Day 13 - Driving Hell

We had to catch the Royan ferry otherwise it meant the best part of a days drive just to get the same distance, so we packed quickly in the rain.
It has rained about 5:50 pm yesterday, so we spent the evening in the hammocks under the tarps, drinking Bavarian Beer - 7.9% and crashed out quite quickly.
I am now, 24 hours later sat in the hotel Astrid in Rennes. After we got off the short ferry ride, the rain got worse and worse and we had decided to stretch ourselves to get to Niort to attempt to get out of the weather. it was an all day ride, 60 mph in the torrential rain for 4 or 5 hours, absolutely drenched and every juggernaut that went past threw a wave over the top of the bikes.
After deciding that enough was enough and a motel was the only option, we then scoured 3 towns 50 or so miles apart only to find that every room had been booked as there was a big match on or something.
My bike Jacket has absorbed so much water that I can barely pick it up and the only bit of dry clothing left on my body was a small triangle of boxer shorts. Everything soaked, to the point of standing in the hotel reception with water running, not dripping, running out of my trouser leg onto their nice marble floor.
The heater in the hotel bathroom has been commandeered to dry my stuff, it was on a twist timer, which I managed to wedge on and we went out for a beer and a kebab.
Came back to a sweatbox, I had stuffed the nice white towels into my bike jacket to dry it out and they came out black....oops, the bedside light had dripping socks on it and ...well the place was a mess.

I am never ever doing this again.

My sense of humour has been removed today, may never return either.
The 1 thing that was good about this day was this: Imagine driving for over 6 hours, soaked, shivering, aching, soaked, freezing, shivering and did I mention soaked?, then strip off and have a hot shower. I think I stayed in there for about an hour just saying "oh yessss" a lot.

This is the end of this blog, the next day ended after a short journey to St Malo and a night in a £40 shoe box, next to the worst looking council estate with boarded up windows and screaming women. It was so bad that we parked out bikes under the window, locked the bikes as best we could, took off spark plug caps etc and tied long bits of string to the bikes led through the open window and tied onto my finger.

Pushed the two beds as far apart as you can in a 8x8 ft room and crashed out on Desperados.
A whole night of snoring and farting produces an interesting smelling room for the maid the next day, I can tell you.
The bikes didnt get nicked so we spent a day at the beach (still cold) and looked around St Malo, which is actually quite nice. Got the ferry back and ragged the bikes down the motorway from Portsmouth, straight home, straight in the shower.

Day 12 - I want Ze Cock!

Ze day, it started with ze early start.
Ze intentions ver to ave ze slow and steady cruise up ze coast and take in many of ze miles and zat is how it started.

After many of ze miles, ve stopped off to see La Plaja Nice. Very nice it vas too.

I ad 'amberger, well 'amtruncheon.. for ze lunch, and Glenn, e vas aving ze 'am and cheese sandwhich.
Ve stops off at ze beach for a look about and heads off to ze north up ze bordeaux coast.

Ze journey, it vas long, not 'elped by ze fact that I took us 15 km and thus a 30km round trip in ze wrong direction down a peninsular.
We ver supposed to be going to Lege Cap Ferret. I went to Cap Ferret instead, who'd have guessed eh.

Passed an absolutely massive sand dune called Dune de Pilat, never seen anything like it, must google ze earth when we get 'ome.

Spent ze evening oiling ze bikes and drinking ze bavaria beer.Ze rain, it started an since we were in our respective shelters and couldnt see each other, we resorted to taking ze photo and passing ze camera under ze tarp to see ze person.
It stopped when Glenn, he sends ze picture of ze bum, and suddenly i am feeling ze sick....and verrrry drunk.

Day 11 - Tequilla Sunrise

So woke up to a beautiful day. Just dossed around and went to the beach.
The sun shone all day and we went out for a blast on the bikes, through the sandy pine tree laden tracks. So nice to get all the gear off the bikes and ride in shorts and tee shirts again.
Glenn gestured down a sandy hill so I ragged off down there only to get bogged down in the sand after about 100 yards, so, since he had followed me down, I ragged back up, lost control and the bike dragged me through a bramble bush in my shorts. Nice touch.
Glenn tried to get up in first and dug a nice big hole as the hill was steep, so needed a push.
After much mucking around and generally having fun on the deserted tracks, back to base and made spoons.
Not the gay cuddling up type, wood ones , for eating.
At the time of writing in my book, Bugley is finishing off his 'how to be a serial killer' book and I'm just about to plan tomorrows journey.
We've just been into town cos he wanted to make chicken curry and we got more Tequilla beer. hoorar
Stormed back the couple of miles on the bike, as tonights beer was much more expensive and bewley wanted to kick the store owners ares for overcharging. Good job I aint as hot headed, cos I checked when we got back to the shop......we were under charged by loads last night.
Nice as it is, that Desperado beer is bloody expensive.
The curry was a nice change from the usual grub even though I managed to knock the pan off the stove and fire hot bubbling curry all over Glenns hand (who amazingly caught the pan and just screamed, instead of dropping it). He was looking forward to that curry!
When glenn got the bread out, there were two ends, one pointed and crispy and the other looking a bit flat, he said which end do you want?

