Day one. Or the trip starts to unravel.

Up early next morning to catch the 7 AM crossing. I like the ferry as it giver's you time out. Some seat's it's only an hour to cross. hot drink, You get the idea. O Richard that's a tenner you owe me for last night's accommodation. O yes' he says, I can see he thought I was going to pay for his night stay. Which was the start of thing's to come. I have a load of picture's but when I'm looking for them I now find out I've down loaded them all on to disk's. As I'll have to get round to one day up loading a few when I find the disk. On the crossing out comes the story about Richard is now saying that he's going to travel all the way to Athens and then make his ind up what he's going to do next after that. I point out that I'm easy as Athens is the end of the line. So the return journey is easy. The bike is all loaded up with camping kit and we both have sat nav's, a gift to any one travelling. Map's will get you from one place to another. But a sat nav will get you out of a city on to the right road to the next place. To me a sat nav to bike travelling is as important as petrol is to biking. I have a Tom Tom rider with the power mount to charge the sat nav as you travel, Well tom tom. My charger unit don't work. Latter I find out that it's pushing out power at the right place. But the sat nav is not charging. Luck I have brought leads to charge from the mains. And plug adaptor's for Europe. Now it's a case of every stop. Cup of coffee or just a rest break. it's looking for a charger point. Even if I get ten min's charge in it, it will help.

Toll road's in France are a killer. If you work out how much the tolls are. A good way of saying it is it work's out that the price of petrol has doubled, how to I get to that. If you travel about a gallon's worth of petrol on the tolls, that will be about the amount you will pay in tolls. So sat nav's set to non toll road's. And the non toll road's are quick and easy to use. The first day is a long haul day. Get the mileage out the way, get south, get in to the sun, Richard knows this. So I'm thinking that we only stop for petrol and have a break at the same time. So a tank full will take you 200 mile's. Good time for a break. Going down one of the main dual carriage way's in France. Richard comes up along side and waves for us to stop. We pull over. he then tells me that something has fell off the back of the bike a few mile's back. So I say as you where behind me why did you not stop and pick it up. I would have seen you stop in my mirror's and would have stopped straight away. OO I thought I would just tell you, It turned out to be a fluffy lion that I was carrying. On the idea of taking picture's with it on our way round. The importance of it was not great. So kind of put it down to just my bad luck. The next fuel stop, Is petrol and a hot drink and a bite to eat. The weather has not been good to us so far. not rain but dark over cast and looking every moment as if the wet kit will need to be put on. We talk about it. My idea is that we press on with out the wet kit as the more we get south, the better chance's is that the weather will get better. I'm thinking to my self, the last time I was out went to Hungary on the same road's 17 day's of rain, out of 21+ day trip, can't happen twice.  It was at this time we restocked up with food for a pack up. Just in case.

             Me and Richard out side the hotel in France

 I'll move this on a bit now. We get to Dijon and instead of a camp, we are going for a over night in a F1. the cost's are about the same for one room share by two, as against two tent pitch in a camp site. the up side is we get a roof over our head's and a hot shower.Dijon F1 is full, And some how this is my fault. Richard if you are reading this kind of tell me how you came about that. There was a bike meet in the town and every cheap hotel was full. The manager told us of another F1 40 mils' down the road. So with the sat nav's locked in by the manager at the Dijon hotel. And the good chap rang through and booked the room's. We paid by card. And hour later we where there tucked up in a warm place and allot further down France than I expected. Thing are looking good. Or so I thought.

                  A stopping point in the way down in France

John933