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.