Crazy men and a really big fish - TT week on the Isle of Man

As soon as I knew I was going to be travelling through the UK on a motorbike I looked up the dates for the Isle of Man TT. Start of June? Awesome, this was right in the middle of my 3 months to explore UK and Ireland. Bookings for the ferry and camping were challenging to arrange as at this time I was at a fishing lodge in Namibia on an small 'island' isolated by the rampaging Zambezi river and it's steadily rising floodwaters. The ferry was an issue with the security process requiring my credit card to be linked with a UK post code, many thanks to my friend Simon who was capable of meeting this ridiculous demand and secured a berth for myself and a two wheeled machine I was yet to find. When I requested the camp spot I was given an address to post a cheque to cover the camping fee. I explained my situation of strandedness and isolation from the western banking world and its ability to supply me with a cheque I could post to the Isle of Man. The reply "Under the circumstances, you can just pay when you get here" solved my dilemma.

So a few months later, I was equipped with a motorbike and my travelling gear, and I was all set for my 4am departure from Liverpool. Four in the morning is a challenging departure time, do you get somewhere to stay the night? Is it worth it? I decided not, found myself a bar that would be open until 1am, had dinner, got onto their wifi and wrote a blog post from my time in Africa. Once the bar closed I headed to the ferry terminal, was 2nd in the queue, to a guy also riding a slightly older Triumph Tiger. More bikers appeared shortly and we kept each other company for an hour until they allowed us down onto the dock and into the waiting room where we could stay cosy and warm for the next 1.5 hours until we could load onto the ferry.

The ferry loading exercise and for that matter everything I did for the next ten days was a repeat of fitting an amazing number of motorbikes into small spaces. Everywhere else I went on my trip, it was rare to have more than a handful of bikes. This ferry was full, yet only a small number of cars.

For those not familiar with the Isle of Man TT, it is a series of road races around a 37.5 mile circuit with something like 500+ bends varying from gentle sweeping bends to tight hairpins. There are a number of different categories in terms of engine size and whether it is a stock bike (as per factory manufacture) or modified (aka supercharged rocket disguised as a motorbike), so the serious riders might have 3 or 4 different bikes they are racing on, more if they bring spare bikes in case of accidents or equipment failure. There is a week of practice sessions followed by a week of racing with two or three races on, with racing every second day.

The mad men on two wheels push themselves and their bikes around this course right on the limit. It takes a couple of years of racing here to really get a handle on the course and remember the sequence of turns to be competitive. There are at least three places on the course where you fly, if you're not getting airborne, you're not going anywhere near fast enough. Fortunately the 2013 TT had fantatic weather the entire race period, and there was only one accident. The rider was fine, however his bike bounced through a fence and twelve people were taken to hospital, one injured seriously enough to need surgery. The last and most prestigious Senior Race restart was delayed five hours until the surgery team was finished and were again available for emergency response if required.

Outside race times the circuit is open to regular traffic, with the mountain section restricted to one way traffic only. This is also the part of the track that never has a speed limit, not even for regular guys.

Each year there is one afternoon, known as Mad Sunday, when the entire circuit is open to anybody with no speed limits. There is occasionally carnage, and as I was arriving on the morning of Mad Sunday, having had no sleep, I wasn't planning to take any part in it. As it turned out, due to delays from poor weather during practice sessions the week before, the 1000cc Superbike race scheduled for the day before had been postponed. I'm sure many many riders were disappointed to miss their opportunity for a tilt around the track, but I was really quite happy to get to see a race I thought I'd missed out on, and found myself somewhere to sit and watch, with food and coffee nearby.

Throughout the week, each race day I went somewhere new to watch the race from. You could watch every race from a new location for ten years and still not get to all the viewing places. I was also trying to capture a number of different styles of photo, including a side on panning shot where the bike was crisp and sharp and the background all streaky and blurry from the speed, this turned out to be harder than I thought it would be, and needed the right section of track where the bikes would still be upright, but not travelling at supersonic speeds.

