No lie in this morning. To save Grizzly getting to his Travelodge too late, I'd booked us on an earlier crossing than normal. As brekkie was served from 6:30, that meant we could both be up, fed and on the road before 7:30. And so it was.
The first part of the ride was fairly sedate, a mixture of motorway and country lanes, to our fuel stop, in Luxembourg. From then on we were pounding the motorways, pretty much the whole way. Today's mileage just shy of 300 miles. There was no specific coffee stop sceduled in for today, so no chance for Garmin to bugger us up, just two fuel stops. By the time we got to the second stop, there was a need to use the facilities and Grizzly refueled with a monster energy drink, which he has done a few times. I had a bit of a dickie tum, the first time all trip, so was content with a few sips of water.
We still had 100 miles to go but we had made good time thus far, so there was ample time to get to the tunnel, get ourselves an earlier crossing and for Grizzly to get some backy for his daughter. It was a breeze. We had ourselves an earlier train and time to kill, for duty free and comfort breaks. Our new crossing then showed up as being 20 minutes behind schedule. No problem, we'd still be 40 minutes ahead of the game. At least that's what we thought.
Passport control was no problem, bonjour, look, scan, stamp, on to UK. Again no problem. No need to remove my helmet and a chat with the chap, who was totally surprised when I answered his "where have you been?" question, with, Athens! "Why Athens?", because we've never ridden there before!
We had the usual wait in queue, before being let through the barrier. Then all the bikes, about a dozen, were stopped. We waited and waited. Cars were lining up but didn't appear to be moving. Then the lady operative told us there was a problem with the train that meant it might be too dangerous for us bikes. I think I heard it may have been a flood from a toilet. So we waited and waited some more. The sun was blazing down, so people asked for water. We were given a little Evian water spray canister, then as the wait continued, some water was produced. There were loads of those really tiny black bug things around and being in my white base layer, I was a prime target. Annoying f*ckers!
By now, the train we had been booked on originally was starting to board and we still weren't moving, We could see the cars were loading onto our train and shortly after, we got the nod to go from the lady. Hoorah! We finally got moving 16 minutes after the train time we had previously booked, so not a big hit, but could have been 55 minutes earlier, had all gone to plan.
At Folkestone, it was the usual handshake and man hug before we went our separate ways. I was quickly up to speed at 70mph on the M20, Grizzly and the Shadslow disappeared in my mirrors. A familiar sight!
So, another tour has ended. It's been a rollercoaster as usual, but great at the same time and we ticked off 3 new countries. There are still countries in Europe we've not been to but I'm not sure I want to go to them, so will there be another Wild Hogs tour, or is this the time to disband? There's always the Arctic Circle! 🤔 I've mentioned that to Grizzly but I don't think he's keen. If one of us wins big on the lottery, we'll be off the the USA. Grizzly has Montana on his bucket list and I already have a route mapped out.
Only one pic from today.
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| Waiting for a train, again! |
One thing I forgot to mention, Ginny clicked over 41,000 miles. And talking of figures, as usual there'll be a stats post to follow this one.
That's it for another tour though. I hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventures, the ups, the downs, the food, the beers and some of the interesting places we have visited. If you are getting this via email, you'll be sure to know if the Wild Hogs take to the road again. If you are following the blog online, I'd advise you to sign up for email updates, as that'll make sure you don't miss anything.
Thanks.
