Doesn't Time Fly..

Wednesday 23rd November 2011


It only seems like yesterday that we arrived in Spain and here we are homeward bound. We settled last night in the hotel Real Monasterio de San Zoilo in Carrion de Los Condes which sits on the El Camino route to Santiago de Compostela. Our boat does not leave until  tomorrow evening from Santander so we are heading for an old favourite of ours, the parador at Cervera de Pisguera up in the Cantabrian mountains. It is only 50 miles from here so we can leave Carrion de Los Condes at lunchtime and make our way slowly on the back roads into the hills.


Looking forward to getting back home and catching up with the gossip, if any.

Hola !! Que Tal ?

After a manic couple of weeks working to cover for someone's illness I have finally managed to get away with my lovely Gina.  We got Brittany ferry, Cap Finnisterre, from Portsmouth on Sunday night and arrived in Bilbao, Spain this morning. 

We had prebooked a nice hotel, the parador at Lerma, and I am now busy typing this blog overlooking the fields below our fantastic room in the old 16th Century Ducal palce in the old Plaza Major which, we ae told, is to be transformed by 7.30 this evening in to a local market - something that has pleased Gina no end. She is busy now trying to find someone that she hasn't already bought a Chritmas present for in order to give her a valid excuse to go forth and spend.

We should reach Talavera de la Reina (about 100kms south west of Madrid) by tomorrow afternoon and here we will spend a good few days with friends who have invited us to the christening of their newborn baby boy. Last time we came over for their daughter's christening we ended up being Godparents and I had to give a speech in church - all unbeknown to us until we actually got into the church !


Looking forward to the break

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

The site owner very kindly let us stay camped until Monday (17th October). Maura busied herself loading her bike then she set off bound for her home in Northern Italy - it was good to catch up with her again.  Almost all others had left by Sunday morning leaving just a handful of folks to help take down the marquee and generally tidy up. By Sunday night there was only me and Mark and one other, Al from Australia, and we had a few drinks in the bar and then hit the sack.


By the time we got up next morning Al had packed up his stuff and was ready to leave. We said our goodbyes to him and, not before I had taken advantage of the site's COLD shower facility, we set about the always unpleasant task of taking down tents and packing the bike ready fro the next part of the journey. Jens, the meeting organiser, had suggested that we head for Rothenburg ob der Tauber citing it as one of the prettiest towns in Germany so we simply had to pay a visit.


We set out around 10am and made our way on the back roads (dry thankfully) and arrived in Rothenburg, a walled medieval town, at around 3pm.  We rode through the town gates on cobbled roads and found ourselves a hotel not too far from the Rathaus (Town Hall) and checked in for a couple of nights. It was so nice to have a hot shower and a good meal in the hotel restaurant. The town itself is indeed a pretty place and home of several Christmas shops which will please my wife, Gina, no end.


Suitably rested we left Rothenburg on Tuesday morning and, as it was raining, we gave up any notion of riding the back roads and just hit the nearby motorway which took us all the way to Essen and to our pre-booked hotel in the Bredeney area of the city suburbs. We sent a message to Svetlana saying we had arrived and in no time at all she met us at the tram station opposite her dormitory.


The last time we had seen Sveta was when we left Vladivostok in early July and it was so nice to meet up again and we just had a meal and chatted for a few hours before it was time to say goodbye again. We made sure that she got a taxi back to her dormitory and then had a nightcap and retired for the day.


Thursday morning (20th October) was dry and we set out on our 550 km ride to Berlin which we achieved in good time until we hit a huge traffic jam some 20kms long near Magdeburg which added a good hour or so to our journey. We arrived at John's apartment in Steglitts at around 5pm and a welcome hot coffee soon had us back on track !

Town Square

More Pictures from Odenwald

Finally mananged to get some wi-fi to download some more pictures from our camping at the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Ober-Liebersbach.

