Day 3
On the morning of my departure I was greeted by a spectacular sunrise and of the Folkstone seafront bathed in early morning sunshine.
Leaving Folkestone I boarded the train that travels under the English channel to France. I have done this a few times before and as usual I met some fellow two wheeled travellers on board. After 20 minutes or so of exchanging stories and thoughts about each other’s bikes, I said my farewells and rode South from Calais towards the city of Tours that would be my first stop on my way to Spain.
An hour or so later I was heading South from Calais under leaden skies but the further South I headed, the lighter the skies became and choosing to stick to the N or D class roads, I was rewarded with not only relatively empty and well surfaced roads, but with some very scenic routes to ride along and a lack of motorway toll charges. I stopped on the D438 near Alencon to take a picture of the empty road which I hoped would symbolise much of my future journeys.
I rode on until late afternoon and as it was starting to get dark, I managed to find an overpriced chain hotel on the outskirts of Orleans for about 50 Euros. As I was checking in to my hotel the skies were becoming very heavy and as I was unloading the bike in the hotel car park, the first drops of rain started to hit the ground. Due to the heavy rain that came down all night I confined myself to my room and worked on my route for the following day. I left Orleans early in the morning, the roads were fairly quiet but still wet from the heavy overnight rain, the skies were still leaden but my optimism for better weather kept my spirits up. I do not like riding in the rain, I do it when I have to, but in my experience wet roads and bikes do not like each other.
I headed South for La Rochelle and although I have travelled extensively in France many times before, this is one place that I had never managed to get to. En route as the roads dried out I started to enjoy the riding once more and after a while I stopped at the fortress town of Chinon for a quick breakfast of coffee and a cigar.
Although the grey skies dulled the town a little, I thought that it was quite an impressive town with the fortress dominating the landscape.
When I arrived at La Rochelle I found that the main port was pedestrianised and if I wanted to see anything I would have to leave the bike unattended. As all my worldly possessions are carried on it I decided that this was not an option, so I decided to forsake the tourist experiences that La Rochelle had to offer and to push on South to the ferry at Royan.
Crossing the river Dordogne estuary on the ferry was thankfully a short (I hate being on boats) but pleasant enough trip despite the hefty 15 Euro ticket price for such a short crossing. The D1215 South after the crossing was a great road to ride, the smell of pine trees filled the air and eventually the sun came out warming things up. I rode through a couple of the smaller towns on the coast looking for a place to stay for the night but as it was the height of the French holiday season most of the places that I looked at were either full or were asking over 70 Euros a night for just a basic room with no breakfast. Not happy to pay such extortionate prices, I pushed on until I eventually found a place on the outskirts of Bayonne that was asking a more reasonable 40 Euros, still well overpriced, but as it was getting dark I decided to bite the bullet and accept the offer.
Day 5
The next morning the sun was shining, it was warm, and I was looking forward to a long leisurely 5 day ride along the North coast of Spain. However, that dream was quickly shattered as when I attempted to get some cash from an ATM and found that my bank card was not working. After a few phone calls it transpired that my UK bank had decided to lock my account, because of a “suspicious” transaction on my account. When I explained to them that the “suspicious” transaction was in fact me buying my ticket for the Eurotunnel train whilst I was in Poland, the person on the phone refused to believe me. Despite having previously notified them that I was in Poland, and despite answering all of the security questions correctly, the ignorant asshole on the other end of the phone again refused to unlock my account or let me speak to a supervisor. I called the bank repeatedly and I was eventually told by a supervisor that I would have to personally call in to a branch of my bank in the UK with photographic ID to unlock my account.
Despite explaining to them that they were leaving me on the French/Spanish border with just 40 euros in my pocket and with this amount of money it was financially impossible for me to return to the UK, nothing changed and they continued to refuse to do anything about it, and then hung up the phone on me. I got on the bike and decided to do a long haul, mostly on motorways, to the home of my friend in Galicia in North West Spain. During this long day on the mostly 2 lane Spanish motorways the bike held a steady 70-75 mph, getting up to 80 mph on a couple of overtakes of long vehicles, whilst trying not to get rear-ended by a high speed BMW or Mercedes. I have to say that I was impressed by the bike and it’s ability to take such sustained high revs while fully loaded and although it is not the quickest bike that I have ever ridden, once it got to 70-75 mph, with the exception of long steep climbs, it was relatively easy to keep it at this speed. 10 hours and 500 miles (800 km) later, I just made it to the house of my friend before running out of money for fuel.
Now this is where I have to have a rant about this situation.
Once in Spain I had to borrow money from my friend to obtain flights back to the UK and get the mess sorted out. I organised my travel back to the UK and about one week later later I presented myself at a branch of my bank in London where I was able to unlock my account, only to then be told that it was the bank’s mistake and my account should never have been locked in the first instance.
I have subsequently made a complaint and a claim for financial compensation for unnecessary expenditure of over five hundered pounds for the flights, train tickets and hotel accomodation that I had to buy as aresult of their mistake.
However two months later as I write this post I have still not received an apology nor a refund for my expenses to get back to the UK from Spain. I normally don’t carry lots of cash on me, just cards, but after this I will ensure that I always have access to some method of getting cash other than from my bank, that is until I change banks, because I do not intend to remain with my present one for very much longer if I can help it.
I hate banks! Rant over.