Packed and ready
May 4, 2008 at 3:31 pm | Bike, Trip | 3 comments
A thing of beauty to be sure!
I’m heading off in half an hour, going to meet up with Dom before I leave as he lives near Portsmouth and I have his cargo net still…
I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to blog next, I’ll have to use a pen and paper to scrivere my thoughts upon… Translating that into text at a later date though may prove difficult due to my apalling handwriting!
I’m oddly calm about this whole thing… I think I still don’t really comprehend that it’s happening, and probably won’t until I realise everyone around me is speaking another language I know no more than a couple of words in.
The bike is running sweet as a nut now, I reckon it was all in my head.
I was amazed how easily everything fitted on the bike, even had room to spare for a crapload of books in the panniers which I’d never have believed!
I don’t know what to say now.. I’m off!
‘n Roads to Marseille
May 9, 2008 at 1:36 pm | Trip | 1 comment
“God fucking damnit!” I exclaimed as my back spasmed and my bike fell back to the earth for the fourth or fifth time.
I’d been changing my fork oil as just before I got on my ferry to France Dom noticed that my newly installed seals were leaking.
“Bonjour, ca’va?”
I turn round to see some kind soul has pulled into the lay by behind me.
“Non… Err.. could you help me lift the bike?”
He laughs out loud at my pleading expression and frantic miming of lifting the bike.
“Don’t worry mate, I’m English too!”
“Really? Fantastic! Could you give me a hand?”
With his help it’s no problem at all, though I get the feeling it’s going to be a recurring theme on the trip.
“Well.. If you need anything else mate, a place to stay or anything, we’re just up the road”
“Really? Well… That would be great actually? Could I put up my tent in your garden or something?”
“You can have the spare room!”
I waved goodbye clutching the map Nick had drawn out for me and followed on after them once I’d repacked the bike which I’d strewn across the ground in attempt to pick it up.
I saw nick waving in the distance and rocked up behind an absolutely massive house complete with dogs and chickens (chickens not shown)
Nick and Trudy turned out to be two of the nicest people you could possibly hoped to meet and after the biggest and most delicious omlette I’d ever seen we retired to their living room to discuss (amongst other things) Nick’s work as a forensic psychologist.
It was by far the most pleasent evening I’d spent on the trip, admittedly only the second, and the first had been spent here…
I’m becoming an expert in French lay-bys and only yesterday I spent the night in a ditch, which is not as bad as it sounds surprisingly.
The past five days I’ve spent getting lost primarily. But this is only a good thing as we all know the most fantastic places are found when you get lost!
I was desperately trying to detour a toll-road yesterday and suddenly come up against a complete road closure of the only road for miles.
But I notice another biker heading down a road that’s unmarked on my map and looks set to dead end in about 100 yards and decide to follow him.
He takes me up a series of hairpin bends and we come out on top of a hill overlooking the town below… I truly wish I’d taken a photo, but I was scared I’d get lost if I didn’t follow the bike in front.
The valley stretched out as far as the eye could see in the crystal clear air below with the roofs painting a terracotta pool in the centre of green forests and fields.
I remember Marseille now, last time I came through here I swore I’d never return as the maze of roads and rush hour traffic caused me endless frustration even with GPS guidance.
Still, I’ve just looked and according to Google the BMW garage I’ve got to get my seals from is a mere mile away and looks relatively easy to find!
Clearly, fortune favours the bold!
Road-side fork oil change!
View from another lay-by campsite!
Sardegna, Corsica and.. Germany?
May 17, 2008 at 9:28 pm | Trip | 5 comments
I hastily put down my, by now, sodden map of Corsica to wave at a group of eight German overlanders who were passing by just as I realised I’d spent the last 6 hours going in a circle trying to get to where I already was.
After realising where I was actually trying to get to, I quickly packed up and jumped on the bike in hot pursuit of the overlanders.
Despite the rain I caught them quickly on one of Corsicas few pieces of dual-carriageway and did the french foot-wave I’d seen so many bikers use as they passed me throughout France.
After parting ways (and nearly falling over on a slippery roundabout taken too fast.
I found myself in Propriano on the west coast of Corsica.
The weather throughout my two day stay in Corsica had been universally wet, so I decided finally it was time to pay for some accomodation in the form of a camp site.
€10, which I didn’t end up paying as the reception didn’t open early enough for me to check out and catch my ferry in the morning, bye bye copy no.1 of my driving licence.
Depressingly enough in Sardegna the weather was much the same and after milling around in the miserable town of Porto Torres (which however boasted “il menu turistica” at a restaurant comprising of a 3 course meal of veal and three glasses of wine for €11 in its favour) I forked over for my second campsite.
May I stress that even after (less than really) a week sleeping rough, it feels so good to be able to sleep without fear of being mugged/moved on by the police and to have a hot shower in the morning.
My reason for being in Sardinia was ultimately to go and see the rally, but in my personal tradition of organising very little and adopting an “I’ll sort it out when I get there” attitude I had no idea where the hell it was other than some vague notion it was in the north east.
A quick trip to an internet cafe in Sassari revealed that the opening ceremony was in Porto Cervo, so I set off across the island, and as the weather improved started to feel a bit more optimistic about the whole affair.
And got to appreciate some excellent scenery to boot
Once I got to Porto Cervo however I found nothing other than a mini-St-Tropez and hide nor hair of anything rally related.
Being as it was getting late, the best thing I decided was to simply find somewhere to camp and to try and find out more in the morning.
The time-honoured process of driving randomly and hoping for a sign worked out well and I came to a rather nice sounding campsite “Acapluco”, at an astounding ,€8 a night and with a very plush bar on-site to boot!
I pitch my tent next to a group of German motorbikes that looks suspiciously familiar…
It would appear that through some incredible fluke, through the entirity of Corsica and the entirity of Sardinia, the group of German overlanders I encountered in Corsica are camped in the very same campsite!
They prove very friendly and I believe this is their website, though I don’t have my notebook to hand so I may be wrong.
My incredible luck in meeting people extends to a rally journalist (who has expressed an interest in writing an article on my travels) with previous experience as a motorcycle test-pilot (as it were) and not only tested the F650 but also the very R1200s that Ewan Mcgregory and Charley Boorman did their RTW travels on, apparently revealing major issues with the first two bikes initially assigned to them!
The next day I rebuilt my forks (replacing previously mentioned leaky fork seals).
However the drain-bolts on both forks are stripped (my fault!) and my attempts to seal them with instant-gasket have so far proved unsuccessful (but I feel I may just being using it wrong!)
As that didn’t take all day and I needed to recover after successfully sunburning myself quite badly during the fork rebuild I proceeded to laze the entire day away on the beach and in the bar drinking the local beer.
Which is far too nice.
Today?
Today I went to see the RALLY!
