Sorry in advance that there are a couple of word-heavy posts coming up, but I think we ended up focusing a bit too much on the road, and not enough on the camera...I suppose on account of the ferry booking lurking in the back of our minds....

So, we had a fairly definite plan for today. Leave early, have a 'dry' breakfast to save time, don't get lost, don't take detours and just get the miles done and stay on schedule. With our departure day fast approaching we wanted a bit of contingency in case anything went wrong with the bikes, and things started well enough. We got up early (not as early as planned, but that's par for the course), had a quick breakfast of bread, peanut butter and nectarines and I played around with the compressor to get our tires pumped up. A bit of fiddling with the pen gauge and I worked out that we were getting about 2psi every ten seconds from the compressor, so now that we had control over it, that job took a bit less time.

We were off by 10am and back onto the crazy-straight roads. Almost immediately I was almost killed by a granny who arrived at a junction, watched me barreling towards her at 110kmh for about five minutes, then decided at the last minute to pull out in front of me and motor along at 30kmh. At least now I know my ABS works. Just after that we arrived in the town of Sanguinet. The next place we were headed for was posted east, but I'd seen a sign for a supermarket straight ahead, and I wanted to stock up on supplies early so we could get a few hours of solid riding behind us. After a bit of cruising around, getting outsmarted by the one-way system, and being directed past a really cool lake, filled with miniature sail boats and kayaks, we eventually said **** it, let's just get on and worry about shopping later. Of course, around the next bend was the supermarket we'd spent an hour chasing.

Suitably stocked, we had to find our way back to the signpost and get back on the right track. We hit a roundabout on the edge of the village, and stopped. Maria was sure it was down this road, I was sure it was the other. Since I've got a history of getting us lost whenever we get anywhere near civilisation, I decided to trust Maria's instinct and veered off in the direction she was pointing. A half hour of looking for anything familiar, and not finding our signpost and we decided to head back into town. Back at the roundabout we took 'my' road and around the first bend was our signpost, looking very much like victory for me. Shame I couldn't be too smug, since she's got a pretty long list of my navigational disasters by now.

From there to Bordeaux was pretty straightforward. We had a plan to turn eastwards and skirt around the city, then back north and towards Saintes. As we neared the city, there was very little in the way of signage and the only thing that looked familiar was a small inconspicuous sign for Thouars. Assuming there must be a better option, I pressed on north. Bad idea: I led us straight into the centre of Bordeaux, and a half hour of creeping along between traffic lights. Not a huge problem though - we just waited for the first available east-bound road, followed it till we could cross the river to head north, did that, and eventually we were back on our way towards Saintes where, being the clever guy I am, I made exactly the same mistake again.

Never mind, we were slowly making our way north, and we were actually getting a sense of the towns we were passing through, instead of just skirting around the peripheries. Bordeaux is nice enough, if a bit on the large side and with the ring road encircling it, it's a bit too traffic oriented for my liking. Saintes seems a lot more laid back; quite fashion conscious by the looks of things, with a big student population to keep the bars looking beautiful. Shortly after that we reached Niort - a town we'd passed through on our way south. I'd been impressed with the style of the place and the architecture and even though progress through the town was held up by traffic, it gave me another chance to look around. We ambled through the modernised central square we'd seen before and soon ended up in a cool old part of the town, full of little bars and cafés. This was definitely a town to earmark for a future trip, since this time round we were pushed for time, and we couldn't afford to stop for the day of we wanted to make the ferry.


Around about this point I came across a fundamental truth of travelling. No matter where you are, how long you've been on the road or how zen you think you've become, you'll very quickly see red when you're stuck behind a truck doing 20 below the speed limit that Will. Not. Move. The ****. Out of your way. We spent a good two hours on the roads north of Niort stuck behind trucks, camper vans and learner drivers, and the inside of my helmet heard some creative new swear words. Mercifully the French had started experimenting with the Spanish system of including an overtaking lane incrementally for each side of the road. The French ones are considerably shorter though, which made for some fun, derby style riding. Since you only have about 500m to overtake before the two lanes merge again, everyone who has somewhere to go prepares themselves at the first sighting of a signpost, we all go full throttle for half a kilometer, then swerve back in at the last second hopefully having cleared a few trucks in the process. Maria was racing to catch the ame gap as me so she wouldn't lose me and then she almost got killed. The one British van on a road full of French trucks decided to pull out straight in front of her at 60mph, as she was overtaking at about 80mph. Thank **** for good brakes and lady luck!

