Sunday 2/8

We got up for a leisurely breakfast. We'd decided to take the N20 to Paris, drive straight through the centre of the city and pick-up the A1 to Arras/Lens and finally the A26 to Calais.

The N20 was a nice enough flat road, but we tripped quite a few speed cameras on the way up to Paris. Orleans on a Sunday morning was interesting; we went thro' some suburb that had what seemed like miles of old bangers (No, not the Mrs Thompson or Gasson!) being sold at the side of the road by immigrants. The traffic was really heavy as we entered the outskirts of Paris, but confidence was high as the 'Garmin Meister' would be able to get us speedily and safely to where we wanted to be - Yeah, Right! We managed to have a photo shoot of the bikes at the Palais de Justice but it all went downhill from there.

Palais de Justice






























Eventually, as the Eurotourists were truly lost, Rod decided to bear the discomfort of his ear pieces and to use his PDA GPS but.............................................................. he discovered he hadn't got it with him! His frantic rummagings through tank-bag and luggage did not magic its re-appearance so it must have stayed behind at the 'Lion D'Or'. Luckily, Simon - who had lost our way and was beginning to lose the plot - had not lost his phone, so Rod was able to make a panicky call to the hotel. The patronne confirmed that the phone was there and that of course she'd keep it safe until 'Monsieur Motard' returned in a week's time. It was highly amusing to her.


The uhhh, ummm?




















Anyway, Simon's brain was fried and he couldn't cope with the vagaries of the Zumo which, in his opinion, wasn't able to re-calculate the route quickly enough to be of much use. It couldn't be simply fitted to the 'Kawa', so it was back to the Euro Atlas. We headed for St Ouen and out to St Denis and the A1, with just a couple of little diversions. In the course of one of these we discovered Circuit Carole, favoured by the Brit bike press for sporty testings.

Then came the tedious autoroute slog up to the Chunnel - you can understand why so many of our continental motard chums use a car or van and bike trailer to get to their chosen bits of mountain area, motorways are no fun at all on bikes and they make your tyres square!

We reached the Eurotunnel terminal without drama - who could get lost on an autoroute? (Ooops, sorry Simon!) - but had a bit of drama when we got there. Unusually, for anything involving Rod, we arrived at the terminal early and when he checked in he was on an earlier train than the reservation, which was nice. However, when Simon checked in, he was booked onto the original train departing an hour laterer. Obviously he had a later departure letter than Rod, so he just hid it as Rod's 'correct' label was waved with a flourish at all Tunnel marshals. It worked, so we were able to arrive back in Blighty together.

A blast round the M20, 26, 25 and 23, at a 'spirited' pace, saw us soon back in Bolney.

Over 2700 miles on the bikes, God knows how many tanks of petrol, plenty of mountain passes and 12 countries (in 7 days, actually) visited; we had achieved our goal. The N260 was brilliant and next year we will base ourselves near it, for a few days, and enjoy the Pyrenees without the bulk of hard luggage. Roll on next summer!