Scotland presented itself across the raw, steely grey sea of the North Channel as a thin sliver of white running left to right. It was as though the Cliffs of Dover has been up-rooted from the south-east coast of England and plonked down down on the south-west coast of Scotland.
It was only as the Stena Line ferry from Belfast drew closer to Cairnryan that one could see that snow-covered fields running down to the coast that gave the illusion of white cliffs.
Goodbyes had been emotional. Leaving Geoff Hill’s home off the Antrim Road, it was obvious his wife Cath was going to miss him a lot on his three-month-long trek around the world retracing the epic journey made 100 years ago by Carl Stearns Clancy, the first man to ride a motorcycle around the globe.
His mum and brother gave him a loving sendoff as well
The same was true for his co-adventurer, Gary Walker, former Northern Ireland road race champion, actor and photographer, and his wife and children who braved an icy morning to say their goodbyes.
A man of many trades and talents, as we made our way up the ferry from the car deck, Gary made an early bid for the title Clancy Ride Entertainment Officer. Emerging up the stairwell, we were greeted by a sign – Shop, Bar 55, Ladies – that seemed like an announcement.
“Does it have to be in that order,” Gary quipped, deadpan.
The crossing was smooth, efficient and fast – about two hours – and soon we were scooting north along the A77 coast road. It was dry and covered in a cloudy reddish stain – the residue of rock salt mixed with sandstone grit.
In late October/early November 1912, Clancy and his biking partner Walter Randell Storey took the Belfast ferry straight up the Clyde and into Glasgow. A big, bustling, noisy ship-building and engineering city of the British empire, Glasgow must have been full of activity and interesting things to see, but Clancy gave it fairly short shrift.
He liked those whom he met – "it is the people, not the buildings, that make a city" – he wrote in his dispatch to the Bicycling World and Motorcycle Review back in New York, and was not the first, nor last, visitor to find the Glaswegian accent hard to decipher.
As we rode up the A77, the great, black dome-shaped mass of the island Aisla Craig to our left was the most prominent feature around. A crescent of lovingly-maintained sea-side timber chalets was evidence of what goes on here when the weather is kinder.
But the sky was blue yesterday and the evidence of burgeoning spring – daffodils, crocuses and new born lambs lolling in the sun – was everywhere.
We made our way across country to Stonehouse, Clancy and Storey’s first port of call on the Scottish leg of their epic.
There, they put up for the night in “an unprepossessing inn called ‘The Black Bull’ in the dreary town of Stonehouse”.
Not a lot has changed in 100 years. Stonehouse remains a dreary place (admittedly on a speedy inspection as the temperature hovered just above freezing) and if the world has passed Stonehouse by, then Stonehouse has certainly turned its back on the Black Bull Inn.
Standing on a corner site at The Cross, its black and white paint is peeling heavily and the windows are dirty. It’s many a year since the Black Bull provided a warm welcome for the weary traveller.
In 1912, Clancy and Storey had “tea, with meat, breakfast, and a big feather bed [for]. . . $1.15 each”.
Next day, they chatted at breakfast with an Edinburgh clergyman who told them the inn’s principal mainstay was “pure whiskey” and one suspects that the good reverend partook of the occasional tipple…
Adam from Lodz answers the door to my knock. “No,” he says after I tell him all about Clancy and Storey, “I didn’t know that” – like he’s a Polish Michael Caine.
Adam and his plasterer colleague – “Gouda luck; no speak English”, he shouts smiling from an open window as we depart – are giving the Black Bull Inn new life as four apartments.
Down the road, weary bikers find succour for the night at Shawlands Park Hotel where today’s travellers are indeed given a warm welcome. . . and maybe even a ball of malt.
