Day One, Wednesday, 199 miles. Nottingham to Folkestone.

I left home mid afternoon heading for Folkestone but had to do a stop off at Devitts Insurance offices in Romford. The incompetent brainless droids had taken £26 off me a month earlier to issue me with a green card that gave me fully comp cover in all the countries we planned to ride through but failed to post it to me. It actually turned up two days after we’d left.

Even when assured it would be waiting for me on reception it still took the Muppets three quarters of an hour to locate it. They won’t be getting my renewal next year.

We all met up at the Premier Lodge near the Tunnel apart from Wapping and Darkhorse Dave who were to meet us at the Tunnel in the morning. We dined on mediocre food and talked to a 65 year old Goldwing rider on his way to a “Wing Ding” in Belgium. Not a very exciting day but the trip really hadn’t started yet.



Day Two, Thursday, 689 miles, Folkestone to Milan.

Up early and under the tunnel then onto the French Autoroutes. Easy miles and miles and miles of motorway driving. We generally stopped around the 200 mile mark to fill up and have a drink.


Into Switzerland and it got colder as we entered the Alps with snow at the side of the road. The traffic was busy heading into the Gotthard Tunnel and while filtering I managed to leave a lasting momento of my travels down the side of a VW Golf, the driver gestured for me to pull over but it seemed to be more trouble than it was worth and I carried on.

30 miles later, in the dark I saw flashing blue lights and was pulled onto the hard shoulder by two very polite Swiss traffic cops, they pulled Blowzorn earlier then realised they had the wrong bike. They explained that a VW Golf driver wanted a word with me and we were to wait for him.

We waited for twenty minutes and chatted about bikes, one of them owned a R100RT and toured on it. He was impressed with my Zumo. To say the Italian Golf driver was a little perturbed when he eventually turned up would be an understatement. The cops had to assure him I would be fined, the bike owning cop told me that this wouldn’t be the case but it seemed the only way to shut the “silly Italian man” up. We swapped details but I can’t see me getting a Christmas card off him. This feck about put me an hour behind the rest and I rolled into Milan at 10pm, hungry and ready for a .


Day Three, Friday, 272 miles, Milan to Ancona

We needed to be at the Port of Ancona around three to pick the tickets up and board the ferry to Greece. The Italian motorways were manic and at one point they came to a stand still. I saw a turn off for Rimini and took it as I’d lost the rest and thought the coast road would be a better option. If you’re ever down that way don’t bother going to Rimini, it’s a mess.

I stopped and had a coffee then headed South to the port, entering Ancona I passed a new 800GS who gave me nice cheery wave. The port security seemed non existent and let me into the boarding area without a ticket, a few were already there and we waited for the rest to roll in.

Wapping did the business collecting the tickets at the ferry office. He mentioned that the office was chaos and everyone in it a stranger to soap.


Blowzorn turned up with an oily rear tyre and oily rear brakes. His rear bevel wasn’t as oil tight as he’d have preferred. He rang BMW for details of the nearest dealer in Greece but they couldn’t tell him because the address on their system was written in the Greek Cyrillic alphabet. Nice one.


The boat was impressive; the guys boarding us said they’d tie the bikes down for us. Which they didn’t, perhaps they forgot.


We set up camp and got the s in, smoking in public areas in Greece is obligatory.


During the night, Shapeshifter who shared our cabin evolved into Shitshifter and monopolised the cabins toilet facilities. He looked a worried man in the morning.



Day Four, Saturday, Igoumenista, Greece to Thesseloniki Greece.281 miles I think, the Zumo track log vanished for this day?

In the morning we got our first views of the Greek coastline, the weather felt as unsettled as Shitshifters arse.


The ferries pool was closed so no early morning dip for the Trotters.


We found a bike garage in Igoumenista to get some oil for Blozorns bevel and to try and locate where it was leaking from. They seemed to be quite relaxed about disposing of their unwanted bikes.


Brian waded in and got his hands dirty, silicon was put on the ABS senor “O” ring and the oil level topped up. The tyre was cleaned up as best we could and we headed off for the mountain roads away from the motorways for a welcome change.


The roads were impressive but I wondered how impressed Blowzorn was with mirror finished tarmac and an oily rear end.


I was just starting to relax after a few stressful days.


Later on in the day we pulled over to check the bevel again and Blowzorn decided to ring Williams and ask their advice as they’d serviced it just before coming away. They suggested he try the checking the oil filler plug for tightness. We didn’t even know it had one. It did and it was loose.


We reached Thesseloniki that evening and tossed about trying to find a hotel. Eventually we ended up in a roadside Motel. The rooms could be rented by the hour or all night. We paid for a full night. While dining there that evening we got to see a first. A Scotsman eating fruit that hadn’t been battered and deep fried.

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Dolomites 05 Morocco 06 Scotland 06 Morocco 07 LE to JOG 07 Turkey 08 Morocco 08 Kesh My Arse 09 GOTC 09 France/Spain 09