Day 19
Wednesday 01.07.09 Reminiac to Le Havre 253 miles
In the morning I pay the bill and check my map. Calais is a day and a half away. Le Havre is possible in a day. I check the ferry times and see that there is a ferry at 4.00 pm. So I set the sat nav for Le Havre and set off, tearing along mostly D roads. I make it with minutes to spare and got on an L D lines ferry for Portsmouth I get in at 9.30 pm. Thanks to the ferries totally inadequate strapping system my bike, along with 3 others, was on its side when I got back to it. Apart from some heavy marks on the seat, there was no damage tho.
Its dark, I’m tired, so I punch the sat nav for the nearest hotel. Its only a couple of miles off the Motorway and so I book B&B, have a couple of pints and turn in for the night.
Day 20
Thursday 02.07.09 Portsmouth to Home 200 miles
Slept well, didn’t eat much breakfast and headed off at 8.45 am. Good old Englands motorways! Within 5 minutes I run into very heavy traffic, almost at a standstill.
I pull off at the first exit I come to and spend a fruitless half hour trying to find a way around it. Back on the motorway I fought will the lorries and local commuters for what little space there is left on our roads. Eventually it thinned out a bit. I took an exit for the A40 towards Banbury – Stratford and Coventry and hit a decent country road heading North.
I spent a pleasant hour riding along with not much traffic around me, finally skirting Coventry and onto the M69. I Arrived home at 1.00 pm, melting in a BRITISH heat wave (30 degrees). I tore all my gear off the bike and went for a shower. I am no longer the ‘Scruffy Biker’, just an ordinary bloke checking his email and watching the reruns of Moto GP that I had missed.
I have UNFOLDED the bike and promised to restore her to her former glory over the weekend. The ‘Fold Up Bike Trip’ is over for another year. 20 days, 3200 miles
Now where’s that map? :)