Day 2
We awoke early again, the weather this morning was prefect,
sun, blue skies and broken cloud, ideal for biking or in my case riding pillion
in the car with the roof down. The day started in the hotel restaurant having a
nice continental breakfast (unfortunately no cooked breakfast) but there was
plenty to choose, from an array of hams and salamis, sweet breads and cakes,
yoghurts, cereals, toast, fruit, hot and cold drinks and always handy to pick
up a couple of bits of fruit too for later in the day.
After breakfast the cars were once again packed the bike
unlocked and we made our way to the inevitable fuel stop. Tanks filled we
headed off towards this evening’s hotel which would today be in Champagnole not
exactly in what I would class as the Alps but still mountainous. There would be
nothing of interest to see today apart from the countryside, just a simple A to
B road trip. The road today was quite a major road, but it was nevertheless a
lovely open winding road that weaved itself through the French countryside.
After yesterday the miles seemed to flow quickly by, the landscape here was
just stunning like the Southdowns but on steroids. France is just so vast and
open. One minute you would be at the bottom of the valley the next riding over
bridges that spanned large wood lined gullies below.
This would have been my first full blown tour and I must
admit I was missing riding my bike, but I wasn’t going to let it get me down.
There can always be a next time. When planning my next adventure I can always keep
the good bits in and change any bits I didn’t like, if or should I say when I return.
Everything was going well the roads and the weather were
great, but we’d travelled quite away and needed to start looking for fuel. I know I shouldn’t have, but I started to worry
about the next fuel stop. We hit the
small town of Chaumot and things started to then go a little wrong. The satnav
wanted us to turn right at a roundabout that didnt exist, but this may be down
to the fact they were actually building or doing something where we needed to
go. After going around the town’s one way system trying to sort it out, I then
slightly panicked and reprogrammed the satnav to find the nearest fuel station.
Ok, it was only a short drive and we were there, we fuelled up, and we got feed
and watered. We had time to relax before we carried on the next leg of our
journey.
This is when I made a small but crucial mistake. I hit the
start button and my Garmin then asked me where I would like to start my onward
journey from. When programming this part of the trip I didn’t put in many way
points. Now I know if I started the next part of the ride at a point that was behind
us, the Garmin would send us back miles to start at that point. I didn’t want that so I guessed at one of the
few waypoints that I knew were ahead of us (I should really have used more way
points, but that’s learning with hindsight). Anyway we were off once again and
life felt good, well until we got to the toll booth. I couldn’t understand it.
I purposely had avoided motorways and tolls, but here we were sitting in front
of one. We pulled over and I checked the settings once more read through the
list of way point made my selection, waited and yes this was my route (or so I
thought at the time) but I should have guessed it was wrong as the arrival time
had been reduced by an hour.
So I bit the bullet and proceeded mile after mile of boring
motorway sped by and soon anther 80 miles was under our belt. It was also lunch time so we looked for a
suitable service station and pulled in. Whilst the others went to grab some
food I rummaged in the boot of the car for the good old reliable map. There
clearly in highlighted yellow was the route and not a motorway in sight. I couldn’t work out what had gone wrong but we
were committed now so I had to accept what had happened and just get on with
it.
We had a nice snack of sandwiches, Pringles and coke, whilst
sat in the sun watching the world go by. It was a nice break where we could
stretch our legs and chill for a while. We watched eagles and kites soar over
the local fields whilst a little sparrow came to join us for lunch. There was
also a military vehicle parked up that took my fancy.
Now committed we carried on the laborious trip down the
motorway; I could see on the map where we were and where we should have been
and I could see how the satnav was going to link us up, so I decided to let it
do it’s jobs and I would sort out why and how later.
It wasn’t too long before we left the motorway and was once
again on scenic roads, and I must say it was a joy. In the distance we could
see some small mountains and the views just cheered me up. As we weaved our way
across the countryside the distant mountains got closer and closer, and soon we
were climbing up them, getting our first taste of a couple or so hairpin bends.
This was the driving that I had wanted.
This was what this holiday was all about; the scenery, views and driving
excellent roads. Breathe taking are the
only words that can describe it. It was
here we encountered our drops of rain. Not really enough to be called a shower
but nevertheless rain. However no sooner
had it started it had passed and the sun was out once again.
This road was a pleasure to drive, everything combined to
make it a real joy but it didn’t last very long, oh not for any other reason
than we had reached our hotel in Champagnole.
We checked in parked the bike securely in the hotel’s
private garage, the cars in the private car park. It was early, still only the
afternoon, the sort of riding day I wanted from the off. We went to our rooms to freshen up then went
for a lovely walk in the forest. After the walk we had another short rest and had
one of the best meals I have ever had, in the hotel’s restaurant. Then it was
time to go off to bed for a good night sleep before tomorrow’s trip.
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