Post by anon on Feb 2, 2007 20:29:13 GMT
From: Tour_De_Mark 31/08/2006 12:57
The Ardennes pics are here:
www.photobox.co.uk/album/3874154?c_album=3874154&page=all
If you look at the time stamps you can work out exactly how much dry weather we had!
There are far fewer photo's than we'd usually take - normally keep my camera in my pocket which should be water proof but most of the time the camera was sealed in a freezer bag in the top box.
Highlights:
The 'Louise tunnel' incident. [1]
The German roads to the North around the Rurstausee. - We spent most of a day there and it's amazing! If the region is big enough it's a cert for a week's trip.
As recommended by Ghoti: the N27 North/West from Erpeldange to along the banks of the Sure. Great road with great scenery typical of the region (river, castle mountain)... ....but best of all the rain stopped, the sun came out. It was too wet and miserable to combine it with the equally excellent N10 south into Vianden, but those two roads linked would make a great basis for a rideout.
Louise has taken a speed pill.
She was flying - overtaking two sports bikes and scaring the hell out of me by still being in my mirrors when I *thought* I'd gone off for a blat 'alone'! It was like going on holiday with Maureen out of "Britain's Worst Driver" and coming back with Ayrton Senna's female love child.
Result! ;D
Gendarme Fiasco:
Around the tunnel terminal I followed the lead of a Harley rider and took the chance for some helmet off action .
Going through French customs a Gendarme non-too-politely indicated I should stop and put it on.
Well it was bloody obvious what I was going to do. I stopped there and then and then and started to slowly undo the bungy while the bank holiday traffic backed up... After about 10 seconds he worked out that this customer wasn't going to toe the line for him and waved me to pull in out of the way – I didn’t I just carried on to British customs with helmet still off.
A small victory over authority.
German BMW with sidecar and *snow chains*!!!
Overnight stops in Chimay (sunny), Clairvaux (Castle and dry spell for morning sight seeing), Coo (Amazing waterfalls from the swollen river).
Lowlights.
Rain. Rain in the morning, rain in the evening, rain most of the day. We did have two basically dry rideouts but it was still dank and dismal. We only needed one night in a hotel 'cos we did manage to carry on almost every day until we got a dry spell to dry kit off before camping - but it was rarely cheerful.
[1] We got to the tunnel terminal to find it closed and traffic backed up miles. There's a three hour minimum delay and the tunnel terminal is saturated with vehicles. No vehicles will be allowed through - the only way out is back to the motorway.
I collar a member of staff who tells me that either there will be no crossing by tunnel and we'll not be crossing or we'll be given a Sea France ticket and have to ride to Dover and wait for a ship with spare bike places.
No vehicles are going to the terminal, every vehicle will be back on the motorway.
Meanwhile a fellow biker joins us.
We discuss just ducking through a gap in the motorway barrier and going home but a bit of cunning filtering has put as near the front of the queue anyway so we wait a bit and the three of use arrive at the front together.
At this point Louise pulls up to the booth demanding that she handle the situation.
Conversation goes thus:
Girl: "Ok, we'll put you on the Sea France"
Louise: "There's only three of us on bikes. In the past you've always lets us on 'cos we take up little space."
Girl: "We've got all kinds of vehicles waiting in the terminal we can't let you guys through."
Louise: "But we take up very little space and you'll have a few satisfied customers out of all these hundreds of angry people" [2]
At this point the miracle happened.
The girl picked up the phone.
I was still sure we wouldn't get on but 10 seconds later it was a done deal.
Girl: "Ok, I'll get special boarding cards for the next crossing printed and sent down. You're all three together?"
Louise: "Yes, myself Mark and Clive" [3]
Girl: "Ok, go through and wait fo the cards.
Please stop smiling and change your body language as there are hundreds of cars watching. "
They got us literally on the next crossing. No wait at all.
One of the security people scrutinized our cards pretty carefully 'cos we were the only people who went through and didn't go straight to the motorway exit.
I wouldn't even have considered trying to talk my way on, so well done Louise.
This proves once again the tunnel is infinitely flexible for bikers.
[2] Interesting how many aggressive people there were - in a situation like that surely your *only* hope is to be cheerful and polite to the staff. [4]
[3] Clive wasn't his name but we'd got pally and wanted to get him through and Louise figured it would make us sound more together if he was granted a name.
[4] The funniest one was the guy shouting at the poor worker in a hi viz vest. "YOU TOLD MY WIFE THE TRAIN WAS GOING SHORTLY AND NOW *I* ASK YOU AND YOU SAY 5 MINUTES!!!!" LOL, is 5 minutes not shortly?
TDM