Let the Lunacy Commence
So i finally managed to get away. You'd think with almost a month for preparation i'd be fully prepared. Ha.
I wasn't really looking forward to the long slog down to Dover but i realised while checking out the ferry schedules to Calais that Norfolk Lines have started up the service from Rosyth to Zeebrugge again. So being rather bored with waiting around (and i'll spare you the details of why) i booked the ferry on Monday for the Tuesday departure.
The ferry is an overnight journey, 20 hours in total, and you can't share a cabin so you need to book a full 4 person berth for yourself according to the website. Given the cost of that would have been more than the cost of petrol to Istanbul i wasn't thrilled with the idea, but then i figured out if you phone them then you can book a reclining seat, which while not ideal is a better option. At the time i though if the worst discomfort i have on the trip is one night on a recligning seat everything will be fine. That was before i discovered the seats are next to the bar, which then became worse when i found out that there was a Neil Diamond tribute act on.
The next morning while sorting out my bag i found my spare keys, which made me wonder briefly where my main set were. Since i couldn't find them i figured i'd left them in my bike jacket which was in the top box on the bike. Nope. It turns out i'd left them hanging out of the box on the car deck. You couldn't really have stolen the bike on the ship, but someone could have wandered off with the contents of my luggage or indeed the luggage itself. Fortunately no-one did, but it did then seem kinda pointless have securely locked my helmet to the bike. It would have been fun if someone had hidden the bike and left me clues around the ship. Would have killed some of the hours of the voyage.
While on the car deck waiting to disembark i realised the reason the bike had handled like such a pig on the way to the ferry was that with the luggage on there wasn't enough air in the rear tyre, so my first stop was a petrol station for some air. I do have a pump in my luggage but due to my hastily arranged departure all my luggage just kinda got thrown in the panniers rather than packed in any sort of useful way.
There were quite a lot of bikes on the ferry, maybe 80% of them BMW GS's with an assortment of sports and touring bikes making up the rest. Almost all of them were fairly new and clean and shiny. In the middle of all of this was my Yamaha. I'll post some photo's of it on the bike thread when i get to somewhere with better internet access, but suffice to say it's 20 years old and looks it. I got talking to a nice couple from Belgium who had been on a tour of Scotland on their BMW's, when the lady asked me where i was going i said Kathmandu, then had to say Nepal, then had to describe the route to make sure she understood. I then had her husband over and some of their friendws poking and prodding the bike along with various mutterings. Her husband eventually said to them that it was a good bike for that kind of trip, very reliable, but crucially very simple rather than their computers on wheels. In the end maybe half a dozen of the bikers came up to shake my hand before we set off which was cool.
I got started off ont he correct route once filled up with air, but somehow missed a turn, probably because i was weaving from side to side on my now normally handling bike. I realised things had gone wrong when i saw signs for Calais/Ostend, but for the life of me i couldn't remember where Ostend was so followed the road for a while thinking it may loop back on course. In the end i had to retrace my steps and pick up the correct road.
It rained for most of the afternoon and seemed to take forever to get out of Belgium, but going through Holland took no time at all. I did realise though that the first nights planned target of Frankfurt wasn't going to be possible, so i passed Cologne, got over the Rhine, and looked for somewhere to stay. I stopped at a services only to find they had no rooms left, but they did have an ATM machine, so i tried both the current account cards i have with me. The first one came back as invalid (i'll explain why later) and the second came back as empty. It appears the transfer i made in case the first card became invalid hasn't gone through yet. Fortunately one of my credit cards worked.
In summary then, no air in the rear tyre, left the keys on the bike while on the ferry, got lost, none of my bank cards worked, then no rooms at the first hotel i tried, promting a walk of one mile into town to find another hotel. Oh and it rained most of the day.
All in all a good start.
Running out of time, so further updates to follow.
I wasn't really looking forward to the long slog down to Dover but i realised while checking out the ferry schedules to Calais that Norfolk Lines have started up the service from Rosyth to Zeebrugge again. So being rather bored with waiting around (and i'll spare you the details of why) i booked the ferry on Monday for the Tuesday departure.
The ferry is an overnight journey, 20 hours in total, and you can't share a cabin so you need to book a full 4 person berth for yourself according to the website. Given the cost of that would have been more than the cost of petrol to Istanbul i wasn't thrilled with the idea, but then i figured out if you phone them then you can book a reclining seat, which while not ideal is a better option. At the time i though if the worst discomfort i have on the trip is one night on a recligning seat everything will be fine. That was before i discovered the seats are next to the bar, which then became worse when i found out that there was a Neil Diamond tribute act on.
The next morning while sorting out my bag i found my spare keys, which made me wonder briefly where my main set were. Since i couldn't find them i figured i'd left them in my bike jacket which was in the top box on the bike. Nope. It turns out i'd left them hanging out of the box on the car deck. You couldn't really have stolen the bike on the ship, but someone could have wandered off with the contents of my luggage or indeed the luggage itself. Fortunately no-one did, but it did then seem kinda pointless have securely locked my helmet to the bike. It would have been fun if someone had hidden the bike and left me clues around the ship. Would have killed some of the hours of the voyage.
While on the car deck waiting to disembark i realised the reason the bike had handled like such a pig on the way to the ferry was that with the luggage on there wasn't enough air in the rear tyre, so my first stop was a petrol station for some air. I do have a pump in my luggage but due to my hastily arranged departure all my luggage just kinda got thrown in the panniers rather than packed in any sort of useful way.
There were quite a lot of bikes on the ferry, maybe 80% of them BMW GS's with an assortment of sports and touring bikes making up the rest. Almost all of them were fairly new and clean and shiny. In the middle of all of this was my Yamaha. I'll post some photo's of it on the bike thread when i get to somewhere with better internet access, but suffice to say it's 20 years old and looks it. I got talking to a nice couple from Belgium who had been on a tour of Scotland on their BMW's, when the lady asked me where i was going i said Kathmandu, then had to say Nepal, then had to describe the route to make sure she understood. I then had her husband over and some of their friendws poking and prodding the bike along with various mutterings. Her husband eventually said to them that it was a good bike for that kind of trip, very reliable, but crucially very simple rather than their computers on wheels. In the end maybe half a dozen of the bikers came up to shake my hand before we set off which was cool.
I got started off ont he correct route once filled up with air, but somehow missed a turn, probably because i was weaving from side to side on my now normally handling bike. I realised things had gone wrong when i saw signs for Calais/Ostend, but for the life of me i couldn't remember where Ostend was so followed the road for a while thinking it may loop back on course. In the end i had to retrace my steps and pick up the correct road.
It rained for most of the afternoon and seemed to take forever to get out of Belgium, but going through Holland took no time at all. I did realise though that the first nights planned target of Frankfurt wasn't going to be possible, so i passed Cologne, got over the Rhine, and looked for somewhere to stay. I stopped at a services only to find they had no rooms left, but they did have an ATM machine, so i tried both the current account cards i have with me. The first one came back as invalid (i'll explain why later) and the second came back as empty. It appears the transfer i made in case the first card became invalid hasn't gone through yet. Fortunately one of my credit cards worked.
In summary then, no air in the rear tyre, left the keys on the bike while on the ferry, got lost, none of my bank cards worked, then no rooms at the first hotel i tried, promting a walk of one mile into town to find another hotel. Oh and it rained most of the day.
All in all a good start.
Running out of time, so further updates to follow.
posted by Euan at
22:04
1 Comments:
Good luck matey!
If you read this by any chance before you pass through Linz... drop me a line at t.cisko@gmail.com. Respectively let me know, if plan on staying here overnight and need a place to stay.
-K.
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