That went on for about 40km or so until we made it past Thouars. By this point we'd been in the saddle for nine hours, to do a hard earned 240 miles, and we were both exhausted. I jumped on the first dirt track I saw and Maria, following behind spotted a second track branching off and broke away to explore. When my track narrowed to a tiny path and turned up nothing, I got off to turn my bike around and follow her. A few attempts at pulling the bike backwards, jumping on to ride it forwards, rinse and repeat, and I was starting to break a sweat. Eventually I figured bollox, I'll just gun it up and over the ditch I'm wedged in and either I'll come unstuck or fall over and be done with it. Luckily I managed the former, and I made it down to where Maria was waiting by a nice spot where a cornfield met a hedge and some mature trees gave us a bit of cover. That'll do nicely.


No sooner had we made camp and opened our wine than a toot and a rumble signalled an approaching train, which came screaming right past us. We hadn't spotted the tracks since they were hidden by the hedge, but by now were were in no mood to pack up and start the search again. It'll be an interesting night...

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A full day's riding down and a in my belly, and I'm feeling pretty good as we head out of Le Mans. Trip-wise it was a good day anyway. I'd been looking at the map and doing some calculations the night before, and it seemed that because of our mad dash north over the past few days we were getting to Calais quicker than we needed to. All well and good, but we didn't want to get too complacent since we still wanted some contingency time to deal with any bike issues that might arise. So the plan we came up with was to carry on riding full days, but to treat ourselves to a long lunch in a cafe somewhere. By lunch, we meant . Cold in a glass. We'd both been craving it for ages, but we couldn't really stop at a bar in the evening, where one would turn into twelve, and usually when we found camp it was miles away from anyone willing to get us drunk. Lunch would put a nice one-hour cap on proceedings.

We shot off to Saumer without issues, got diverted to Bauge via Noyant, but all good since it was well signposted and all the slow-ass lorries opted for the toll free motorways instead. We rolled into Le Mans at about lunch time with Maria's front brake squealing horribly. We had a quick look and her pads seemed to be bare. She was sure she'd changed them just before we left, but they were definitely gone. We speculated for a bit on how it could have happened. Maybe the intense heat messed with her brake fluid? If it expanded a bit it might be enough to hold the brakes on, without causing much resistance, but enough to wear out the pads? Maybe the disk warped a bit? Of course it was always possible that she put the old pads back in the bike and threw the new ones away - happens to everyone now and then. Either way we needed to find a shop that sold parts for a bimmer, and we were both up for practicing something that we'd doubtless have to do plenty of times on the world trip.

Luckily we'd arrived in Le Mans through the industrial quarter so we just rode around 'till we spotted a car parts shop. Maria actually speaks very decent French - a fact she'd kept hidden from me 'till now - and she managed to hold a conversation with the shop owner while I looked on uselessly (my brain's a sieve for foreign languages). We were given directions to a bike shop that sold parts, and as it turns out it was only a mile down the road. We found the place easily enough, and arrived just as the shutters were going back up after a lunch break. Nothing like a lucky streak, is there. The guy at the desk spoke some English and had a catalogue of parts so we pointed out what we needed and ten minutes later we were out in the car park stripping down the caliper. We checked the pistons - which were fine, and the disk - which was ****ed, and put the new pads in.


After a quick test ride to make sure the bike wouldn't fall apart after our efforts we headed into the centre of Le Mans for our 'lunch'.

As per usual we stuck the bikes on a bit of pedestrian square, grabbed the tank bags and wandered off for a bit of exploring. All I knew of Le Mans was that it's been hosting a 24hour endurance race annually for 90 the last years. It's a cool town though. A big cathedral dominates the hill, with so many flying buttresses the architect must have been compensating for something, and a big change in ground level across the city means you often find yourself riding over or under cool brick arches holding up the roads.


