Left home at 8.30am and got back 6.30pm so a good long day in that damn saddle!
Headed for the Lake District, hadn't been for 15 years and had forgotten how stunningly beatiful the place is, not to mention the wonderful twisty roads my R loves!
Only problem for a budding snapper is that there are tooo many beautiful views to take in and if you try to capture them you end up not riding very much, that and the fact that parking spots are extremely limited owing to the gradients can make it frustrating so I plan to go back on a pure photo trip now I've done the reccy.
First real stop was for lunch here, the Fish Hotel in Buttermere,

where (pic for DJ's benefit) I forced this down...
After a rest in the afternoon sunshine we found a spot to park off road and got a few shots (damn that's a good lookin bike!)

You can see the road behind the bike here, barely wide enough for cars to pass and so twisty, mostly decent visibility tho so you can go at a fair lick so long as you're wary of the sheep...

that's Buttermere in the background (the wet thing). The F650 below belongs to my mate, he got it after I bought the R, beemer fever...

One more of Buttermere, 5 shots stitched together here.

Then we headed back on to Keswick where we visited Castle rigg stone circle, 4000 years old they reckon, why these were built is still a mystery.

Here's a link to a panoramic movie taken from the circle centre
http://beakster.jot.com/WikiHome/Castle ... 5752977443
Here's an interested bloke having a butchers at the bikes in Ullswater where we had a rest and an ice cream to cool off a little.

After another blast round these incredible mountains and lakes we headed home and stopped at Kirby Lonsdale, Devil's Bridge,

a favourite haunt for bikers (might have something to do with the food on the bridge...) for a cup of tea before hitting the road home.
10 hours riding and only 280 miles covered but there's an awful lot of mountaineering going on as well so you have to take into account all the climbs and drops. The R really is in it's element up there, sweeping fast curves or tight twisties it just soaks everything up, if only that damn seat worked as well as the rest of the bike! Time for a bath, beer and bed.[/url]