What I then shouted, the title of tomorrows story,  probably wasn't the best thing to shout in a quiet campsite at night, when everyone probably thought we were gay bikers.

Day 10 - Tequila sunset

Set off early (late) and staggered around like pissed idiots for a couple of hours. Then took a leisurely cruise up the Bordeaux coast.
It's a lovely place, furnished with pine trees and lots of sand, but this time of year a bit dead and a bit cold (I say cold, but really 15-16 degrees is OK by English stds)
We didn't realise, but it is Bank holiday and there is no one around, not even petrol pump attendants.

Luckily in France lots of fuel stations have adopted the old pay by card doobrey. Had we been in Spain, we would have been pissing in our tanks by now.
Headed up to Mimizan, all around, the trees are snapped off at 6 metres.....what the hell happened here?
Answers on a postcard please, but its weird, driving for like 20 miles or so and all of the trees and some of the concrete pylons are like this, all snapped off facing the same way. Hurricane?

So we found a place with some nice trees next to the beach and time to hammock up.
We've got our tequila beer, this must be the best discovery to the drinking man. Ever
Desperado's.
If you see it, buy it.
it is so good, it will give you big biceps, it will get you laid........and if you're a girl, it'll give you big boobs and get you laid. It is that good.
We also had Kronenburg (limp)
I sat down and thought....hmm my bike looks cool, so I took a photo of it where it stood.
It promptly fell over.

We (as usual) got mashed and had a fire, made from tree resin this time.
We somehow gassed ourselves on the fire.
Glenda was blowing through a bit of tube to get the fire raging and it was popping and banging like a guddun.
Suddenly it was like a gun going off and he was holding his eye.
"fkin spark went in my eye" he started bleating.
"Bloody mincer, give me the tube, go and sort your eye out you fag" was pretty much my response and I started blowing.
It was popping and banging like a guddun.
Suddenly it was like a gun going off and I was holding my eye.

"Fkin spark went in my eye" I started bleating.
"Bloody mincer, give me the tube, go and sort your eye out you fag" was pretty much his response.

I swear, my injury was worse than his.
I had to resort to holding my beer bottle to my eye, it was the only way to take the pain away.

Don't play with fire girls...............

Glen stopped drinking early for some reason ( he is a big gayer)

Then I had a bit of a moment.

It started with a bit of a bowel movement, which signalled 'get to the bog'
Off I went in the darkness, suddenly the pain was BIG
the Bog was lit up like a night club, but it must have been 300 yards away.
The pain got worse and suddenly I was doubled over
oh god...............I'm gonna crap myselfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
shuffle in a half shuffle half limp to the bog with my stomach feeling like it has been ripped out.
Bloody hell I'm dying.
Get to the bog, 1---2---3 bog doors locked.......big A4 sized signs on there saying "FERME"
Jesus, I'm dying.......the last in the row of 4 is open.

God save me......

The pain by now is something I will remember till the day I die.

.
.
.
There is no bog roll.




THERE IS NO BLOODY BOG ROLL!


What can you do in a situation like this.
You are gonna die from poo pain.
Or go and don't wipe.

You have 2 choices.

I chose the third.



The A4 'ferme' signs held the answer, swiftly ripped off the doors and ............................


My life saved.

But folding A4 makes for some sharp corners.

Day 9 - Freezio

I bought some riggers gloves from the local petrol station as I couldn't even get my hands into my soaking wet bike gloves, They were nice and dry, for now anyway.
I looked behind to make sure Glenn was following as we set off and nearly fell off my bike.
The mountains surrounding us looked like something off Lord of the bloody rings.

