Greetings all! - Hello from Moravia! We are here...!
Well, its been emotional and eventful (did you expect anything less??!!)
Heres a quick run down on progress to date - no photos as yet Im afraid but I'll add them later at some point. Here's the blog....
Tuesday 15th
Baggers and I left Crewe around 2.30pm and had a very pleasant (for once) trip down to Folkestone where we met up with RodH and Royum. The very kindly receptionist at the hotel let us park the bikes right outside the entrance in front of the CCTV as long as we promised not to start them at 7.30am!!!
Had a nice meal and off to bed.
Wednesday 16th:
Arrived at the Chunnel for 7.50am - to find that a train had broken down in the tunnel
and that all trains were delayed. Finally made it in to France for about 11.00am which was a bugger as we had some ground to cover.
Tracked along the coast to Dunkirk, and down to Leper (Ypres) where stoppped to go find the Menin Gate - a very moving experience. We all agreed we'd like to come to Flanders again to look at the battlefields. Took in a quick coffee and a yummy belgium chocalate muffin and then back on the road. Sophia managed to burst yet another header tank in traffic coming out of Leper -
We made good time over the rest of the day, and travelled across France, Belgium, Holland in to Germany. The weather was kind to us and we didn't have any brushes with the law this time!
We stopped just outside Cologne in the forest at a small bike friendly hotel - which was really cool. Each of the rooms were themed - I had the Mamola room and Baggers got the Foggy Room.
Food was sensational, but we were all shattered - it had been a long day so after dinner we literally fell in to bed!!
Thursday:
We set off down the Autobahn headed for Frankfurt and the plan was to cut across country trough the edge of the black forest region across to Nurnburg and the Czech Border. Best laid plans and all that......didn't quite happen. 60kms outside Frankfurt, we made a group decision to dive in to Ducati Frankfurt. Royum needed a new tyre, I needed a header tank, and Baggers 1098 was cooking the termi system and rear cylinder which has turned biscuit brown.
Ducati Frankfurt were very good to be fair, although initially came across as a bit on the grumpy side (think it was a language thing!!). Anyway they dropped everything - changed the header tank for me, put a new Tyre on Roys bike, and checked over Baggers bike, before adjusting the CO from 2% to 4%. 3.30pm we hit the road again - oh well its only 459km to the hotel - it'll be fine.
We pull of the motorway into a village and find a garage and fill up and decide that we could still do the scenic route we'd planned...........mistake!
First of all Sat Nav sent us up ever decreasing roads that got narrower and narrower and narrower which culminated in this little lane - that just stopped - tarmac one side and grass and brambles the other. Round we turn and head back to the village and try again...this time it took us on a different route out of the village and headed us in to a national park area which was very beautiful apart from several issues.
1. Roadworks and 10 mile queue of HGVs.
2. Its now raining heavily
3. Most of it had a 30kmh speed limit.
4. Its raining even harder
5. Its now 4.00pm and oh we still have 400km to cover....
Back on the motorway......and finally arrive at Czech Border around 8.30pm - no dramas or incidents - had a bit of sport with some Alpina BMWs and AMGs on the derestricted sections of the motorway though!!!
To be continued........