I finally found somewhere suitable on the slopes of Snaefell in the mountain section on the approach to an 'S' bend where the road crossed over the railway line.

In addition to the regular motorbike racing, there was also a few races with sidecar motorbikes. Whilst the regular riders are pretty damn crazy, (riding a couple of hundred miles an hour, round a bend, six inches off a stone wall just being a normal day at the office), I felt that the insanity award was really won by the guys in the side cars. They move around constantly, leaning in, leaning out, hanging off the back or over the front, all while the bike is bouncing and turning, with only a couple of hand grips to hold on to.

On the non racing days I went exploring the Isle, including the old castles of Peel --->








and Rushen (in Castletown).

Rushen was one of the most intact castles which was entirely open for viewing, with the ability to visit almost every room. Most old castles are either partly in ruins, or the fully intact ones are still somewhat in use, and only a small section open to the public.

A week before coming to the Isle of Man I was at a party for a friend from the UK who now lives in Australia, and was home visiting for a few weeks. While chatting to one of the guys there I found out that his sister lived on the Isle of Man, he gave me her contact details and promised to warn her that a random stranger was going to give her a call. As frequently happens in my travelling life, the connections I make and the kindness of complete strangers is both delightful and humbling. A call was made, and a plan hatched for them to take me sea kayaking on the Tuesday afternoon. On my way there, with spare time in hand, I went to the nearby Spanish Head which looks over a small island known as the Calf of Man. An excited group of people looking down the small rocky cliff drew my attention, and there, almost immediately below us was a 6+ metre long Basking Shark, happily cruising around. There was a second one a few hundred metres further offshore.

When I got to Chris and Janette's place to join them kayaking I mentioned the sharks, and so our paddling route was revised, we were going to see if they were still there. When we got to the spot the sharks were gone, and the local basking shark volunteers who'd been notified had also come for a look, but were also too late. Janette is a marine biologist, so we paddled over for a chat, and they mentioned they were working on a tagging program to track the movements of the sharks and see how far they travel around. I mentioned meeting a guy in Mozambique running a similar program for Whale Sharks. "Is that Simon?" "Yes", I replied, "Do you know Claire?" "Yes, I met her a few times".

It just goes to show that the world really is a rather small place, it seems that seven months earlier and many thousands of miles away I'd met another marine biologist who used to volunteer with this crew during her summer breaks from university. [Surnames omitted to give the relevant people some semblance of anonymity].

The paddling continued along the calf, and we acquired a passing sea lion who found us more interesting than the rocks and ocean and decided to follow us (or rather me), and see what we were up to. Beyond the calf, there was a narrow passage and then a group of rocks with a harem of much less interested sea lions basking in the sun. Chris and I decided to paddle around the rocks, while Janette chose the sensible option and decided to pass on having to paddle back through the tidal currents washing around the rocks. I used to own a surf ski and am a fairly strong paddler, so I decided I'd be ok with the conditions. My confidence in making this decision did not however take into consideration that I hadn't paddle much in a few years, and that I wasn't in a long narrow surf ski with a rudder, but rather shorter and fatter craft of the rudderless variety. To quote a friend when I told her about this afterwards "It would be like trying to steer a wok".

A mile or two further out to sea was a lighthouse, located on the last substantial rock platform available known as Chicken Rock. I turned to follow Chris and paddle back through the passage, I was making good progress, right up until I came out from the shelter of the calf and got hit by the main current, which turned me sideways and I was being pushed towards the rocks and sea lions. I could see there was no way I would get through the current to make it clear of these rocks, so I stopped paddling and took a breather while the current pushed me back, once behind the rocks I tried again. This time I was going to have to be serious, in the shelter of these rocks I paddled as hard as I could to getas much speed as possible. The lazily basking sea lions were suddenly much more interested in my goings on and decided to avoid the crazy flailing beast of plastic, flesh and cloth by launching themselves from the rocks into the water. A head popped up a few metres in front of me, and if I wasn't working so hard I would have laughed at the look of utter surprise on it's face as it saw me bearing down.