We sat down at a pizzeria in the main square and ordered our s. We were then told by the aloof (even by French standards) waiter that they weren't serving food. Apparently unless it's precisely lunch time or dinner time, the French just aren't having it. Fine by us, we can just drop the pretense that we came here for anything other than . We finished our half pint of cold leffe and wandered back to the bikes where, to the amusement of the kids milling around, we dug some bread and smoked pork out of the panniers and made ourselves some sandwiches.

As luck would have it we'd parked next to the road we needed to take out of the city so after a bit of maneuvering around pedestrians we got off the square and back on the road. While we were stopped for petrol a French guy who spoke no English took an interest in my bike, and we struck up a conversation-by-mime. I'd managed to convey that it was 650cc, and was trying to explain 'single cylinder', when he started to look a bit worried, and made his excuses to leave. I was a bit confused, till I realised that I'd been performing a fairly convincing mime for fisting. Never mind - onwards and out of town and since we were only about 300 miles away from Calais we decided to call it an early night.

Our first few forays down dirt roads yielded nothing but gates and private property signs. Eventually I started following a track that, while getting narrower by the second, was heading towards a nice cluster of trees that I was sure would be a good spot. As the track shrank to just the width of the bike I stopped short and realised that we'd circled around and were sitting right by the main road, and about six feet above it. No way to get down there, we climbed off the bikes and slowly backed each one into the ditch, revved it forward and repeated, eventually squirming our way round till we were facing more or less back the way we came. Then back on the bikes, a last bit of welly to get 'round and over the ditch, and back on the search. Just a day in the life of a nomad biker.

Not long after that I spotted a small track leading between two fields and heading towards a quiet looking copse, so off we went. Busy dodging rocks and tree roots, I happened to look in my mirror just in time to see Maria career off into the field and over on her side in spectacular fashion. While we were picking the bike up she explained that she'd tried to switch from one side of the track to the other not realising how big the rut in the middle was. When she hit it and swerved, she overcompensated and shot off into the freshly ploughed field!

The track eventually opened into a field a nice distance from the road.

While we usually like to camp on unused ground and this field had plastic bales waiting to be collected, we decided to just park the bikes in a little nook out of the way and pitch the tent in such a way that we wouldn't block the entrance to the field. Anyway, we hoped that we'd be packed up and gone before anyone came by. A horse and rider did stop by to check us out, but then just carried on to a nearby farm and since no-one came back to follow up, we looked to be ok. Two days to go, then it's all over....

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Last night was the first night that got really cold. I'm usually not bothered by it, but last night it kept me awake. One more sign that we're nearing England and the end of the trip I guess. It didn't help that I was troubled by weird dreams, mixing my inability to communicate in foreign languages with weird, half-forgotten childhood memories. That's the thing about these extended trips - you've got a lot of thinking time while you're on the road. In between negotiating towns or stopping to eat or fuel up you're left with a lot of time just for introspection. You tend to square things away in your head, arrive at conclusions about yourself, your life and the people around you. Then when you've dealt with that stuff, all the demons from your past start making their way to the surface. Your mind starts digging up old shit that's been buried for years, just to have something to play with. It's probably healthy, psychologically speaking, but man it ****s with your dreams.

Packing up the bikes was fairly standard by now and after porridge and coffee we were on the road by ten. Two hours seems to be the time it takes us to wake up, eat and pack, and I don't really see the point in working too hard to reduce it. Back on the road, and we had to find our way back to the chosen route, since our shenanigans the night before had taken us off course. Easy enough though, and a combination of luck and the navigational skills we were slowly picking up soon had us winding our way through little villages on our way north. The villages were slowing us down but I wasn't too bothered.


We were 300 miles south of Calais and the plan was to treat ourselves to lunch and a (attempt number two) and just keep riding 'till we were within 100 miles or so of the ferry. We had pizza and s in a really nice little village called Conches, just south of Rouen.


I'd noticed as we were heading further north that the villages were taking on a real 'storybook' kind of look. The streets were narrow and winding and the locals relaxed in the sun smoking cigarettes and chatting. Since we'd crossed the river in Saumer and passed a huge white Chateau, everything had felt quintessentially French. Maybe that's what makes northern France a good spot for a short weekend ride - it conforms to your expectations, in the best kind of way.


