Day 1 - Here We Go Again
Sunday 10th July 2016
Seasoned readers of these blogs will recall that Mick and I didn't really get good value from last year's tour in the Picos de Europa mountains of Northern Spain.
The rain set in on our first evening out of Santander and continued pretty much without respite for the next few days. Mountain passes were enshrouded in cloud as we tiptoed over the passes, and the valley roads were drenched and treacherous.
After a couple of days we gave up on this beautiful part of the world and hightailed it into the Pyrenees and over into sunny France.
We always reckoned we would have to give it another try and so here we go again, heading over the Bay of Biscay on the flagship of the Brittany Ferries fleet, the Pont-Avon, en route from Plymouth to Santander.
We are accompanied on this trip
by Mick's son Sean on his GS, making his first trip abroad on a bike. It
will be a challenging learning curve for him.
Our tour will take us on a wiggly route through the Picos, then over the Pyrenees and across southern France to Nice and the ferry to Corsica.
After a week in Corsica we will return to Nice and work our way through the French Alps and into Switzerland before returning home overland via Luxembourg and The Ardennes.
So here we go again. I meet up with Mick & Sean shortly after 6am for the long haul down to Plymouth. It is precisely 300 miles from Doncaster and it starts to rain less than 10 minutes into the trip.
We stop under a motorway bridge to don the waterproofs. Not an auspicious start. It gets better as we progress south but the head wind is brutal and gets stronger as we cruise past Birmingham and head down the M5 to Bristol and the West Country.
At one coffee stop Sean is complaining that his satnav is nagging him to turn off at every exit. It turns out his Garmin is heading for Portsmouth.
We arrive at the Brittany Ferries dock with two hours to spare. Easy easy.
The ferry is full of bikers. Many are heading for the big annual rally at Faro. It is still very windy and this leads to a big swell in the Bay of Biscay. The boat is lurching up and down. We give up stumbling around early and are in our bunks by nine.
at one point a passing pirate ship attempts to board us but is swiftly repelled.
 |
| Ready for the off |
Seasoned readers of these blogs will recall that Mick and I didn't really get good value from last year's tour in the Picos de Europa mountains of Northern Spain.
The rain set in on our first evening out of Santander and continued pretty much without respite for the next few days. Mountain passes were enshrouded in cloud as we tiptoed over the passes, and the valley roads were drenched and treacherous.
After a couple of days we gave up on this beautiful part of the world and hightailed it into the Pyrenees and over into sunny France.
We always reckoned we would have to give it another try and so here we go again, heading over the Bay of Biscay on the flagship of the Brittany Ferries fleet, the Pont-Avon, en route from Plymouth to Santander.
 |
| The Pont Avon (photo from Brittany Ferries website) |
Our tour will take us on a wiggly route through the Picos, then over the Pyrenees and across southern France to Nice and the ferry to Corsica.
After a week in Corsica we will return to Nice and work our way through the French Alps and into Switzerland before returning home overland via Luxembourg and The Ardennes.
 |
| It's a Bond thing |
So here we go again. I meet up with Mick & Sean shortly after 6am for the long haul down to Plymouth. It is precisely 300 miles from Doncaster and it starts to rain less than 10 minutes into the trip.
We stop under a motorway bridge to don the waterproofs. Not an auspicious start. It gets better as we progress south but the head wind is brutal and gets stronger as we cruise past Birmingham and head down the M5 to Bristol and the West Country.
At one coffee stop Sean is complaining that his satnav is nagging him to turn off at every exit. It turns out his Garmin is heading for Portsmouth.
We arrive at the Brittany Ferries dock with two hours to spare. Easy easy.
The ferry is full of bikers. Many are heading for the big annual rally at Faro. It is still very windy and this leads to a big swell in the Bay of Biscay. The boat is lurching up and down. We give up stumbling around early and are in our bunks by nine.
 |
| Ships that pass in the night |
at one point a passing pirate ship attempts to board us but is swiftly repelled.
Comments
Post a Comment