It had been snowing overnight. Now I know why we were so cold.
131 KM of snowy mountain road lay ahead, in wet bike gear.
Great fun this biking in Spain malarkey.
We were supposed to be going to see a place called Bardenas Reales, I had planned this route past it and was the only 1 place I wanted to see in Spain., check it out on Google earth.
"Bollocks to that" was my reply when Glenn asked if we were still going there, we were going to get out of Spain, get out of these bleeding mountains.
We beat north up to Pamplona and it rained again.
In the Pamplona there is a very complex multi lane motorway which splits in all directions and you really have to have your wits about you and know where you are headed, Glenn, don't forget has no map. I look back to make sure he is tight behind before I swing into the chaos and .....and......he's bloody gone.
Where is he?
So I stop and wait. This road is a six laner and I can't turn around. I don't want to try to turn back by using the roundabout complex ahead as it is so big I can't see it come back round the other side.
So I wait.
And Wait.
Then, opting to leave my whole world bungee'd to my steed, I get off and start the 1/4 mile walk back up the road until I find him.
 His front brake caliper bolt has come off and the caliper has wedged itself onto the disk, basically slamming the front brake on for him (he didn't ask) and all this happened when he was kerfuffling around with a lorry up his chuff.
Long story and long walk back to my bike, I take a bolt off my bike and grudgingly bolt his caliper back on.
How we laughed.
Cheese sandwich at the petrol station and we are off again.

We passed a place called Thermes, I've been here before with my darling wife, when we were here 8 years ago, on the same bike,  we were messing about in bikinis and shorts (can you picture me in the bikini? can yer?) and having a great time. This time I am frozen to the core and the only bit I was loving, was when we went through the many tunnels, as it gave you 30 or 40 seconds of no rain.

Stopped at a motorway service station, I had Chicken and Chips, Glenn had lawn mover clippings with cheese and on to L'ondres Camping sur lac.
We had made France and the weather was suddenly picking up the further north and the further out of the mountains we got.
Very nice place, we proceeded to get mashed (well, we had a few difficult days, I felt like i deserved something) so the 7.2% lager came out and we had a nice fire and burnt all our olive oil and candles.
Burgers on the barbecue, cooked my socks and it rained again. We didn't care, it was warmer, we were drunk, and we had out hammocks up, life don't get much better (desperately looking for something positive!)
 

Day 8 - Wettio and the legendary Lentil Soup of destiny.

So we set off under spitting rain, Glenn managed to leave his plastic box and bungee'd all his crap to his bike.
Spanish Gary will have that strapped to his quad by now (Spanish Gary being the campsite version of Glen's Mate, Gary who hacked around on a quad tending to....stuff, and I suspect, servicing the local lonely senoritas.
I got told off by Morticia Addams for trying to put 3 full bin bags into a tiny litter bin and got promptly marched to the bin dropping off area and ranted at in Spanish.
(Glenn at this exact time of writing looks like he is giving head to his airbed and it has a tiny little cock)

Headed out to Huelva and it wasn't too bad, but on the plain, came the rain as they say. And did it ever rain.
Moderate but persistent then straight on to lashing down then onto absobloodylutely lashing down and pouring into every bit of dry clothing I wore. I had one of those flimsy 3 quid cagoules over the top of my leather bike jacket, neither of which have a reputation for being able to withstand more than 20 seconds of rain.
Glenn would be better off in his 'proper, modern' bike jacket I was thinking. Damn, why didn't I splash out a little before we went?

Turns out Glenn was screaming his head off in his lid as he was saturated to the core and not a happy chappy.
Everything was soaked, boots, pants, everything.
We stopped at Huelva and walked aimlessly round the city. We were soaked, freezing had nowhere to stay and it was getting towards closing time.
It was at this point that Glenn noticed me uncontrollably shivering with water dribbling out of all my clothing onto the Tourist information office nice and shiny polished floor and said "we need to get you somewhere and dried out".
Bloody hell, whats this? he has a caring side?

So got back onto the bikes, pretty desperate by now, touching on 4 or 5pm and headed out to Ayerbe where we were assured there was a campsite.
Ayerbe's little secret was that it was in the mountains. Actually it is not a secret, it's blatantly obvious if you have a map, two eyes and have heard of the Pyrenees.
Clearly we had drunk enough over the last few days to render most things useless, so Ayerbe it was.

So arriving on the edge of oblivion (imagine if you will, resting across the backs of 2 chairs supported only by your forehead and your knees, with water straight from the fridge poured on you for 6 hours. This is riding a supermoto in the mountains, in the rain.
Ive been in cheerier spirits.
There were plenty of spaces in the campsite, most of them waterlogged and only skinny olive trees to pin up to. We opted for battening down to the floor for maximum protection from the elements and huddled into our respective shelters and spare dry clothes and sleeping bags.

