OK well its technically not one day as it was split by part of the night being spent on the ferry, but that doesnt really count as a stop over as we were still moving.
We, I should explain is me & H, a fellow bloodbiker who decided he would like to come along on this trip to experience the joys of adventure motorcycling, having previously only done this kind of thing on those primative motorcycles with pedals instead of an engine!
So we met up in rural staffordshire early afternoon and headed towards the southcoast. We diverted to Bognor Regis for some food, meeting up briefley with Russ - who was with me for part of the last trip and was back over from Thailand - a great hour spent reminising.
As on the last trip I had decided to use the Newhaven-Dieppe overnight ferry in preference to the tunnel as this allows for a relatively relaxed journey from home & an early start in France - its also cheap!
The theory is that with 5 hours on board you can grab a few hours kip ready for a push south when the boat arrives in France at 05:00! The reality, as ever is a little different, it was a pretty rough crossing and so sleep only came is fits & starts amongst the sounds of things falling over and fellow passengers crying for "Ruuuth"!
The other slight disadvantage is that 5am in France is, for some reason, very bloody cold and of course dark and nowhere is open, most inconsiderate! So you just have to push on through the cold damp fog that seems to pervade everywhere, fighting the urge to fall back into the deep slumber you had just managed to get into as the ship docked!
This morning at least had a very bright and almost full moon which looked pretty spectacular - sorry no pictures in account of how cold I was! By the time the sun came up we were already starting to skirt Rouen and well on the way.
I opted not to use any toll roads, the beauty of French travel being that N & even D roads can be almost as fast in terms of overall time, & far more interesting. No stops en route today either, the objective being to cover some ground and get into the dordogne area for the night.
We finally arrived at 'Bikers Nest' in Douville, a set of rooms in the charming old house & grounds owned & run by Micheal a 'matured' rock guitarist of the 'sex&drugs&rock'n roll era'. A lovely host who gave us the run of his home & even gave us a lift to a local restaurant for something to eat.
Tomorrow's plan is to head east a little to pick up a couple of the sights along the Dordogne valley before turning south towards the pyrenees.
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