Probably a boring day today as it will be a blast down the complete length of France.
Woke up at about 7.17 am and went in search of breakfast. Not a lot of choice here , standard brekky a chocolate croissant , orange juice and a brew for £3.50. Chocolate... for breakfast ! What the bloody hell is that about ? Anyway we could do with the sugar I suppose, the plan was to be in Spain by tonight .
Usual scrum to get off the ferry but no problems, then out into France on the wrong side of the road!!!. To counter this I has cut out a large arrow pointing right( from a fire escape sign) and stuck it to my windscreen. ( I took it off eventually as it became a pain taking photos/video through the screen )
Off the ferry at approx 8.30am and the weather was pretty grey ,misty and nippy(14 degrees ) Neil led as he was the expeditions navigator.
About 10 miles out his headlight protector flew off on the dual carriage way! We pulled over and he trudged off up he road to retrieve it.
One of the caravan couples we spoke to in the ferry queue stopped to see if we were ok which was good of them . Neil took his radio with him just as a safety measure as he was walking towards traffic and had a right old sweat on by the time he got back. You can just make out Neil cresting the brow going back up the road !!
Neil just shoved the plastic deflector under one of his bungee's ( where he carried all the way to Gibraltar and then binned the pair of them !!) and we were off again.
Soon after Nant the weather cleared and we just headed south. Stopped for Fuel in Niort at 12.30 ( 20 litres, mileage 49159- 473 miles so far) set off again a 1.00pm
Carry on tolling !
Our first Toll was at Bordeaux and we made a right arse of it .. Neil was first and pulled up at an unmanned booth and nothing happened. We waited... and nothing happened , He tried to shove his credit card into various slots on the ticket machine but nothing. By now there were cars honking at us so we paddled to the side to try and let the cars passed . An old guy got out of his car and told Neil to take a ticket , but none had been issued. I rolled up to the booth and the machine decided to play ball. Maybe the loop in the road hadn't picked up the bike , who knows?
We grabbed our tickets and the barrier lifted and we pulled into a layby to take stock and sort out gloves etc. ( Toll 14.70 Euros )
We stopped again south of Bordeaux at 3.45 pm where Neil needed fuel but I was ok. We had a diet coke each which was the first thing since breakfast !
Another toll ( 1.70 Euros ) on the start of the main autoroute down to San Sebastien at 5.30 pm
The day was boiling hot by now which is what we were hoping for. ( Mileage 49405 - 719 miles so far )
Just in the layby was a small service area , just for air and water. The tyre compressor bore a remarkable resemblance to someone but I couldn't place who !! Separated at birth !Ha
Not a lot else happened . we crossed the Spanish border at 6.10 pm and fuelled up again ( Mileage 49459 - 773 miles so far )
We made it to San Sebastien just over the Spanish border, and after a bit of messing about Neil's sense of direction radar got us to the campsite for 7.15pm. We were given our pitch ( 15 Euros each ) and set up. To add a bit of fun to the proceedings Neil had never motorcycle camped before !
We pitched on the grass area just behind the bikes.
We pitched up in about 40 minutes.
Home sweet Home
We parked the bikes opposite and locked them together. I carry a cable lock and used this to lock my helmet to the topbox to save a bit of space in the tent .
We went up to the camp shop which was closed doh !! So we had a couple of drinks in the bar , We had hardly eaten all day but the only thing the bar had was spanish omlette on bread rolls WTF ?? Anyway we ate them and they were lovely or we were starving.
Neil went and got showered ( I stayed with the bikes etc ) and I also pumped up my inflatable bed . I was quite pleased with this as the biggest problem with sleeping in a tent is getting off the ground/cold and having something wide enough to get comfortable on. Anyway the elec pump I had rigged to work from the bikes power socket worked a treat and inflated the bed in less than 2 minutes. I also uploaded my pics to the Archos and cleaned up my memory cards for the next day.
At about 10pm I heard a few bikes gunning it up and down the site just as it was going dark , One of them stopped at the entrance to the camp area we were in I figured all the bikes would be put in the same area so I waved him down and the others followed. I think they could see the temporary steel barrier separating the car / bike area and thought it was blocked off. I moved the barrier and four of them came in all on big KTM's but the moved further up the pitch and got themselves sorted. I noticed they has matching orange tents , very chic.
When I went to the shower I got in and threw my t-shirt / undercrackers and socks in the shower tray and stomped about on them to work in the shower gel which gave them a good wash.
We both crashed out at about 10.45pm not quite believing we were in Spain. Not a bad first day.
Mileage from the ferry to camp today 496 miles and 11 hours of riding
Map of the days ride - The map can be moved around and zoomed in or out.
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