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Saturday 9th August---We loaded the bikes by 8:30 and went down to the office to create hell, Les and the boys stayed with the bikes and I went in alone! After a bit of bickering, nothing too drastic, the manager recognised the word DISCOUNT and only charged me for one night, which was something at least.
We still wanted to see Luxembourg, but we also wanted to get home to nice soft beds and cool stuff from the fridge when you want it, so we had a conflab. We’d explained to the kids how long it would take and they were ok with that, so we headed off towards Sarreguemines to cross the border into Germany. Round the outskirts of Saarbrucken by autobahn saw us at the Luxembourg border within an hour. You go through a tunnel which wasn’t very old with new tarmac, and emerge the other side on a brand new motorway, with no cars on it. The last speed limit we’d seen said 90 kms, so we were poodling along not knowing any difference and wondering what the limit was when we got passed, at speed by a Merc. That’ll do for us and we picked up the pace some and got to the city in about 20 minutes. There’s not much to look at on the motorway, it’s all pretty flat and unexciting, and the suburbs are pretty much the same. My next concern was not to get another parking ticket, but we needn’t have worried, as you enter the city you see literally hundreds of motorcycle parking signs with whole streets given over to it.
Parking up and strapping everything to the bikes, we set off for a nosey. Most of the buildings are old but are cleaned regularly to make the brickwork look new. We were following signs for the post office when we came to a square with live, middle of the road music coming from a stage set up at one end. We also saw some idiots dressed as ants for some reason accosting people, but we managed to avoid that. We stopped at a grill and had some chips and pop for brekky, before carrying on the search, but we never did find the post office. The city seems to be split in two by a deep gorge that has been turned into a park area, but trying to get home we didn’t have time to go over the other side. We’d like to come back again and have a proper look around sometime.
Back to the bikes for the next stretch of the day, and the ride home. On the way in I had seen the signs for Brussels/Arlon, so common sense says if you go back that way you should see the signs again-wrong! Not a dickey, and before we knew it we were back in Germany going in the opposite direction. Luckily for us after about 13 miles we got to a service station and asked for directions, having already fuelled the bikes we were soon on our way again.
This time all the signs were there and we got onto the A4 heading for Namur, mile after mile went by with no sign of a services, so it was just as well we’d gone the wrong way and refuelled otherwise we’d be knackered. We’re riding in the outside lane, not screaming it but passing most cars, when a black twat in a 4x4 squeezed past me in the same lane and shot off up the road. I was fuming, above all it was bloody dangerous and we had the kids on the back, but at the same time I was keeping an eye on him because he wasn’t getting any further away than a couple of hundred yards. The traffic all slowed down and I was behind him, right at the right hand rear corner of his motor, and being an observant driver he didn’t have a clue I was there. Once we’d slowed enough I drew level with him and using the Kevlar knuckles on my glove put a great big dent in the side of his motor.
He didn’t know what was happening until I got level with the passenger window and waved at him pointing to my head. By this time I was safe in the inside lane, but trying to look clever in front of his missus he decided he was going to swerve towards me, as he turned the wheel the motor rocked like they do and he crapped himself, nearly turning the thing over. He put his foot down and shot off into the distance, but I was wound up now and needed to stop. Past the European Space Centre-(what a dump), and after 79 miles we found a café, no fuel but we didn’t need it then. I was hoping he was in there so I could lay the prat out, but it wasn’t to be. We got some drinks, water this time and sat in the shade cooling down, literally.
Checking the map, the next services was about 70 miles up the road on the E34 between Charloi and Mons, we should make that ok. Onwards and upwards and we were at Namur 20 minutes later, turning onto the E34 we were in for a shock, the road was terrible. Being one of the main HGV routes through Belgium the surface was broken up everywhere in the inside lane, and the ruts were about 3 inches deep, had to stay out of those or we’d be in trouble. It didn’t get any better all the way across, and reaching the services we filled up and had a drink. Back on the motorway we were beginning to suffer from dead arse syndrome and needed a decent break, so we pulled in just before the junction with the A16 and collapsed on the grass. We went from stretching your legs and back to curling up in a ball, but we were in no rush so we stayed there for about 45 minutes. Another Brit turned up on his Busa with his son on the back, they’d been staying in Switzerland for a week and been into Austria and France. I said we were going to go through Austria but Danny is too young to travel on a bike legally at 11, when he said his son was the same age and he didn’t know anything about it. Just as well he didn’t get stopped or he would have been in deep doodaa.
Telling the kids we only had an hour to go to get to Calais, we shot off again. Going via the A14/19 and N38, we found ourselves back in France on the A25 heading for the boat. This last bit seemed to take forever, as is the norm, and as we neared Dunkerque the fuel gauge was pointing south so we headed in to fill up before getting the boat. What a rip off, the garage was nearly 1 euro more per litre than any garage we had used over the last 12 days, but beggars can’t be choosers and I paid the money and we rode out. The rest of the ride to Calais was a doddle, it did get busier as we approached but you expect that. 
Still not far to go now, we had a look round the shops and bought 6 bottles of Black Tower wine. The kids had been really good and especially today with the mileage we had done, so we bunged them a fiver each to spend on anything they wanted and they vanished for 45 minutes. As we came into Dover there was a thick sea mist and you couldn’t see the white cliffs until we were almost there. Once we’d docked we went down to the car deck and got ready to go, the advantage being you don’t have to wait on a bike and off we went up Jubilee Way.
The call of home was in our minds, so it only took 45 minutes to get there. We got in about 9pm, took everything off the bikes and put them away, and threw the gear into the house-literally. We collapsed on the chairs absolutely knackered, Shaun piped up with his usual “what’s for tea”, and I was just about to lynch him when my mum turned up. She said she’d go down the chippy for us if we wanted something, so we bunged her some money and she was back in 15 minutes with her supper as well. She stayed about an hour talking before going home, and within 30 minutes of that we were all in bed, no rocking tonight, again.
The trip was brilliant, the one day of rain was a dampner, no pun intended and the heat for the rest of it did make riding uncomfortable at times. The campsites weren’t too bad, apart from the French one, and we didn’t loose anything. I lost half a stone, I was the only one who lost weight on the trip, shows who did the work. Would we do it again, definitely but not camping, we’d base ourselves somewhere (maybe 2 or 3 different locations), and have our trips out from there. All in all it must have cost about 2 ½ grand as we were buying tents and everything from new, petrol worked out much the same as over here, but most other things were dearer due to the Euro. The locals don’t like it as their cost of living has gone up but the wages haven’t changed, a good reason to vote no if we have a referendum about it.
Total miles were 1548 over 12 days going through 6 different countries , some more than once.lol, and including the UK.
Time for bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(The pictures are not in any order, just slung in to brighten it up a bit, there are more on the photo page)
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