Homeward Bound

Day 133  Thursday 11^th August 2011  

Well, here it is. Our last day, 133 days since we left England and we are now at the very point of setting foot on English soil again (or in our case putting our tyres back on English asphalt). A kind of mixed emotion hit me as we set off through Dunkirk town back to the motorway. No more searching for hotels each day, no more border crossings, no more packing and repacking the bike each day. I was really looking forward to seeing Gina, the kids, mum and granddaughter Immy. It had been a long time away from home and I kept daydreaming about the long straight section of road leading out of Stratford-upon-Avon to my home in Alcester and I could picture myself riding along it with only a few minutes before I would reach home.

However, before any of that we had to conquer the 200 or so miles from Calais. The first hurdle was at Eurotunnel. The robbing bastards.......  I pulled up and asked for two tickets – 110 euros each for a crossing that if booked online would normally cost no more than 40 euros.  This was the final straw for me and Eurotunnel. Having been robbed of a refund of a crossing not taken last October (£66 lost) and now them asking us for over £100 more than the crossing should cost then they can go stuff themselves – it will be the ferry for me next time.

Still reeling from the sting of paying through the nose for the crossing we waited to board and had a coffee. The crossing was swift enough and we were soon discharged onto the M20 for the final ride of this trip. 

Mark waits patiently by his horse

Mark had said that this last bit would go very quickly and he was so right. By 10.30am we had reached the Longbridge roundabout where Mark waved his goodbye as he headed north up the A46 towards Coventry and went in the opposite direction towards Stratford-upon-Avon. A real happy/sad moment all bundled together. Our joint sojourn was now over and this final leg was on my own. Only a few miles left.

I reached the head of the road outside Stratford that I had daydreamed about earlier and it was everything that I had wanted it to be, an empty road and a tear in my eye but happy to be minutes away from a welcoming kiss and cuddle from Gina.

Thank you for reading my blog – I may add some more bits later especially a reflection on the trip as a whole. Maybe things that we took and didn’t need, things we wished we had taken and tips for any other travellers that may be useful but first I want to get back into the swing of things.

Five Countries in one Day

Day 132 Wednesday 10^th August 2011 

Mark took advantage of a strong coffee from the bar before we left Linz in what was now a nice clear day – the rain had gone and we were to start the day riding in the dry. The aim for the day was to get as far west as possible without overdoing it so off we went.

It was around 7.30am when we got back onto the motorway and we just put our heads down and kept going. We crossed the Danube a couple of times and we reached Germany within the hour. We headed towards Frankfurt then Cologne and by the afternoon we had entered Holland and then Belgium.

We stopped for fuel and had a discussion. It was around 6pm and I wanted to carry on to Calais and catch the Eurotunnel to make a final dash home bearing in mind that when we emerged in Folkestone we would have gained another hour. Mark on the other hand was more level headed and he put forward the suggestion that we should make the final run home tomorrow which would allow us to have a last meal together on the road and I could see that this made a lot of sense (much more sense than me arriving home tired at 11pm) so we made plans to head for Ostend or Dunkirk and look for a hotel.

We eventually landed up at the Hotel Ibis in Dunkirk town centre and after parking our bikes in the underground car park and having a shower we headed for the bar and had a couple of cold beers. Being lazy we had our last supper in the hotel restaurant and it was all very nice and relaxing as we sat there toasting ourselves and reflecting on the enormity of our journey and how well we had coped. We talked about the future – Mark was looking at top to toe of the Americas, a journey of around 19,000 miles plus the additional 5,000 miles or so to get to the starting point at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. But who knows what tomorrow brings.... I DO !!!! .......  Going home that’s what.

Euroland

Day 131 Tuesday 9^th August 2011 

Cloudy, overcast and windy was the start of this day but we were earlier than usual and had managed to get to the Hungarian border by around 9am and there were no long queues and no delays. A stop at the kiosk in the border area got us fixed up with the compulsory vignettes that allow us to ride on Hungarian roads and we managed to pay the charge by debit card so avoiding the need to find a hole in the wall to get some Hungarian Forints.

We belted off down the Hungarian motorway – we were now allowed to travel at 130kph (around 80 mph) and the extra speed soon drained our fuel. We filled up at an expensive £1.10 a litre and within around three hours we had transversed the country to the Austrian border and all this without ever having a single piece of Hungarian currency and that is way outside my normal comfort zones. There is no Hungarian/Austrian border as such, just old buildings where once stood passport control but now, being part of the Schwengen treaty, all the borders have been removed and the motorway continues. However, we had to make stop at the Shell garage just over the border to purchase Austrian vignettes for the bikes. Austria has a more sensible system and we paid 9 euros for two bikes for a 4 day window.

We nearly made it across Austria into Germany but near Linz the heavens blackened and the skies opened. We stopped at a fuel station and programmed in a nearby IBIS hotel and the faithful sat navs brought us to the door of a modern glass building which had rooms available. Everything western costs lots more money and we noticed a huge difference in the cost of hotels, the cost of fuel and the restaurant bills.

Dark Austrian Skies

So the plan for tomorrow is to get up early and try and make 600 miles which would leave us just 100 miles from Calais and an easy day’s ride home – so it’s a possible home by Thursday !!

A Day in the Mountains

Day 130 Monday 8^th August 2011  

We had our breakfast and got going on Route 1 towards the turn of for Route Dn7C which is the Transfaragasan. The Top Gear programme had hyped the road as the best in Europe. Yes, it was an excellent ride but I still think that Stelvio pass in Italy tops it. We said “balls” to Vlad the Impaler’s castle (Bran Castle) which wasn’t too far away for us to visit but we were sure that it would be a tourist trap and we were not here to see the commercial sites of Romania – we wanted to meet the people and see how the place ticked. It is very difficult to see Eastern Bloc influences in any of the towns or cities that we visited. Unlike Russia and Ukraine there were not many of the old square, grey Soviet style concrete tenement buildings that make up large parts of Soviet cities.

We were very lucky with the weather which gave us a sunny cloudless blue sky throughout the whole day and perfect riding conditions. The bikes performed well and the 90kms of the Transfaragasan were soon munched up and we had completed our self allotted task for the day. We reached the lowlands and set our sat navs up for the journey westwards towards home. We had no Romanian maps or European maps for that matter so we had to rely solely on the routes picked by our electronic friends and, as it turned out, it got us to the town of Arad just a few kilometres from the Hungarian border and where we found ourselves an expensive Best Western hotel in the centre.

Beginning of DN7c - The Transfaragasan

And there's plenty more where that came from.....

Our appointed task tomorrow is to try and get through the Hungary/Romania border early and then travel the 480 kms across Hungary to Austria and find ourselves a hotel in Euroland. This will put us just about 800 miles away from Calais and maybe just five days from now we could be home – just depends on our stamina and the reliability of the bikes which, up until now, has been perfect. There are many out there in Bikers Land who poo poo the humble BMW 1200GS and say that it is not up to the task of round the world riding – Ok we have made some modifications like heavy duty suspension but the trusty old steeds have taken us over 15,000 miles already on this journey so I have no complaints.

Ah !!  The open country roads, wind in your face....

Let’s just hope they hang on for another few days and get us safely across Le Manche to Blighty !