Just done a Google maps on it, and it’s 564 miles up the A9, and 644 via Aberdeen. 
And if you decided to walk it, it takes you via Belfast. 
Ken.
raymundo:
quote … Don’t worry about the shopping trollies & caravans too much as there are loads of opportunities to overtake.Since when ?
Hey up raymundo,haven’t seen you on here so much lately. How’s the ship driving these days?
All I meant by the above was that from my personal experience I’ve never had many prob’s passing slower motors up the A9, sometimes you may need to queue hop around the cars & tin tents that wont ovetake anything on s/c but as a rule no great issue. I suppose that’s dependant on having a fairly nimble wagon but I guess I’ve always been lucky where that’s concerned 
A9, haven’t done it so much lately, last time in a truck must be nigh on 12 mths now but the few times in the car there’s either a trolly dolly admiring the scenery at 40/45 in front of you or a well liveried fish wagon from way up north trying to scratch the paint on your rear bumper, caravans, least said the better.
Flip, beings you asked, the ship driving is good, now working for a company with links to a log haulage company at Corpach who had a not so happy conversation the the TC a couple of years ago ! At home at the mo but back on at the end of this month.
raymundo:
Flip, beings you asked, the ship driving is good, now working for a company with links to a log haulage company at Corpach who had a not so happy conversation the the TC a couple of years ago ! At home at the mo but back on at the end of this month.
Would that be the company who bought the Burhou I and Isis? I try and keep up to date with coastal shipping but its not easy from the cab of a truck in Canada!
That’s correct, I’m skipper of the Burhou and do two months on and a month off and normally do some truck driving when at home but not these last couple of stints, haven’t asked around as I think I know what will be said about the eight points on my license, bloody A9 !!
The ships were bought mainly to transport logs and to ‘get trucks off the road’ and the idea was to chop 10 mts out of the Burhou enabling her to use the Caledonian canal to Inverness but the cost was prohibitive so they charter a wee ship called the Kanutta to do this but she is getting on in years and not sure if she will pass her big ‘mot’ come July. We get to some weird and wonderful places around the west coast but I still quite often yearn for the open road (over the water) but not the poor wages.
While we don’t have a tachograph we do have ‘hours of rest’ that must be strictly adhered too and the penalties for not doing so can be rather severe.
If you’re interested I stuck a few random pics in my gallery.
Apologies for going on abit and going off thread.
raymundo:
That’s correct, I’m skipper of the Burhou and do two months on and a month off and normally do some truck driving when at home but not these last couple of stints, haven’t asked around as I think I know what will be said about the eight points on my license, bloody A9 !!
The ships were bought mainly to transport logs and to ‘get trucks off the road’ and the idea was to chop 10 mts out of the Burhou enabling her to use the Caledonian canal to Inverness but the cost was prohibitive so they charter a wee ship called the Kanutta to do this but she is getting on in years and not sure if she will pass her big ‘mot’ come July. We get to some weird and wonderful places around the west coast but I still quite often yearn for the open road (over the water) but not the poor wages.
While we don’t have a tachograph we do have ‘hours of rest’ that must be strictly adhered too and the penalties for not doing so can be rather severe.
If you’re interested I stuck a few random pics in my gallery.
Apologies for going on abit and going off thread.
Always interested to hear anything about coasters. I’m 28 now but spent three years on and off between 16-20 working on German coasters (my dad is German) as a deckhand and then quite by chance did a short stint on the Hoo Swift to fill in for a crew member who was taken sick at very short notice and the replacement Filipino missed his flight in Manila. Surprising how keen they are for a British deck hand when the ship is stuck in Immingham dock paying port fee’s! lol.
Have Alderney Shipping replaced the two ships then? Or do they only have the Mungo now? I visited her in Grove Wharf not long after they bought her when I worked on the Eldor sailing between the Humber ports and Duisburg and such like. Not a bad little ship but with only a 4 man crew it must have been a struggle to get work on deck done and still have decent food as one of the AB’s would double as cook I would imagine.
You did a stint on the Swift!! What a heap of scrap as they all were even when new. I did about 5 years all told on them horrible bloody things. Capt. Dave Estill sailed as mate with me when he first came on the coast and I took the Swift when he chucked it in to become a Humber pilot, went there for a month and took me three months to get off.
Alderney Shipping only have the Mungo now but charter ships as and when required also I had the sister of the Mungo for about four years, Pongo ! (wot a stupid name). Apart from all that the job hasn’t changed much, ie. still going downhill with increasing loads of paperwork & MCA idiots thinking they know it all.
