Paris

An optometrist on Champs d'Elysees

La Basilique du Sacré Coeur

Matt sampling the party-in-a-can Amsterdam Maximator.

Ferry to Calais













Coast of France

Some picturesque elements of Bath, where we spent a few days waiting for zee insurance.

We're away!

As I write this, we’re sitting on a ferry of dimensions my younger self would describe as ‘freaking huge’ preparing to depart England for Calais and France. It’s taken longer than we’d hoped to get to this point, the delay being due to problems in arranging insurance. We found ourselves in confounding vortex of non-coverage, Aussie insurers laughed at the idea they might cover traffic accidents in Tunisia and British insurers hung up the phone when we conceded we weren’t UK residents. We were rescued however by a little known rogue insurer operating out of Rotterdam that offered to take care of all our problems for a modest pouch of gold. It took a number of days to iron out the kinks regarding payment etc. so in total it’s taken about 5 days longer than expected to get out of England’s uncomfortable chill.

Not all of our time has been spent dethawing our fingers during this interim though. We’ve had a few great nights out, including one afternoon with Rachel, and two English friends Paul and Katie supping the local English insanity juice. This beer was not your normal ale, Matt and I can’t fully explain its effects but it gave me a complete inability to control my own actions and imparted rather distressing episodic amnesia. Hours later, I realized I was in a darkened stairwell in my hostel trying to decipher an online news article on my laptop. What happened? No one can know. All I can say is that I’ve been drunk before and this was not like that.

We were facing the prospect of another night in Bath, when we got the offer to celebrate Australia Day in London with a few of the friends we’d gone out with last week. I was looking forward to getting on the road so we packed up and headed back to the City. Getting there was a bit of an ordeal, it was close to zero and we had to stop every 30 miles or so to get sensation back in our hands. Matt’s hands were looking all grey and splotchy and I said that didn’t look good and thought I was glad I wasn’t him. Getting to London we stayed with the aforementioned friends in the Bronx of London, Brixton. Every day is a new nightmare in Brixton, where your knife is your only friend... or so we’d heard. It turned out to be quite pleasant spot really, and we had a great night drinking Fosters and talking about our favourite Aussie animal grudge match, kangaroo vee wedge tailed eagle, or numbat vee sugar glider.

So England is now behind us, I can see the coast of France, and we’re preparing to attempt to ride down to Paris or even Orleans.

A haiku:

Matt’s hands
So splotchy and grey
His guitar falls silent...

I figured that it’s probably the time to start writing up some of what we’re doing. We’re basically through the establishment phase, having bought almost everything we need to have bought, and have tested the bikes on the road for a while, things are looking good. We’ve been here for just over a week and things are more-or-less proceeding to schedule.

Matt and I both got BMW f650 CS’s, not because we wanted to be the same, but because they are widely considered the best bike to do long distance touring. I have known this since 2001 when I first floated the idea of doing an overland tour from Beijing to Istanbul to a friend and one-time professional car thief. He recommended the f650 and seemed very knowledgeable on such matters.

The whole experience thus far has been rather interesting. A lot has been more like work than holidaying, but the process of getting the bikes and the gear, negotiating with the two dealers we met, trudging out to seedy industrial estates and incidentally sightseeing London has been an odd mix.

Matt got his bike just outside a little town called Aylesbury, about an hour on the train North-West of London. It was at a little dealership within a flashy new retail park, called DWR (Dave Wood Racing) Motorcycles or something. Dave Wood, we were to find out afterwards is Britain’s most distinguished motorcycle rider, and it probably should have been a mild honour just to talk to the man. It was a steal at 2000 pounds but Matt pushed him down to 1900 because of an invisible scratch on the faring. We sealed the deal on the first Saturday and told him to have it ready by Friday.