Riding alongside the Rhine from Koblenz

Fully chromed BMW cruiser we spotted

Mark gets his bike serviced at the BMW dealer in Heppenheim

Maura in full dress to avoid the cold

Mark & Maura much warmer in the restaurant

Campsite with our (snoring) tents away from the crowd

Resturant on site

Just a 5 minute walk from our tents

Mark & Maura - on a walk to get some exercise

Jens, the meeting organiser, shows how to fix a puncture

Odenwald

We had a fantastic weekend in Ober-Liebersbach in the Odenwald area of Germany (just north of Heidelberg). No rain - just blue sky and sunshine (good for the daytime but bloody cold at night, there was even frost on the bike one night !). Met lots of old friends and also made some new ones too. Maura made it all the way from Italy and, despite my snoring, she camped next to our tents and captured us sat around the camp stove.

We left on Monday morning (17th October) and on the advice of Jens (the bike meeting organiser) we are now staying in the walled city of Rothenberg ob der Tauber which is an old medieval city looking like a setting from a Hammer House of Horrors film.

Went to the famous Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas shop and bought Gina some more bits for her tree - I know that I will have to bring her back here, she will absolutely love it.

Inside the Christmas Shop

Tomorrow will have to be an earlyish start so that we can make the 420km ride to Essen and be ready in time to take Svetlana out for a meal in the evening. The only cloud on the horizon IS a cloud on the horizon that looks like bringing heavy rain for our trip to Berlin - never mind...

On My Way

Tuesday 11th October 2011

I set off from the Midlands at around 1 o'clock and went on the back roads to Banbury taking in EdgeHill, home of a famous battlefield in the English Civil War, and then onto the motorway network which delivered me not only safely but (surpisingly !) dry to my hotel in Folkestone. The chunnel booking is for tomorrow morning and Matk was to have met me here for the onward journey but circumstances have dictated that we shall not meet now until we get to our hotel tomorrow night in Koblenz. 

We are hoping to get to the Horizons meet in Ober-Leibersbach in the Odenwald area some time Thursday afternoon which will give us a chance to get the tents up in the light before we settle down with a good bottle of Irish Whiskey.

Good news also from Jens, the meeting organiser as it seems that, as  with last year, we shall have a repeat of the good weather that made last year's experience so enjoyable.

Lrt's hope that the trip to Koblenz tomorrow remains dry ! 

Off on a Short Trip

Me and Mark are heading off into the sun again but only for a couple of weeks. The annual autumn German Horizons Unlimited meeting for people with wanderlust is taking place in the Odenwald area which, for those with limited Germanic geography knowledge, is somewhere between Frankfurt and Heidelberg.

The really good news is that we are meeting up with our dear Italian friend Maura who we met last year at the Italian Horizons meeting near Lago Di Idro and she has been away for several months in Australia and New Zealand. We also expect to meet up with a few other travellers that we have met over the years and all that (plus a good bottle of Scotch) will make up for having to camp in a field.

Another great bit of news is that Svetlana is now studying at Essen university and we will be stopping by to spend a few hours with her as well. Svetlana first came into the picture in Vladivostok when she was introduced to us by Yuri Melnikov and the two of them proved to be great friends and an asset in helping us get through the vagaries of the Russian custom processes.

After Essen we hope to take a hike up to Berlin to spend a bit of time with Mark's father-in-law who works for Rolls Royce in their Berlin plant - a busy fortnight ahead !

What Now ?

It is now over a month since we got back and, not only have I had my 54th birthday, I have had time to reflect and consider the way forward.

Firstly, a major event has helped - I sold the shares in my business and am now semi-retired and have now sufficient funds for me and Gina to really enjoy the next few years devoid of mortgages on our properties.

The most repeated question I now get asked is "where next then ?". The great plan was to make the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushaia (North to South America) but my son, Carl, is getting married in September 2012 so timings would make this trip a non starter for me and I would much rather see Carl get hitched anyway. Maybe 2013 would be a good year to undertake that trip.

Someone else has mentioned a month away in South Africa in January which appeals to me a lot but not before I get a chance to take Gina away so that we can really get some quality time to ourselves.

Exciting times.......................

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 !