A Day trip to France - Roland's story.8th MARCH 2009

Back in January Rob had noticed a special offer on the P&O website. For £19 you could take a car with up to 9 people, or in our case a bike and up to 2 people, receive a voucher that allowed 2 people to eat breakfast for the price of 1 and another voucher for a free case of 6 bottles of wine.
What started off as just 4 people going on a day trip to Frogland ended up as a club trip for 13 bikes.
Well done Rob for spotting the offer.

We all met up at the garage in Brentwood at the junction of the A12 and the M25. The ride started off just after 6am.
The weather was overcast as we set off with a little drizzle on the way to Dover. The high winds made the ride quite interesting especially crossing the QE2 bridge at Dartford where on the apex of the bridge a huge gust of wind hit a few bikes.
The trip went uneventful and we all made it safely to Dover. Albeit the first roundabout in Dover looked very wet and oily, but we all got round it OK.

We filled our tanks in Dover as John S had been on the internet and found out the petrol was cheaper in Blighty than in Frogland.

Everyone got through Passport Control even though the nice gentleman wanted to look into the eyes of those he allowed to pass through. He said, “it’s in the eyes, the eyes don’t lie”. Whatever that meant. I think he was just eying us up, or he was a part time optician looking for trade.

We got our trusty steeds strapped on the ferry deck and made our way to the restaurant for the wonderful 2 for 1 breakfast.  Plum decided the offer was too good to miss and had two breakfasts to himself.

After breakfast the group retired to the seating area to relax. Mike looked as though he was ready for bed, he had a late night and was very tired.
Once the ferry was past the 5 mile limit it was time to take up the option of the free 6 bottles of wine that came with the cost of the ferry ticket.
It later transpired that Barry did not take up the offer of the free wine.
There was a choice of cases of wine, white, red and rosé.
Some decided to open their cases of wine and swap their spoils around, just to have a variety of wine to take back home.
As we neared Calais we went back to our bikes to find a way of securing the wine from breakage for the rest of the journey. Everyone seemed happy with how they had their wine stowed away. Little did someone know what was waiting for them.

We left the ferry and headed off into clear blue skies and sunshine.
We followed the coast road through Sangatte, Wissant, Ambleteuse and Wimereux to our first stop in Boulogne.
This is where I nearly caused World War 3 to start between the Frogs and the Brits.
We pulled up in the local Square, which was shaped like a triangle, and parked the bikes in the parking spaces there. I was manuvering my bike in a parking space, which had a slope on it. As I was doing this a car pulled up behind me. The man driving the car looked at me as if to say “are you moving out of the bay”, I shook my head in a NO motion (universal language in any country). The car moved further on into the square and parked up. The woman passenger from the car then walked past me muttering something in her frog sounding language. I replied to her in my best possible French dialect “Pardon”. She repeated herself again. When I then said to her “Parlez vous Anglais?”. This seemed to tip her over the edge, she started muttering something in French again so I turned away from her. I can’t help it if I don’t speak French. The rest of the group then burst into laughter as she gave me the two-finger salute, sadly I missed it. The male driver then walked past not saying a word to us.
Kevin told me that he believed the lady was muttering something about she lived just there, the house nearest to the parking space where I was parked. Shame the parking space didn’t have her name on it.
We were discussing the incident when the rest of the family were then seen hanging out the windows to look at the mob from England that was reigning terror on the residents of Boulogne. Kevin did his best to restore good cross channel relations by returning the two fingered salute that the lady had so lovingly given me. It must be a strange French custom.

A few minutes later Kevin found that one of his bottles of wine had broken inside his topbox. A few minutes were spent clearing out the broken bottle and then tipping the topbox upside down pouring the wine into the gutter. I’m sure Kevin believed the woman had put a curse on his bottle of wine.

We decided that our stay in Boulogne was over and so we should continue onwards to Le Touquet where lunch awaited us. Again we followed the coast road in lovely sunny weather. The group got split up on this run.
John S showed us where to park our bikes in Le Touquet and then using his hand held SatNav showed us the way to the restaurant. I’m sure John knew that we had parked quite a way from the restaurant and wanted us to work up an appetite for lunch by completing the journey on foot. On route it transpired that there was a certain shop that John wanted to window shop in.
We met up with the splitter group by the restaurant. They had got there some time before us, obviously they didn’t need to do any window shopping.
By French standards the restaurant and food was very good. The service was excellent and the atmosphere within the group was very good. I think everyone enjoyed the meal. Well done John S for choosing the restaurant.
Following the meal everyone then walked down to the beach. Quite a nice beach, plenty of sand there.

We then discussed the route to be taken to get back to Calais. Time was getting on now and we had to make the ferry. The motorway was decided as the best possible route considering the time.
As we neared Calais I could see to our left, over the channel, rain clouds.

We made it to the Port of Calais and got through Passport Control without any problems, obviously no part time opticians in Calais.
We made our way to the lane to await boarding the ferry. Then the rain started. At first we stood around in the rain chatting about the day so far. Then the rain became heavier, so we took shelter behind a double decker coach.
Barry decided to do his Mary Poppins bit and sat on his bike with an umbrella erected. A lady in a nearby car thought this was funny and so started taking photo’s of him. We then burst into laughter when the wind turned his brolly inside out. Barry decided that mother nature had beaten him and put the brolly away.
The ferry was running 10 minutes late, not bad considering the weather conditions on the channel.

Upon boarding the ferry we secured the bikes and decided that wet weather gear was the order of the day when we left the ferry in Dover. We made our way to the relaxed seating area and commandeered a large area for our group. Everyone was still full from lunch and just wanted a drink and duty free.

As we neared Dover we got our wet weather gear on and then made out way to the bikes.
When we left the ferry we again refuelled in Dover before starting the ride home.

As we left Dover Mike had a car pull out into the outside lane as he was overtaking it. The car driver was oblivious to Mike being the there and nearly pushed him into the centre barrier. Mike took it in his stride and pointed out the error of the man’s driving as he soon overtook him. I think he did an impression of the French lady we meet in Boulogne.

Whilst travelling along the M20 it started to rain, then as we neared the 5 mile mark from the M25 the rain turned to snow.
We dropped our speed down from the legal limit of 70 MPH to a sedate 35 to 40 MPH. Steve K was ahead of me and he started to drive slower and slower as the snow conditions got worst. Eventually he pulled over onto the hard shoulder with those following him following suit. We sat there for some minutes before we could set off again. As we hit the M25 so the snow and the rain stopped. The pace was picked up again and the ride home continued without further ado.

I feel that it must be stated that there was no breakdowns, punctures or running out of fuel on this trip, well done everyone.

I believe the group can’t wait for the next trip abroad. Look out for those special travel offers.Report written by Roland Murphy, who promises not to upset the French (our buddies) again, unless they start it first.