On the Road Again!

We cancelled the trip that would have taken us to the Cathargo Malibu factory at Aulendorf mostly due to the possible weather and that we have a 16yo dog.  He was really not coping with the overly hot weather in June. No one expected to be 1300m above aea level and it being 36°C!! The email to Eurotunnel wasn't as productive as I had hoped.  We could change the date of travel but... the year you can book in is from when the ticket was bought not from when you are booked to travel. I booked the crossing on January 16th. So if we change the date we'd have to travel before then. It's not that great a deal. Hopefully, the weather will start to revert to normal and we can still go in September.  To cancel would lose us over £300. We will have to source breakdown cover for the van and travel insurance for us and of course, repatriation for Reggie. Where to go? Germany still? Or stay more local in France. I had thought of maybe Alcossebre again!!!! Let'...

The trouble with planning the first few steps of a trip that's about 150 days away is that it's easy to over think it. Over plan it even. It's also easy to think of somewhere to go and then change your mind. My original thinking was a kind of loop. West from Bilbao and then down through the Picos d'Europa into Portugal and then back across north of Madrid to the Pyrenees and across on one of the passes or tunnels and back through France to the Channel. Two dates are fixed. The ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, and the return Eurotunnel home.  What happens in the middle is all negotiable. My initial searches haven't been very successful in finding camping sites or overnight stops that appeal to me along the northern coast.  May might also be a little too hot for Reggie to venture to the southern coast, the Mediterranean, but Portugal still excites.. As we count down things might become clearer. And we have to get a vet to do Reggie's worming and stamp in his pet p...

Arrived at the Shuttle at 0646 and checked Reggie into the Pet Reception. Our first stop tonight would be a campsite in Bourg-Comin - Camping la Pointe. Only €19 a night inc EHU. Decent site, good pitches. After a stop at the Picard in Coquelles for three kilos of dogador, raw food for dogs,and then Auchun for those essentials for life - food, beer and wine, and we were off. We decided to knock the time off and take the A26. A toll road. The satnav was quoting 4.5 hours and 7.5 off toll With cruise control to be set at 100km/h on the HUD, we set off. The temp gauge showing a reasonable 25°C. A couple of stops for coffee and lunch, plus essential dog pee breaks and we exited near Laon. I had set a waypoint to a motorhome parking area close to the city wall. One road was closed with road works, but the satnav got us round. Park4Night shows the space for 8 motorhomes. The spaces are delimited by metal studs in the road. There was only one Moho there when we arrived. I did a three point tu...

It's two months today before we head up the frog and toad to Eurotunnel to start our next trip away. I have been concerning myself with getting ready for a series of staycations in Molly and have not done much other than look at maps and the various booking sites for this trip. After all. It's two months away... We have two stops on the way down and the second leaves us about a 90 miles from Claire's friend's house.  I don't expect to overstay our welcome but I guess with the non-toll route we need to keep an eye on the clock. So I have been hitting the web and the ACSI book and have found an ideal overnight stop that won't break the bank. It's around 70 miles onwards from her friend's and we should be there is good time.  I have have booked two nights in a quiet campsite called  Flower Camping La Châtaigneraie . Including the tourist tax it comes out at €42 for two nights.  The site has a swimming pool and being June it might not be full of kids, plus a...

Had a customer review questionaire in my email today from Eurotunnel. It asks about my last journey..... This is my comment: We were held up loading because a car driver refused to go on the upper deck. He was then hard up against the front doors of the last carriage. The motorcycles booked on C5 21/9/22 were crammed in. At Folkestone we had to back up into the entrance way to let this clown reverse to open the doors. This delayed our departure from Calais by 20 minutes and another 15 at Folkestone .  I scored them 4/10.  Absolutely ridiculous. The tw*t should have been told it was upstairs or nothing.

Leaving home at about 0708 in lashing down rain doesn't fill one with enthusiasm for a near on 350 mile ride to the first overnight stop. I had opted for the Triumph Steve McQueen ISDT replica jacket with my usual green Bikers Australia chino jeans. Fill waterproofs over the top. I have three pairs of waterproof gloves and two non waterproof pairs! All in the left pannier!  The first pair lasted until we were on the train. My hands wouldn't go back in them! Scratch Belstaff leather and hipora.  Did I say it was lashing down? We set off on the A16. I fuelled up at Auchun Calais. Scratch £100 worth of Alpine Star Goretex gloves. Couldn't get my hands in them. The lining sticking to the minutest damp.  Cue the old Akito Mercury gloves my brother was ditching and I had taken. Went on okay and with careful management they lasted another 300 miles. By that I mean at the lunch stop drying each hand under the hot air blower in the loo and then putting each one one separately!!...

After a summer where the powers that be called a drought it has begun to change.  Of course the change couldn't wait a few days. It will start on Wednesday. The day we are going to set off on this trip!!!! The nearest weather to where I live and the Eurotunnel Terminal. Then on the way on Wednesday once we have crossed the channel. Our first overnight is just to the south of Tours. For some reason BBC weather couldn't show Tours but worked for nearby Amboise. Thursday when we leave Tours and head for Orthez in the south looks pretty nasty as well.

Another route filled out with prospective fuel stops.  This is liable to change and  have have shared it with my brother.  I suggested that we go down to Spain his way and come back mine.  This is the bare bones route, overnight hotels and the fuel stops.   There's plenty of time to see about some stops on the way to break up the journey and take a lunch or tourist type break! It is a holiday/vacation not simply a rubber and fuel burning exercise!

If we consider that this is a motorcycle trip, then there are a few options. I can ride all the way there and back - Eurotunnel and/or short ferry I can take the Brittany Ferry one way and ride the other way I can send the bike on a truck and fly down to collect it possibly ride back I have to admit the third option only appeared after I had read an article this afternoon where some guys packed their bikes up with a specialist transport company, then they flew and met the bikes and  as they were "professionals" they left the truck to bring the bikes back and the flew home.  Possibly not for me, but worth pricing up? "But" I hear you say, riding is the point of a bike/motorcycle trip. And you would be right. So I have been mostly looking at options 1 and 2.   The return trip is in the environs of 1800 miles from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais to Motorland. On top of that will be all the wrong turns and detours en-route to get to petrol and to hotels. On to...

A popular advertising slogan not to long ago for the train over other modes of transport. Sadly, the train "service" in the UK never managed to actually keep up the pretence of being better than your own car! So when I had the idea of maybe having a birthday (pre-Christmas) trip to Lille for the Christmas market and a spot of lunch I immediately thought. Train? After all, I use the Southeastern HS1 service everyday to get to and from work.  I like the idea of a train trip.   But, (expletive removed) off!  Firstly the booking system at Eurostar couldn't find a return train from Lille to UK on the actual day of my birthday.  So I moved it to the nearest Saturday.  (Expletive removed) off again! How expletive much. You have to be expletiving mental. And then I thought of the car.  I know it is a diesel and the cause of millions of deaths a week from the pollution despite what our former Labour Government told us... It seem...

We decided to have breakfast in the hotel and then leave. It wasn't cheap but you could eat enough to make sure that lunch wasn't needed. Over breakfast a couple of other guys said that there had been an accident after the racing and they couldn't get on the D338 from the Le Mans ring road.  It must have been behind us as we had no problems getting back to the hotel. Can only hope the riders are all okay. We left at a few minutes to 10am.TomTom decided to come back a different way to the one we went out. The N12 and N154 instead of the variants of the 138/338/438 that was formerly simply the N138. The route includes some sections of dual carriageway and single. The limit goes up and down depending on whether there's a "median" or not. The blanket 80kph limit outside towns stretched to 90 on some sections where they have a passing lane. Usually these were less than a kilometre! Must be fun on busy days stuck behind a truck! We made good progress to Rouen and on...

From the line I sent an email to Eurotunnel customer services to complain about the lack of information and the long wait to get home.  I didn't expect a reply for a few days. On September 28th they emailed. "I am sorry to learn of the difficulties you experienced whilst travelling with our service on the 15th September . From the information you have provided, I regret that I have not been able to locate a ticket booked in your name. In order for us to respond in more detail could you please provide us with the booking reference number of the journey concerned." They couldn't find my name on their booking system for that day? If I was called Smith, then maybe I could accept that..... but I have a rather rare surname - Devall. Once home from Assen I made a screenshot of my booking reference and sent it to them. Result. They replied this morning to offer me a £33 credit note. That's what I paid for this trip, so not quite a staggering refund, but better than nothin...

And away we go. Reggie dropped off at Wyncot nice and early and I filled the tank at Tesco before heading to the Shuttle. The Insignia managed 40.0 mpg on the last tank. With no long journeys and just local driving I had hoped for better. We arrived at 1010 and didn't get an earlier crossing. Our 1120 crossing had been re-timed to 1119!! They might as well have re-timed to 1136 as that's when we wheezed out of Folkestone. Eurotunnel maintains its 100% record of leaving late when I am paying to travel. posted from Bloggeroid

Why is this in three parts?  Initially I started to create the posts on my phone using a blogging app. Luckily blogger accepts posts from email as well, although this time I haven't had to use it. The first part was started in Belgium and then the second added after I had returned, and this the final countdown. Today. The day after. From Palingbeek the plan was to visit the two mine craters at St Eloi. I had got the gate code from the tourist office whilst in search of the elusive Last Post Association pins. I almost missed it and there is little parking.  Rather than the big hole I expected, it is a garden between two houses. Whilst I was there an English couple came up and I shared the gate code with them. As I prepared to move to the next waypoint, I heard the sound of Harley's.  Anyone that has heard a hardly with a loud exhaust will know the sound. A group sped past.  Even though I was in bike gear, holding a bike helmet in my hand with Pepe parked up, not a sin...

I was up bright and early. Or rather early. My shoulder was feeling fine and the best it has been for a week or so. Unfortunately Eurotunnel weren't as bright. On checking in I was informed that the 0850 was "retimed" to 0858. At 0922 we pulled out of Folkestone for the 35 minute crossing to France. Pepé had required the dbPower unit boost to start first thing and again once we were given the go ahead to board the train. Playing catch up I was last on. Thankfully at the French end although prepared, seat off etc, Pepé started okay. From there tbe ride was uneventful along the A16 to the A25. I know that many riders poo-poo using motorways but if you want to get somewhere using the newly reduced limit N roads then you need days rather than hours. Arriving at the old Franco-Belgian border I stopped to take a pic for the 50/50 Challenge. The old border and customs buildings are slowly rotting away. Testament to Shengen? From here I followed TomTom instructions to Vlamerting...

Booked today.  Cost £64 for the car on top of the Assen MotoGP trip fare that I had parked with them after we couldn't go. To accommodate taking Reggie to the kennels for the weekend on Friday morning I have booked 28/9 1120 out and 1/10 1750 back. As we will be back too late to go and get him on the Monday I have Tuesday leave as well and so I can go and get him in the morning.

Vimy on 2017 Time has moved on since the last update on this potential run and I have heard back from the Vimy people in France. As with most years that aren't a big anniversary there will be the usual smaller scale commemoration at the Memorial. So I expect  numbers will be back into the hurdreds if not tens as previous years. The ceremony itself usually takes place on the other side of the memorial itself to that in the picture, although this side allows for a far larger flat space for the visitors! Last year there were many thousands and thousands of people. Mostly Canadian to celebrate a date that many see as "the birth of a nation". In 2014 there were maybe 100 people, no more than 150. So the plan. Unlike 2014 I will entrust my route to a TomTom. Which one I haven't decided but I have yet to try the 410 on the bike.  Once one gets used to it, it is a better piece of kit than the old Rider. I have fitted a new Bosch style plug to the end of the OEM wiring loom a...

Sadly the lack of wifi for most of the trip meant I was unable to keep posting and so instead here's a summary and a few pictures will be added later. Day 1 Part 2 In the end they loaded us on a train and then announced that it had a problem and was being fixed? Why you have to ask do they load a train that has problems? In the end we arrived in France 75 minutes later than planned. That meant that we missed lunch and instead carried on a bit further. We stopped at Baie de la Somme again and Reggie had a walk about and his usual widdle stops and we had a coffee. Progress along the Paris avoidance route was successful but it was gone 7pm before we rolled up at the Campanile near Orléans.  In time to check in and give Reggie his late dinner before he and us went for ours. We opted for the buffet and Reggie lay under the table. Amazingly dog friendly.  Day 2 Up and away quite early after breakfast.  The plan to fill the tank thwarted by the hypermarket being shut on a Sunday...