"The odd bike"
Over the August Bank-Holiday weekend Jan and I decided to visit the British Treffen at Kelso.
Kelso is a wonderful town in the Scottish Borders region which has an agricultural showground very close to the town – in fact on the opposite side of a river from the town and with a 5-10 minute walk from the town centre you can be in the centre of the showground. This is perfect for those who dont camp and want to stay in hotels and B&Bs.
On top of that, the residents of Kelso like the GoldWingers to visit the town. They positively welcome GoldWingers; in fact, Jan and I lost count of the number of time residents stopped and spoke to us, stating how pleased they were to see us
Getting ready for Parade of Nations
back in the town. This attitude is one of the main reasons why Jan and I were more than happy to go there.
We were actually very lucky to get a hotel as we left it to 6 weeks before the Treffen before deciding to go and visit. This was to prove difficult in terms of finding somewhere with any rooms at all. I went on the internet and after checking out every hotel with a website or in the Tourist information Office list I came to a complete blank – “I’m sorry but we have no rooms left, there is a motorcycle meeting taking place that weekend”.
Luckily, I came across one web site with a report from some ramblers referring to the Borders Hotel, in
Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island
Kelso Town centre. This report was recent enough for me to read more as that hotel had not been on my list of hotels without rooms so I phoned and sure enough, there were rooms available. I booked and confirmed the rooms and accommodation was sorted.
Thursday saw us heading up the M6 with Dennis Stephen and up the very scenic A7 to Hawick – then the short cross country run to Kelso.
The Treffen was a good lazy few days to us, meeting and chatting with old friends and buying the odd bike and some bits. I was pleasantly surprised by how many people came up to me and asked about our club and the Federation, but not surprisingly nobody from the National Committee ( I think I would have been utterly shocked if they had done so).
Massed Pipes at Floors Castle
I was somewhat disturbed when so many friends came up saying they had been told that a message had been put about that the Blackpool Light Parade had been cancelled. We tried to dispell the story but it appears to have been leaked by someone quite high up in GWOCGB.
Kelso weather held up nicely for the 4 days we were there and gave us the chance to visit some of the local scenery and sites.
Many visitors actually packed up on the Sunday and left for home due to a poor weather forecast for the Monday, but Jan and I decided to wait until the Monday morning and head back then as we had no tent to pack away.
Wrong decision! We packed and left the Borders Hotel in the dry only to hit rain with a capital ‘R’ less than five miles away. It rained solid (actually very liquid, but that much it was like a solid wall of rain) until we reached Carlisle then it eased off and stopped so we ended up drying out quite nicely on the last part of the journey.
All in all a nice visit to a nice town and a chance to catch up with old friends
Dave T
The Irish way to visit the Treffen