Back on the road and I was having one of my introspective moments. I'd missed some big occasions during the trip - a best mate's 30th birthday, his engagement to his girlfriend, another best mate deciding to move to Costa Rica indefinitely, his leaving party. Hearing about all these things over the phone and not being involved was disappointing. It was interesting though that it never made me think twice about leaving to travel 'round the world. Missing out on landmark events in my friends' lives is unfortunate, and there are some people that I'm sure I'll miss when I'm away, but the world is out there to be seen, and I aim to see it. Maybe the nomad's life just suits me...

Skirting around Rouen and jumping on to the motorway meant I had to start focusing on the present again. It was straightforward enough though, until we hit Dieppe - a labyrinth of roads and water. I circled around it for a while looking in vain for the road marked on my map, until Maria pointed out a 'toutes directions' sign. We followed that and a few other roads intuitively and eventually got back onto roads marked by the map and en route to Abbeville. We've been travelling with a very small scale map - 1:900,000 - so sometimes roads that seem to lead straight into a town are actually connected by small bits of other roads, or just change their name at some point. It's ok if the towns are well furnished with signposts, but that's not always the case.

We decided that it was getting too late to go all the way through Abbeville and look for camp on the other side, so at about 6pm we started looking for good spots. I had this naively romantic idea that on our last night of wild camping we'd find a perfect spot instead of just settling for any old place to throw up the tent, even if it meant searching for longer than usual. A small price to pay for a comfy piece of ground, a good view of the sunset and a blanket of stars to lie under. About five minutes into the search I stopped at a small side road to see if it looked promising. I wasn't too keen, since the track seemed to bend around and run back parallel to the main road, but Maria wanted to have a look. The track ran as expected, but a few hundred yards later a smaller path branched off to the left, ran up a hill and ended at a rectangular grove of tall trees cresting a hill and giving us exactly the spot we wanted.




With the sun going down in front of me, the stars just starting to shine at my back and a soft floor of ivy to lie on, and a bottle of wine to wash the whole scene down, I can definitely see the appeal of staying on the road for good...

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Today we would be catching the ferry and going back home. I really didn't want to and thoughts of just heading east from here crossed my mind. Knowing that wasn't really an option, I resorted to simply refusing to wake up. Something that Aidan soon fixed with a strong coffee.


We packed up sleepily and pumped up the tires for the last time. I finally learned how to use the electric compressor.

Back on the road towards Calais we stopped at a supermarket and bought as many bottles of wine as we could fit into the panniers. There was a tiny old lady milling around the supermarket. She was using one of the childrens' shopping trolleys, she was so tiny!

We were closer to Calais than we had thought - only 50km! But this time we found the D940, a beautiful coastal road we had been meaning to take on the way down. It rolls along the grassy hills through tiny villages and around sand dunes. Shame it was so busy. There was some sort of race going on and the runners had priority over everyone. Spectators lined the roads. And if there was a couple of kilometers free of people, we were stuck behind some Belgian car or other, who insisted to drive exactly half the speed limit! And when I stopped to take a picture of the white cliffs across the channel, they would attempt to run me over in slow motion.


Despite that we arrived at the port sooner than expected and for an extra £20 each we were allowed to squeeze onto an earlier boat. Bumped into a German couple who were off on a one week trip along the south coast of England. We ended up chatting for the whole crossing. He rides a yellow V-Strom and is taking all her luggage too. Apparently he is an electrical engineer and travels loads. She just passed her test and this was her first big bike trip on a lowered 650 Bandit. When asked for recommendations, we sent them to Brighton

Back in England it was sunny along the coast, but inland above London where we were headed, it was cloudy. No sooner had we stopped to put all our extra clothes on, did it start pissing down with rain! All the while, to our left and to our right and behind us the sun was still shining. Eventually the sun started shining again, but it still rained and the reflections off the wet road blinded us. I almost rode into a traffic light. Grrrrrrr! Welcome back to England

After a loooooong freezing ride we finally got home and dropped the bikes off in the garage.Then exhaustion took over and we curled up in bed with an Indian takeaway, a huge tub of ice cream and a movie

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