Castles, Rivers & Mountains - 365 km - total trip 1428 km

The day began twice for me today.
I woke at 0530 and decided to get up and started by checking a few overnight emails. The next thing I knew was being awoken again at 0730 by noises in the kitchen - and I was now late - doh!

So a rushed breakfast and rapid pack later & we were soon off and heading south again.

I took an easterley detour to visit the Dordogne valley. This is a lovely area, very popular with Brits and somewhere that we had spent several happy family holidays in when the kids were little.

First stop was at Beynac, a small village with a castle/chateau, overlooking the river.

The road rises up behind the viillage allowing access to the castle itself and some great views.

Bobby the bloodbiking bear decided Shropshire & Staffordshire Bloodbikes needed another mention at this point and so insisted on being on the castle photos!

From Beynac we headed along and across the river to Castlenaud, another hilltop chateaux. Both castles were originally built in the 12th century and featured heavily in the 100 years war between the French & the English, changing hands many times.

Further south I came across this rather curiously designed church not far from which we stopped to brew a coffee using H's infamous 'Kelly' kettle - I was so impressed I forgot to take a photo of the said kettle in action, and so will explain more of this contraption later!

Then it was a push south through some rather uninspiring countryside until the pyrenees started to appear on the horizon.

We stopped for the night in Aucun, leaving the exciting mountain roads for the morning when we would be fresh & raring to go.

At the time of writing it is raining heavily, hopefully it will have cleared up by the morning, it would be a real shame to miss those vistas.

A long first day ... day total 1063km, trip total 1063km

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.

Wet start but happy ending!

Day 4 382km (1500km total)

Well the forecast was accurate, it started raining about 4am and just continued relentlessly throughout the morning. So I quickly had to learn the art of packing everything inside the tent, packing the inner tent, loading the bike and lastly taking down & packing the flysheet. Pretty sucessful manoever really, though I was still soaked afterwards!

I rode away from the campsite in driving rain, and so switched the satnav to "use motorways" and headed for the nearest toll road, figuring I would cover some ground whilst it was wet and stick to well cared for roads. An uneventful couple of hours followed, but at least the toll roads have facilties every so often so fuel & coffee were not an issue.

Its amazing what a difference to the climate and terrain an hour or so on the toll roads and a few tunnels can make. Before too long the weather improved & so did the scenery.

 

Time to leave the toll roads and head up into those hills. :-)

That's more like it!

Finally I saw the sign for my target tonight, just a few miles from the Italian border.

 

And before long the tent was up and I even had chance to Improise a washing line & do some washing - so domesticated!

The camp site is in a nice little spot close by a mountain stream, very peaceful.

Forecast for tomorrow is sunny, which is good as I am looking forward to the twisty mountain pass over into Italy.

 

 

To the Auvergne

Day 3 344km (1118km total)

Was sleeping too soundly at chez Ian's so up a bit late this morning, but just in time for a great breakfast of croissants, chocolate au pain, coffee & fruit juice. Then I did a few rounds of pack & repack - must get this routime sorted!

By 11ish I was on my way into a very hot & dry Loire region.

The first few hours were not very interesting, just long straight flat roads with lots of traffic. Stopped for a sandwich & frittes at a truck stop, after whcih things started to look more scenic.

Once I entered the Auvergne region, the roads hot distinctly better, pity I was a bit too hot & tired to enjoy it fully

Destination tonight a campsite in the region, found a quiet spot away from the screaming kids and savoured a local beverage or two.

Rain is forecast for the morning, so it might be a wet start. Next destination in the mountains near tHeItalian border.

 

 

I'm in France!

Day 2 - 449km (total 795km)

Bang bang bang! ... Mesdames et monsieurs!.....

A rather rude awaking at 4am from my gentle slumber as the cabin steward proceeded along the corridor waking everyone up .... A quick rush to get all the clobber on followed by a dash to the stairs leading down to the boat deck - where of course I then had to queue for an hour until they let us down - lesson learned, there's no need to rush!

Off the boat in the cool darkness, I headed south, deciding against using the toll roads to enjoy France's rural scenery. After an hour's riding in the pitch black, I realised that what had initially seemed a pleasant fresh cool was actually really cold. I began shivering a little, not helped of course by my vented jacket, gloves & trousers. I did consider stopping & putting more suitable clothing on, but decided to carry on as the sun would be up soon & surely things would warm up.

2 hours riding, sun's up, I'm still shivering & the fuel light comes on - 'ok good, now I have to stop for petrol & I can get a hot coffee'.

Wrong! .... I had'nt realised that at 7am on a Sunday, most fuel stations are closed and those that are open have no other facilities - maybe the toll roads would have been a better choice to this point.

Anyway by 10am it was getting warmer & I saw a nice looking village on a hill, so went up for a look.

Lo & behold it also had a little coffee shop ... Sorted!

In my best schoolboy french I ordered a coffee with milk. Of course its a long time since I was a schoolboy & so not surprising really that the French language must have changed (thats my excuse anyway). So when the waiter rturned with 3 black coffee's & a slightly puzzled expression, I should not have been surprised.

We finally settled on two black coffee's and a pot of cream.

Suitably cafinated, refuelled and rested I hit the road again passing through a few more nice villages, one with a lovely chateau ...

Finally in the early afternoon, I arrived at my first overnight stop - chez Ian & Anne.

Had a lovely afternoon & evening with Ian & Anne, Paul & Lindsey and John & Elaine - so no language problems here.

Also met Ian's pet beetle Geoffrey!