My man was a little less polished. Checking out the location it seemed to be at the end of a no-name alley branching off an inter-village thoroughfare several kilometres outside the hamlet of Shepperton, looking suggestively like the middle of nowhere. Walking there from the train station took us to the outskirts of the town, which took ages, and then trudging along the muddy embankment of the aforementioned thoroughfare for about 2 kms till we got to the set for a film where mafia men kill people in inventive ways using the facilities of semi-abandoned industrial estates. It did look a little rough: there was the junkyard dog and a number of what were presumable stolen taxi cabs up on blocks. I think there was also a concrete factory, though maybe it was just the vibe of a concrete factory. Matt impressively managed to find our man, who was tucked behind a few of the abandoned shacks and sheds and ruined cars, “out of the way” you could say. He was just about to leave but fortunately still had the two BM’s out to have a look at. He seemed nice, like to talk a lot, and was pushing rather heavily the older, slightly more worn looking silver CS for 2400 pounds. This is still a very good deal, as bikes like this would cost easily double that in Australia, so weren’t really worried. Regardless, we did want them to work, so there was some probity to our questions though we lacked the knowledge-base, and consequently his assurances were about as meaningful as those of an uniformed third party. Still, I didn’t think he was actually lying to us. We concluded we’d take the silver one, which he would have ready by Friday as well.

This was Tuesday, so we had a few days to kill in London. Getting my gear took longer than we thought, but I ended up being really satisfied with what I got. Went to the Tate modern, went out with some great people, friends of Beth who we’d met on Saturday night. Meandered around London a lot. Then came Friday.

Matt went off to get his bike first, and we arranged to then meet in Shep to finalize on my bike and head off to Chippenham, where a friend of mine, Rachel, lived and offered to have us stay. It was a destination outside the city and seemed like a nice opportunity to test the bikes while still in the UK. So... Matt picked his bike up, things were going well, but it ended up taking 3 hours for him to get to Shep, because of the fiendishly difficult to navigate English roads. This was 2 hours behind schedule. Fortunately our man was still at his shack, so Matt drove off to finalize with him while I did the trek out , again, to the estate. We noticed that my indicators weren’t working, but at this point we just wanted to go, and were in a bit of a rush. I strapped my bags to the back of my bike, and we prepared to head off. I’ve always been fond of the term ‘Hell ride’ and the following 4 hours could rightfully be described as such. I was night-time, raining off and on, pretty damn cold (think English winter, exactly like that), and gridlock traffic for about 2 hours. Visibility was shot, we hadn’t worked out how to ensure our visors don’t fog up so I alternated between having my helmet open to the rain, which really stings at 60 mph, and having it closed, with visibility that Matt described as comparative to having your eyes closed. There was trucks and buses and zillions of cars. Best not to think about it really. Anyway, eventually ended up in Chippenham, and trying to find the Red Lion pub, where my friend had relocated to, according to a text message. Asking for directions at a supermarket, no one had heard of the Lion, discouragingly, until a helpful stranger approached, recollecting that the Lion is in fact in an even smaller village a small ways up the road called Lacock (pronounced Lay-cock). We saddled up, got to Lacock, and pleasingly found Rachel enjoying the local cider at the ridiculously cosy Red Lion. We settled in, tried to defrost, and partaking many pints of cider before heading back to crash on Rachel’s couch, so very pleased that we were still alive.

Lacock turns out to be the nicest village on the planet. This was a bit of a surprise, but the town is one of the very few that was completely preserved in its pre-modern state, and looks exactly like the setting, whichever way you look, for a period drama. In fact it looks like the setting for specific period dramas that you’re probably seen, as the town’s been used in almost every period piece of cinema ever, including excitingly the upcoming Wolfman, starring Benicio del Toro. I don’t really go in for those things, but I do like Harry Potter, and elements of Hogwarts (the arched hallways surrounding a courtyard), were filmed there. Also apparently one of the cottages was Harry’s parent’s place, though I don’t recall that from the films.

Rachel is a museum curator, and works at the local museum dedicated to Lacock’s most famous resident, Albot somebody, the inventor of the negative-positive process in photography, the basis for all modern photography pre-digital. He was quite a guy, also contributing to maths and physics and deciphering ancient Cuniform. Not bad at all. After wandering around Lacock, we then picked up sticks and motored to Bath, to spend the next couple of days... for no particular reason. Splendid countryside around here. I might go to the spa tomorrow, and see if I can get my indicators working. Monday should be a good day: We’re going to be attempting to get to Paris.