Once again I cleared the shelter of rocks and once again I got hit by the current. This time, I was working so hard, and happened to be in entirely the wrong part of my stroke, so that as the current turned my kayak, I stuck my paddle in the water and pulled myself straight in after it. Earlier when we were kitting up I'd nearly declined the safety vest as I'm a good swimmer and I find them a bit restrictive when I paddle. As I came up gasping for air, and slightly stunned from the shock of cold water immersion, I was rather glad I had it. Behind me, a sleek grey head popped up looking rather amused, and I felt that it was probably the one I'd just about run over pointing out to me I was clearly doing it wrong, and was now the one laughing at me.

The only solution was to paddle with the current, out to sea, and as at became less focussed steer around to where I wanted to be going. Twenty minutes or so later and very little progress made Chris threw me a tow line to give me some assistance. The assistance made a big difference, not just with the pull, but by keeping me pointed where I wanted to go which saved me wasting half my energy pulling the kayak back around every second stroke. Once clear of the current and reunited with Janette the tow line was retracted and we returned at a steady pace to the harbour at Port Erin where we started. All up I had a solid 3hr plus workout, got to entertain some local wildlife and finished up with drinks and pizza on the beach with a live band playing. A better day could not have been planned.

Throughout the TT race week there are plenty of forms of entertainment, including professional stunt riders doing jumps and flips, and a guy doing stunt car tricks. The show was interspersed with the obligatory tall, skinny, well endowed models wearing slightly more clothing than the average teenager.

There was also the local version, a group of old guys who have been performing the same show, on probably the same bikes for over 20 years. Known as the Purple Helmets, they truly were a bunch of dicks, and while moderately funny at times, nothing they did inspired me to want to capture the moment with a photo.

The last place I went to explore was the old tin mining region, and the very impressive and still intact water driven pump, the Laxey Wheel. 

There was a walk with a lot of information boards about the days of tin mining. With limited resources for energy, no coal, not much wood, the power of water was utilised everwhere. There was a comment that no raindrops falling on Snaefell would reach the ocean without powering at least three operations along the way. Over centuries the mines reached hundreds of metres underground, and miners could spend nearly a third of their shifts just climbing down and up the ladders. The shaft wasn't vertical, so a cage lift could not be used.

A simple but ingenious form of lift was developed with a long shaft studded with small platforms for one person to stand on, which slid up and down like a piston. This piston lift meant that the people would just step on and off the lift at every platform, and ride the lift up or down in 12 foot stages. This saved about 40 mins climbing down, and well over an hour climbing back up, most importantly it saved the miners a lot of energy which could be used digging out tin rather than climbing ladders.

After the completion of the TT Races, there is an afternoon of racing a short course track around Castletown. There was one guy that blurred the lines between crazy and impressive, in that he was racing (and not coming last) whilst using only one arm, the other arm was in a sling to keep it out of the way. His bike had been modified so that the clutch was still accessible without using his left hand.

On my second last morning I went for a run along the creek that ran behind the rugby field where I was camping. The trail I was on was along the old rail line which ran across the width of the Isle, all the way to Peel on the west coast. It was such a pleasant trail I wished I'd discovered it sooner, and had a mountain bike so I could go all the way to the end and back. By this stage there were very few people left at the camp site, the food van had left, and the rugby club was locked up. There was still a portable shower/ toilet block that wasn't as unpleasant as I'd expected it to be after 600+ people had spent more than a week using it.

The fine weather had continued for my entire visit, and on my final morning when I got up at 4:30am to break camp was the first dull grey sky I'd seen in the 10 days I'd been there. The soft rain didn't start until I'd packed up camp and arrived at the ferry terminal, it was still falling when I arrived in Dublin a couple of hours later.