It was still light and I tucked into the pork scratchings I had left from Barbara the kiosk seller on the beach and the remnants of the bottle of Jameson's I was carrying around in my Sigg bottle which had now taken on the taste of unleaded from previous uses of said bottle.
Not even I will drink petrol flavoured whisky, so on the grass it went.
Glenn's out like a light again and I sit under my tarp in the worsening weather, rain then hail, then rain again and mucho snoring and general sounds of a hog being cheese wired.
When he woke up, he was pretty much on the brink, unbeknown to me, he thought he could dry out his bike jacket by putting it over him before he slept. Big mistake and I was suddenly concerned about his state, he normally shrugs shit like this off, but he wouldn't even move.
Breaking into my 'if I have to cook something with this, then we are in deep shit' pack, I cracked out some lentils, onion and a couple of stock cubes.
20 minutes after that, the big fella was back to life.
So there we had a crap nights sleep, more hail, more rain and got up in the morning. It was bloody freezing.
Glenn ventured down to the toilets and put his gloves or his socks, I can't quite remember, into the microwave to dry them out (hope for everyone elses sake he didn't put his skidders in there)
We met an English bloke who got there in a Mondeo that looked ready for scrapping, but we were still jealous, at least he had somewhere dryish to sleep.

Set off under light rain with everything still soaking, jacket, socks, as we wanted to preserve any dry clothes for sleeping only.

Onwards to another lovely day.

Day 7 - Scorchio

Did nowt.
Relaxed at the beach as the sun was out and it was boiling.
I went for a swim in the Med, Glenn wouldn't go in and no one else was swimming. I got some strange looks and people were pointing. I suppose April is a bit early for the soft Spaniards to get into the drink, they've obviously never swum in the North Sea off Newbiggin.
Oiled some bits on the bike with some WD40 from the ferreteria.
It was lovely and hot, but my stuff was wet again.
Had a good day relaxing, as this is the turning point in our trip, the furthest point south we will make is Tarragonna then we will go through to Huesca.
Glenn falls asleep everywhere, he was snoring and dribbling when we were at the beach today.
He is sat right now stuffing his face with Spag Bol straight from the pan, sat on the dust drinking 7.2% lager.
He hopes to leave the plastic crate behind tomorrow that he has carted around Spain on the back of his bike. Lets see if he can manage to get everything bungee'd on.

We are like a zoo attraction here, as we are near the site entrance, everyone walks past us and we aint camping the standard accepted way.
A family just walked past and slowed their pace as they got to us, to watch the two monkeys swinging in their hammocks.
My Spanish is not great but I think the dad just said to the mam "look at the big one stuffing it's face in it's strange swinging bed. The other one must be the clever one as it appears to be reading and writing, but it's probably just grabbed a pencil and is scribbling, lets go before one starts masturbating."

Day 6 - Don't make me do my washing again

Got up early and cooked bacon and sausage sandwiches.
The wind was blowing hard and the seeds were covering everything. We set out for Barcelona as Glenn wanted to see it, I however had reservations and would rather give it a wide berth.
It took ages to get down the coast and the closer we got to Barcelona, the darker the clouds got and the worse the traffic got.
drove through and got lost in Barcelona for quite a while. "Pompey, but with more traffic lights" was Glenda's very accurate description. He originally wanted to stop outside and then journey back into the centre of the city. "Poke it up your arse" is all he had to say when I reminded him.
A big arsed prostitute in a thong and fishnets walking along the road was the only memorable moment from that bit of the journey, considering we both had been without female company.......me for 3 weeks, him for a week...................
nah, we didn't stop. Good job I was in lead.
So we found a campsite, there were lots which wouldn't let you tie ropes between trees, so they were out.
I swerved off the road into 'Camping Francas', Glenn nearly didn't make it as a lorry nearly took him out.
Got set up, Hammocked and Tarped. Then as I was cooking dinner, a guy in the caravan next door came out of his van, shouted at the floor, and promptly chucked his guts in a most spectacular fashion.
A sound similar to a fat man shouting 'aaaarrrrrr' at the same time a cement mixer full of porridge emptied its load from 20 feet in the air.
Suddenly my dinner was less appealing,the eggy bread I was making looked like what I thought matey was hoying up and Glenn was physically pressing his hand on his mouth to keep quiet,as he was in hysterics.
I think I came close to pissing myself at that point.
Luckily matey next door didn't hear us and proceeded to shovel it up.
My dinner was lovely.

Glenn washed his stuff, but when he was finishing up, an old toothless woman thought he was struggling with the machine and promptly showed him how to use it.But they could not understand each other. Fearing he would have to wash his stuff again, he managed to get away. I don't know what he did, but she has probably just got the cable ties off her wrists and ankles.

