Thanks for reading so far, feel free to leave comments if you wish (or I feel like a DJ talking to himself). It had been about 8 months since I had come up with the hare brained idea of riding to Banjul, and the day had finally come for me to get on with the ride.
1st November dawned bright but cold, and as I sat trying to get some food inside me I had that horrible feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when you are wondering if you are doing the right thing.
Nevertheless, I had to get on with it. I wheeled the fully laden bike out of the garage hoping that I would not drop it. There was a small gathering outside the house to see me off (or maybe there were there to make sure that I went!), I swung my leg over the bike, gunned the engine into life and rode away from home with a bit of a tear in my eye.
It was a beautiful, but cold day and as I rode down to Dover for the crossing to France I had the last minute doubts: "What the hell am I doing?" "Riding by myself to Gambia and back, am I nuts? What happens if I break down, or fall off?". All the self doubts were racing around my head but luckily I could keep them at bay.....just. "It'll be OK" I kept reassuring myself.
1st November dawned bright but cold, and as I sat trying to get some food inside me I had that horrible feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when you are wondering if you are doing the right thing.
Nevertheless, I had to get on with it. I wheeled the fully laden bike out of the garage hoping that I would not drop it. There was a small gathering outside the house to see me off (or maybe there were there to make sure that I went!), I swung my leg over the bike, gunned the engine into life and rode away from home with a bit of a tear in my eye.
It was a beautiful, but cold day and as I rode down to Dover for the crossing to France I had the last minute doubts: "What the hell am I doing?" "Riding by myself to Gambia and back, am I nuts? What happens if I break down, or fall off?". All the self doubts were racing around my head but luckily I could keep them at bay.....just. "It'll be OK" I kept reassuring myself.
The crossing was uneventful, but as I rode off the ferry the fun began. I had always wanted to avoid the motorways for my journey through Europe, and had a complicated route worked out using minor roads. The French , however, had different thoughts. Roadsigns for anything but motorways are rare, and I soon found myself hopelessly lost in Calais! Not a great start. My GPS had also thrown the towel in and refused to even turn on! I tried rebooting the GPS about 10 times without success. I was disheartened. For a second I even considered jumping on the ferry and going home to sort the GPS out and starting again the next day, but I managed to talk myself out of that! The GPS sparked into life and got underway again.
The planned route turned out to be hopelessly optimistic, and after a couple of hours of slow progress, involving much double backing and a great deal of looking at the map, I admitted defeat and headed for the major roads. Progress was much better, although it was very cold. By nightfall I had covered 350 miles and found myself in a hotel in Le Mans.
I must admit that on that first evening I felt very alone. I sat having supper by myself in the hotel wondering whether I had bit of more than I could chew (metaphorically only, as the food that I was eating was actually very nice!). The first day of my adventure had been a mixed bag; anticipation, excitement, sadness, anger, desperation and now loneliness. It had to get better, surely....
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