Day 1 - Wednesday 1st July
I was massively stressed prior to setting off - everything was getting on top of me; preparing the bike was taking longer than I liked and I had a lot of work on meaning I couldn't do much with the bike on an evening. Also Mark's tragic accident was constantly playing on my mind - I wasn't sure I even wanted to spend two weeks on a bike.
It was a glorious day, sunny and hot, but as it had rained very heavily the day before it was also very sticky. I started sweating as soon as I started putting my bike gear on, so it was a relief to finally get going. Unfortunately I had left my spare keys for the bike at work so I had to pop in there first.
Eventually I got on the motorway heading for the meeting place with Nig; the services after the M18 junction on the M1. I instantly settled down - all thoughts of anything other than riding my bike left my head - I was under way, finally riding to Europe!
By the time I met Nig, I was completely chilled out. We had our breakfast at the services and then set off on the long ride to Portsmouth. The ride went very smoothly and seemed to pass quite quickly. We stopped every 50 miles so the riding never got tedious. It did stay very hot though - as soon as we stopped it was a race to get the gear off and cool down a bit!
I had bought a TomTom One SatNav system which was meant for cars not bikes and stuck it to the rev-counter with a suction mount and bodging tape. The reason I'd not bought a bike one was they were around 4 to 5 times the price of the car ones - the main difference being the bikes ones were waterproof. My theory was I'd put it in the map case on top of the map case if it rained. The TomTom on the rev counter worked a treat - it was easy to see and use. The only problem I had was sun glare.
Also due to last minute packing, my tank bag had to be fully extended - basically making it a double decker tank bag. It was fine on the motorway - handy actually as I could rest my head on it! But around town it was a real hindrance, especially during slow manoeuvring. I decided that I'd re-pack as soon as we got to our first camp site in Spain.
We got to Portsmouth at around 3pm. We had a look around and got some chips, then headed to the port at around 5:30pm. Unfortunately boarding was delayed by around 1 hour, and there was nothing to do at the port so it was very boring. I've never understood why they don't have more at the ports - surely they'd be guaranteed to make money as they have a captive audience - but they never do.
We finally got on board and settled in by around 8:00pm. We had a bite to eat at the cafe; sausage, mash and chips for £8.99 - expensive but better than the very expensive buffet meal which is the only other alternative.
We had a couple of beers on deck and enjoyed looking at all the Navy ships (one of which definitely looked like a party ship), and watching other ferries dock. We stayed on deck until we departed so we could watch Portsmouth and England fall into the distance.
I had brought some whisky with me to save a bit of money on the boat, so I just bought cokes while we 'enjoyed' the dreadful cabaret. As is the way when I am pouring my own measures - they got larger and larger as the night went on - so by the early hours I was very very drunk! I didn't realise this until we went up onto the deck for Nig to have smoke and the fresh air hit me. We retired for the night shortly after that!