Spent the evening in the Bar and got twatted watching Barcelona play Munich, in a Barcelona bar. You can imagine it was a bit heated.
They still smoke in bars there, jees it was smokey
We didn't start the 6 euro bottle of Jamesons that I got.

Day 5 - Lentils, Rain and Dogs Cock

Left the site early and headed for Callela.
Not a lot going on there so we carried on. Tried a campsite on a hill, got the full guides tour from the big arsed woman and when we proclaimed that we would be looking to tie hammocks to a tree, got the big "no no no no no" from the boss man, so slipped anchor and off we went again.
Found a site opposite the beach and it started to rain, so quickly set up our tarps and hammocks. I washed my fleece and it did not stop raining. Now I am freezing as I only have tee shirts. It's pissing down, and I cook lentil soup with onion and dogs cock under the tarps, which is nice and warming.
I hope it stops raining soon.
It didn't
We were stuck in the hammocks all day, Glenn had a book, I had nothing. 6 or so hours lying in a hammock with nothing to do is generally a tad boring, as you can imagine.
It got worse and worse, then got dark, so we headed off to the bar.
The bar had about 3 people in, but had a tv, so we watched Villa Real vs Arsenal.
The bartender convinced us that we had to try his local traditional dish, which we agreed to, he later called us 'Guinea pigs' in his best English.
Pasta shell soup and some meat and potatoes basically with a dogs spare rib chucked in. The Brandy eased the pain.
I think I fell out my hammock again.

It blew a gale all night, so we battened down the hatches as best we could.
I had dreams of the wind smashing houses and Glenn had dreams that Carly was shaking his tarp. Had Carly been here, she would have surely punched him square in the face to stop him snoring.
The rain stopped during the night, but the wind beat through till morning.

Day 4 - Viva la Spagne

It was the hottest, coldest, clammiest, most uncomfortable night I have ever had.
Zipped up inside the hammock to keep the mozzies out, the fabric falls back and lies on your body. The mozzies drill straight through the fabric.
They also drill through the bottom of the hammock.
I was trapped inside my nylon tomb, zip fully zipped up, sweating and suffocating but I could hear the swarms right next to my ear through 0.25mm of nylon. The only way to keep the fabric off my face and arms was to lift it up with my toes. They were drilling into my big toes, but it was the only way.
I tried to spread my sleeping bag around inside to create pockets of space that I could hide in and not get bitten.
Glenn by this time was out like a light. Sounding like a cross between a chainsaw and a man being garroted.
He was supposed to be keeping watch on the bikes, one of the french pikeys could have rolled up in a transit van, chucked the bikes in, chucked him in and driven off and I doubt he would have noticed.

We got up in the morning, it was still, dark and 'extreme packed'.
Basically ramming everything into our packs as quickly as we could, we didn't breakfast, (we were breakfast), we didn't make tea, we didn't make a sound until our lids were on and Bewley gave the thumbs up that he was ready (by comparison we normally 'quickly' pack and it takes around an hour. Today we were ready for the off comfortably within 15 minutes from waking.
With the mozzies up to full chat, fired up the bikes and raced for the campsite entrance.
There was a lone security dude sat in the reception, with the door open and the security barrier down.
I swerved around it, Glenn got a bit hooked up on it as his panniers hang out a bit.
We basically wheelspun out and ragged the shit out of the bikes for the 5 or so miles down the road to get away.
Result.
No pay.
And no one giving chase.

A cup of coffee 20 minutes down the road was like heaven, it felt sort of......civilised, even though we looked and smelled nothing of the sort.

We passed the Spanish border and the sun was out, beautiful.
I nearly had Glenn off his bike a few times. every time I stopped he nearly rammed me off the road, cursing in my lid "Jesus, will you bloody concentrate!"
Was only when he later said "is your brake light broken?" that I took it all back,

We headed off towards Tosa Del Mar, and I swear the no matter what Top Gear say, THAT is the best bit of road in Europe.
We had 30 or 40 minutes of undisturbed hairpin after hairpin round the coast hugging the mountain cliffs with no traffic. It was brilliant, I just wish the bikes weren't as loaded and we could have had a right good hack.

Got to Calallevado and stopped at Lloret. The sun was beating down. We showered and got supplies (beer) and spent time on the beach. Later we planned to get the map out, plan the next few days, but ended up getting mashed and lighting a fire instead.
Some Spanish kids came to the campsite and started making loads of noise.
I don't remember much, except that after proudly announcing to Glenn that I have never fallen out of my hammock, promptly fell out twice, much to Glenn's amusement.
And I didn't fall gently either, when you're that drunk, you tend not to have the reactions to try to save yourself.
I fell on my head.