Elder, was she on charter to RMS.?
I had the RMS Aramon for a dutch owner for a couple of years or so, previously the Rulewave Warrior, another sea snake, we did loads of steal coils to anywhere to the north of Africa, long narrow gutted and shallow draft so rolled like a ■■■■■ (or, would roll on wet grass or even, rolls like a turd in a ■■■■ pot). Happy days …
raymundo:
You did a stint on the Swift!! What a heap of scrap as they all were even when new. I did about 5 years all told on them horrible bloody things. Capt. Dave Estill sailed as mate with me when he first came on the coast and I took the Swift when he chucked it in to become a Humber pilot, went there for a month and took me three months to get off.
Alderney Shipping only have the Mungo now but charter ships as and when required also I had the sister of the Mungo for about four years, Pongo ! (wot a stupid name). Apart from all that the job hasn’t changed much, ie. still going downhill with increasing loads of paperwork & MCA idiots thinking they know it all.
I was only on the Hoo Swift for a short time, just over a month or six weeks. You are right, what a terrible ark it was. I’d been spoilt rotten on the German ships in comparison! When I was on her the usual captain was on leave so we had a relief captain who lived on the Isle of Man but I always remember that he was born in Singapore. The mate was from Chatham and had been on it from nearly new in 1989 I think, I cant for the life of me remember his name though. Do you remember that contraption on the stern the captain made for his Fiat Panda to stand on?! Looked odd but made an excellent rain shelter!
I remember the Pongo well. I even have an arial shot I took of her from the Humber Bridge once.
Transport in general in general is becoming ever more impossible. It begs belief that anything moves anywhere these days with all the paperwork and hoops that need to be jumped through, wether by ship or by road. Things are much more relaxed here in Canada at the moment but they’re going electronical within a few years so it’ll get just as bad here.
raymundo:
Elder, was she on charter to RMS.?
I had the RMS Aramon for a dutch owner for a couple of years or so, previously the Rulewave Warrior, another sea snake, we did loads of steal coils to anywhere to the north of Africa, long narrow gutted and shallow draft so rolled like a ■■■■■ (or, would roll on wet grass or even, rolls like a turd in a ■■■■ pot). Happy days …
Yes she was on for RMS her whole life until sold to Danish owners in about 2004. Her and her sister ships all originally had china clay slurry tanks fitted fore and aft in the hold with one third in the middle left for dry cargo and in those days would load in Fowey and Par for various inland ports before loading steel back. By the time I worked on her in 2002/03 the tanks had been removed and we basically just took all forms of steel products back and forth between Goole/Grove Wharf and Duisburg and other ports in the area. She was my favourite ship, hard work at times but very interesting and with a good crew.
I remember seeing the RMS Aramon quite a lot, never went on board though. Never got as far down as North Africa. I did have dreams of warm far away places when I first went to sea, only to sail between England and Finland for the first two years! Never went further south than the English channel on anything.
I started at sea in about '66 on the Lowestoft trawlers but the one I was going on permanent sailed without me due to a gammy ankle (got rat arsed and fell down the stairs night before going back) anyway she sailed but sank and was lost with all hands on the Dogger bank, I then went on the wooden barges out of Ipswich and stayed mainly on the east coast for years but these last 15 years or so have done most of the things I should have done when younger like loading a cargo in the Thames fo a place I’d never heard of, only a 1600 tonner but of we went to the jungle in the back of beyond in Nigeria. My British ticket allows me to go as far soth as Cap Vincent but regular trips to the eastern Medi were commonplace on other certificates. Not any more now quite happy trundling around the western isles of Scotland with a few logs, downside is can’t buy ciggies or booze at real duty free prices.
As has been said as you go down hill towards Dunkeld go easy and on your way home near the Blair Atholl junction go easy ,you will note that the Safety cameras are all positioned on wide down hill stretches of road.I am still bitter about being done at Blair Atholl some years ago.(60mph in a 7.5 tonner at 04.10 A.M)
watch out for the unmarked dark grey saab estate,thats what caught me!!!
raymundo:
A9, haven’t done it so much lately, last time in a truck must be nigh on 12 mths now but the few times in the car there’s either a trolly dolly admiring the scenery at 40/45 in front of you or a well liveried fish wagon from way up north trying to scratch the paint on your rear bumper.
Are we talking about the burgandy and red ones by any chance, They lift for nowt 