VRA (UK)
Northern
Swalla rang me one day, must of been about Feb, to say would I like to go to the Rome rally in June as it was on in June near his birthday 6th June. ( actually 9th June ) but close enough for me, you get used to inaccuracies as you get older. I checked with work, who were glad to see me go, as it would save loads of lives in Skelmersdale if I disappeared for 3 weeks. Sorted.
We set off on 27th May For the chunnel, we pre booked and it was £72 quid return for yours truly and bike and only 35 mins travel time. Just had to arrive by 19.30 hrs (7.30 in english). Well at 7pm we were still trying to get off the M25 London ring road filtering like mad !!! ( more like carving up) We had originally wanted to fuel up over here but time pressures meant we had swift trip down the M20 to Folkestone with very little fuel which after we booked in at the Channel Tunnel our engines were cutting out on slopes to the train. Never again!!!!!!! We found a fuel Station in Calais and filled up. Phew !! We stayed in a formula one for the night and raided a vending machine for tea. We were knackered but as usual when you need sleep doors were being slammed until 2am, bliss!!!
Next morning we had a continental breakfast and Graham was missing the bacon and eggs already, packed the bikes and headed for Dijon. Motorways are great but boring and the lack of sleep took its toll so we stopped at a service station, grunted and pointed at food we wished to eat and promptly fell asleep for an hour. We found the campsite which was full of bikers attending a classic bike function and very busy. We had a verbal disagreement with the owner as we had nicked someone elses pitch! Oops!! We moved our tents and met our neighbours for the night, Dutch, German and French bikers. We did not understand each other but we had so much in common. One of the neighbours was an English lad called Steve Burns on a Kawasaki ER6F who was from Halifax who had decided he wanted to ride to Greece and he had £25 to buy the country!!!!. By the end of the evening he asked if he could travel some of the way with us, we had no problem with that.
The next few days was spent in what I can only describe as biking heaven. The three of us used the quiet A roads and the sun shone on the twisting black tarmac and the scenery just got better and better each day. We used AA guide book for our campsites, which were superb, put all our UK sites to shame. All had restaurants, a bar, lots of facilities for kids and all had swimming pools, immaculate toilet blocks and very modern. At Lyon we tried to explain for over half an hour to the bar man how to make a Shandy!! We went into the Alps near Grenoble keeping to the A roads and the scenery was breathtaking. All the sites made us welcome and at Castellane the owner of the site made our tea as his Chef was off that day !!! Brilliant.
The next day we spent the morning shaving metal off our footboards on the tarmac as big sweeping bends seemed endless as we came out of the alps. As we rolled into Cannes it got very hot so lighter riding gear was called for. I got some very disapproving looks from my fellow travellers as I went along a cycle path on the Nomad to find a toilet!! We found an Irish Bar in Cannes harbour, who did English Breakfast so we had to indulge, whilst looking at some expensive yachts. We rode through Nice and was very pleasantly surprised to find ourselves rolling onto the starting grid at Monaco !!! Steve was so excited he had to pop a wheely whilst on the markings on the road, the locals frowned.
Once out of Monaco the traffic became a nightmare, yep we had gone into Italy !!! Progress was that slow we decided to jump on their motorway to our next stop Albenga nearer to Genoa. Again we had a warm welcome to a lovely site which was run by some Dutch people. A complimentary drink was provided by them once the tents were up!! A lovely meal followed and a few beers. At 2am a storm hit and flooded out Swalla and Steves tent. My inner tent stayed water tight but on pressing the floor whilst laying on my airbed the floor could be pushed downwards by 2 inches!! Steve had got everything washed out and Swalla had his camera ( early birthday present from Irene ) and his phone submerged, nightmare !! The next day the sun came out as usual and it looked like a Tsunami had hit us. Swalla had lost the use of his phone and camera and his spirit was at a low. Steve decided he needed to make some major motorway progress to Rome so we exchanged phone numbers and we waved him off. We eventually contacted Billy and Jack Carroll at Florence ( Firenze) who we arranged to meet and ride into Rome together.
Dave Elliot aka Mutley
Just nipped out for a Pizza!!
Part one
