually making the course more dangerous as the riders were going faster on all the corners.

Another issue was with the Classic TT. There are now a lot of replica bikes in the races. Refer to the URL below. These bikes are faster than the original bikes and the owners of the originals are starting to pull out of the races.

Brumbies v Tahs

In the morning I listened to the Brumbies Tahs rugby semi-finals on ABC Grandstand via the ABC app. How good is that?

Peel

I headed to Peel. This is a pretty ordinary place.

One thing that was interesting was a ‘boat race’. The teams had to build the boats with the same materials in two hours. They then raced across the harbour and back. It looked like lots of fun.

It poured with rain that night. It was a good test for the tent – and it did OK.

To Port Erin

I headed to Port Erin which is main town on the south of the Isle.

I started to pour with rain again. I decide to take the steam rain for some of the journey back to Douglas.

On the train I got to chat with a couple of women who were also on bikes. They were big time tourers and had also done the LEJOG and lots of rides in Europe.

Back to Douglas

It was very wet when I climbed the hill back to the camping ground on the farm outside Douglas.

Ride to Castletown

Next day I rode to Castletown and back on a loop. Castletown is nice place.

Early Start

I had to get up at 5 a.m. to pack up and head down to the ferry to Dublin. At this time of the morning, the midges are out. These are amazingly annoying insects.

I rode down to the ferry terminal scratching my legs all the way.

Tasmanian Ferry

The ferry to Dublin is one of the aluminum fast catamarans that are manufactured in Hobart. This one was originally a ferry and was converted into a Special Force ship for the US Navy. It was then converted back into a ferry.

It is a great ship.

Replica Nortons

http://www.manx.co.uk/products/manx/86bore.htm

I of M TT Classic

http://www.iomtt.com/Classic-TT.aspx

Flickr Links

Day 1

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZpfNUz

Day2

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZvDaoF

Day 3

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZwabxg