On the Road Again!

Not a bad night once the screaming brat closed down for the night. After two of the three S's were accomplished we went down to desayuno. It's included in the room rate. As we are both old we qualify for the "golden age" rate at the Parador that gives us a discount on the room rate of about 10%. Breakfast was a buffet. Plenty for everyone.  Views from the terrace. Sorting what goes in what bag not so simple! To save carrying loads what we need for the duration of the boat crossing and the hotel stop in Poole we needed one bag. Once sorted we loaded Döra and then checked out.  The Parador We reported the broken chair and I left a note and took pictures!! The broken chair The first planned stop was Potes on the edge of the Picos.  Today there was only one mountain pass, Puerto de Piedroluengas at 1355m. It is on the border between Palencia and Cantabria.  The descent on the northern side is a series of bends and hairpins. Luckily there were few other cars to hassle us ...

At sea. The ship seems quite noisy. Not just the neighbours but the engine sounds and the vibration through the decks and fittings. So far just a gentle swell as we awoke at 7am or maybe 8am. We haven't a clue whether the ship is on UK or Spanish time. The view from the window in the cabin. Sea and sky. We went and had a look at breakfast in the self-service.  A choice of full English or continental. We went for the less belly busting continental. With coffee. The coffee on the ship is pretty decent. Then sunned ourselves for a while followed by a siesta before we went to have a lunch of soup and a roll.   I managed to get TomTom to find the satellites so we could see where we were. So far very few announcements from the crew of where we are. At 1430 still no sign of land but TomTom showing us about 100 miles off Santander. The downside to this long crossing in August is that the boat is overrun with kids. A lot of them being looked after pretty responsibly, but a big but. It ...

We left home  just after 9.30am to fill up with petrol at Ashford Tescos.  That done we joined the motorway en route to Poole.  We had a short stop at Cobham as my hip was playing up. It was too early for more painkillers but a short walk around seemed to help and we rejoined the slow moving  traffic.  I think from there to Poole we were filtering through the the traffic.  It was amazing how many cars there were on the road.  We stopped again at Winchester services on the M3 for another hip stop and bite to eat.  From there on it was touch and go if we would actually get to the ferry on time due to the slow moving g traffic. By this this time we had caught up with at least 4 other bikes filtering through the traffic but I could tell Paul was getting frustrated as they were not in much of a hurry.  We finally arrived in Poole about 14.15 in time to nip into Asda to grab a few snacks and drink for the journey. Arriving at the port it all seemed...

We were up early for the ride to Poole to get the LD Ferry to Santander.  Packing was done the night before. The Touratech bag to go in the larger pannier, waterproofs and spare gloves in the smaller and the rest in the Givi bag in the new box.  The TT bag fitted pretty well into the body of the pannier leaving the lid free for another smaller bag, that is home to the sponge bag and the chargers bag!  Packed and ready. We were away at about 0935 for the 160 mile ride to Poole. I hadn't filled the tank after last weekend's ride to Colchester, so the first stop was Tesco at Ashford to fill up. Pay at the pump wasn't working again. Grrrrr. Once away, the M20 and M26 were free flowing until the M25 but even the eastern end wasn't too bad. Then it all clagged up before Cobham Services. We pulled off for ten minutes to give Claire's hip a rest. TomTom saying we had 108 miles to go. It had taken an hour from Tesco.  Then it all went downhill! Rejoining into four lanes of c...