InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

The last day. , originally uploaded by pauldevall . It doesn't seem that long ago when I packed as much of my stuff as I could in the trailer. Then fitted the Swagmans over the rear seat, fixed the two retaining bungies round the footpegs and grab rail. Got my bike gear on and then locked up for the last time. Then slowly set off down Sportovní in Zastávka for the last time. Not too long? July 1993! Christ, it doesn't seem like that long!

It's a year since I started using Flickr to store pictures..... and there are load son there.... but.. what happens when the Internet goes tits up or I get bored? http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldevall/

For a few weeks I've been using a Maplin solar panel trickle charger. I bought it a while ago and used it with the bike on the drive until I found a cheap 2m wire with BMW plug at one end and a fag lighter socket at the other. With no power in the garage it seemed like a good idea. Proof in the pudding will be on Saturday when I wheel the bike out and hope to have some charge to get it started! The one on the Maplin site now is slightly upmarket compared with mine that cost £9.99 as it has a choice of connector, fag lighter plug and crocodile clips; when mine came only with a fag lighter plug. The new £14.99 version comes suction caps to mount it with. I have mine on a pile of bricks outside my garage door and the wire trailing to the bike inside. As it doesn't look too waterproof I have it in a tasteful clear placcy bag.

Oh yes, planning has to start nice for a trip, and early to fill those long and boring days sitting on the train on the way to and from work! I thought I might go to Czech and take part in the 25th Anniversary of the Czech Centre of the SOC, but Spain has always beckoned... The plan, such as it is, is to go on the long ferry, either Portsmouth/Bilbao or Plymouth/Santander at the end of May covering the Bank Holiday and the school half term. Working in "education" means that it is easier to get a more expensive holiday for that period! I posted a note on UKGSer's forum to get opinions of the boats and it was pretty much split down the middle. The problem for me is spending two nights on the P&O boat to Bilbao. On the plus side, Pompey is easier to get to than Plymouth! Places to go? I'd like to take Claire to see the aqueduct at Segovia, the walls of Avilá and the museums of Madrid, like the Prado, the Santiago Bernabeu..... the royal palace... ...

For a number of years the Kent Centre has had a bookshop on Amazon. If you buy stuff from Amazon you pay whatever, if you buy from the Club's website, you pay the same and the Centre gets a bit of commission. NO skin off your nose and we earn a few pence!

Passed. There really shouldn't have been any doubt.

It's MoT time again. It does seem to come around very quickly nowadays! Things should be okay, the lights and brakes work, and even the horn can be trusted! A couple of years ago I tested everything, rode to Alford Brothers in Folkestone, and in the test area the horn decided not to work, we squirted some electrical contact stuff int he horn button and still it was dead. I got the fail notice, and feeling very pissed off, rode home. I'd got less than half a mile when some kid ran across the road by the Saga building. Automatic response to stab the horn and it worked. Straight back to Alfords, they pressed the button and it worked, so it passed. And it has every time I've pressed the button since! Touch wood!

The entry card arrived when I was in Spain; entry number 314. Now we let it lie until the checkpoints are announced.

Valencia I decided to park in an underground car park opposite the El Corte Ingles store. It makes it much easier when you can follow their signs as well to find where you have left the car! Getting into the city was straight forward with the GPS doing all the hard work for us, Although she did take us past the Valencia CF football ground twice as we had a problem deciphering the directions she was giving us. The first pic I took was of the bullring at the end of Carrer Colon. Next door is the railway station but its ornate and early Edwardian facade was very hard to get a decent angle on with all the damned traffic! From here it was a right turn towards the similarly ornate and hard to photograph Correos and then the Town Hall. This is easier to photograph,m even if the guide book is misleading when it says the city's coat of arms is left aloft by two naked females. Not quite what I had expected. The bat is there above the shield as this is in memory of the fact that a bat is sup...

Day 4 - A day in the mountains. First stop to check we were on the right track was just outside Cabanes, just 14km from the coast. Another "Spanish" village with loads of building of flats on the outskirts, and some at crazy prices. Crazy LOW! Two bed and two bathrooms with underground parking for €93000?! On the outskirts they have rescued a roman archway and it is now sited in the middle of a new roundabout. It looks as though it could be quite new! From Cabanes the GPS took us further inland and after a short distance we began to get cold feet about the lack of fuel in the tank. The Panda seems to have quite a small fuel tank and we couldn't find a local petrol station. So we opted to return to the coast, to one of the many stations that line the N340 towards Benicarlo and then tank up, returning across the mountains towards Morella. Once we had a full tank we let the GPS take us off the N340 and into the mountains. Even up here there is evidence of building with roads...

Day 3 As it was Monday we thought that most of the museums etc might be closed as they are in France and so we set off for Castelló (Castellon in Castillian Spanish) to have a look around and maybe have a look in the El Corte Ingles store. In the end the morning took on an altogether more exciting turn as it was the first day of the Fete of Saint Magdalene. All the shops were shut and the people were out in their thousands in the street, many in traditional dress and many more taking part in a carnival procession through the streets. We stopped to look and Claire expended a few megabytes on hard drive from the borrowed video camera. I took a few pics of the processions and it reminded me of the carnivals we used to have when I was a kid in Oldham and more recently in Congleton. Of course as soon as we saw the "Churros and Chocolate" stall we had to stop and have some. Churros is like having a long extruded doughnut and the chocolate is rich and very thick, you can either dunk...

Day 1 Luckily we set off with plenty of time built in to the trip across to Gatwick. Not that I was expecting too many hold-ups on the way, but you never know. In the end it was the car-park that was the stumbling block. I booked the same place we always use, Courtlands, just off the airport itself. Sadly, when we arrived the entrances were all closed up and it was deserted. A quick phone call revealed they had merged with a neighbouring place and the other entrance was in use. Actually easier to find off the roundabout not far from the South Terminal building. Flight no problems. Easyjet very good and as we were there so early we got to hand in the luggage very early and earn ourselves a chance to get on theplane first. It is all very civilised at Gatwick, not the mad and unseemly scrum that you often get at the Spanish end! Car hire with http://www.carjet.com/ no problems as usual. At Valencia we had booked the cheapest car available and expected a Ka but in the end got a four do...