Welcome To Palma

Welcome to Palma...pitch black..really is dark here!

No glass, just a hole cut out the ships Bulwark

They disembarked in 45 And no-one spoke and no-one smiled 
There were to many spaces in the line. 
Gathered at the cenotaph 
All agreed with the hand on heart 
To sheath the sacrificial Knifes. 
But now She stands upon Southampton dock 
With her handkerchief 
And her summer frock, clings To her wet body in the rain. 
In quiet desperation knuckles White upon the slippery reins She bravely waves the boys Goodbye again. 

Onwards to Cala Vinyas, our temporary flat owned by Amy's mate Jess. It really is dark...and a strange smell in the air of cat urine...everywhere!....could my nostrils be scarred?



As dawn breaks, the sun pops up and all looks fine for the first leg of our stay. Plan is to find a nice rural Finca away from the tourist resorts and find it soon. 
Jess's flat is great, 2 beds in a smart ex pat complex outside Magaluf. Spent 10 minutes trying to unlock the fridge door though!

Handles on the right eh?

No.... on the bloody LEFT!

Can still smell urine though! Not in the flat, but just about everywhere else...I'm 
either obsessed or I have a medical condition!

Barcelona Bits

Rubbish night sleep on 16th floor. Aircon not working so slept with window and curtains open (hardly interesting eh?). 

Foxed Amy on to the back of the bike 😱, then the 11:00 ferry tonight for Palma, Mallorca where we plan to stay a few months and live off the land (paella and frito Mallorquin), 

Sunny start and nicely warm.
We’ve got the day to see some of this funky old town. Last time I was here about 40 years ago, bunch of port monkeys stole loads of stuff off my bike....while I watched on...stupidly thinking the local peasants were admiring it!

We biked over to La Sagrada Familia, big gawky Gaudí cathedral which I had been keen to see since reading a Dan Brown book. Can’t say we were even tempted to enter. Back on bike for a little tour then fab lunch in the Gothic Quarter.

Amy mid-gulp and phone in hand...kids eh!

Great dark and cramped alleyways

We hadn't planned a serious sightseeing trip here, so by
afternoon, we just wanted to chill. Amy booked a massage at hotel and I snoozed in the spa...then got fidgety and went wandering. 

Weird way to board ferry!
Queued at terminal then we were told to put hazard lights on and everyone drove in convoy for about 3 miles to New Port, then onto the skanky, stinky old nail. Makes the Santander boat look luxury cruise liner.

Secured bike with old bits of rope...(well nearly), but crossing so flat, nothing was needed.
Made my way up to meet Amy over sticky stenchy Lino.



The whole boat’s made out of old plastic and sticky Lino and they've hung advertising posters on the walls....just like we did as teenagers to our bedrooms, not framed pictures...posters with blue-tack and peeling corners...!
At least the cabin doesn’t stink of piss!

Not sure why age has made me so intolerant (and intolerable), 40 years ago I made this journey with ex-friend Tony and bikes on a ferry that’s no doubt long since been broken up for scrap...or just sunk....or perhaps, we're on it!!  We happily slept the night in sleeping bags on hard deck, consumed by diesel fumes and beer. Now I’ve got a perfectly good cabin with a beautiful wife in it and all I do is grumble. In fairness, back then my blindness to all the grunge was probably caused by raging hormones and an island full of rampant scandie girls patiently awaiting my arrival.

That Was Painful

God that was painful. Just over 300 miles and should take 5 hrs, which I did in about 7 but Amy managed in much less. 

She assumed I’d get wherever we were going faster than she, as bikes are just quicker.

Watching Messrs McGregor and Boorman, biking all over the world, you'd be forgiven for thinking riding is quick and effortless, but even they took 4 days to ride the length of the country (780 mile). One could argue they stopped many times to film their exploits, but in my defence, I stopped many times to rub my arse, get the fluff from my scarf out of my mouth or tuck in my flapping garments etc...my fidgeting is relentless.

Long journeys on bikes are often slower than 4, 6 or 8 wheels, especially riding without a fairing, as it's just much bloody colder and so much more physically exhausting. Cruising at 90mph below 10c is like being in a freezer wind tunnel, after 20 mins most bits are frozen and battered. Wearing thermals, snoods, balaclavas, fleece, leather jacket, heated gloves, handlebar muffs, leather jeans, ski jacket and leggings together, you’d think Nice n toasty! But at speed, all the layers and air pockets get compressed flat by the wind, so it’s then like pulling a giant plate through the air, which is physically draining and means you literally have to hang on to the bars for dear life or you’ll watch the bike speeding off on its own while the road gobbles up what’s left of your arse. 

This just goes on and on for hours and hours. 


To compound the misery, my coccyx starts throbbing after about an hour on the bike, so the need to stop and rest my pulsating butt becomes more and more demanding, to the point when getting back on after a 10 min break, I often hear myself yelp in pain sitting back in the saddle. 

Sounds really whiny I know, but that’s why I love traveling by boat...it’s just so much more comfortable and that’s why Amy can arrive at our shared destination both early and relatively refreshed.

That said though, I didn't have to bring the bike on this trip to Mallorca, I knew how butt and wrist wrenching it would be, but I did secretly panic in bucketloads when Jack Lilley were trying to fix it so I could actually ride down here.

However uncomfortable, monotonous or cold it can get, there is simply nothing I know of on this planet that provides such a prolonged and acute tsunami of the senses, as blasting oneself across a country like Spain on a bike. 

Boring Pic, but was too busy stopping for other reasons than to take shots

The irritation of the Barcelona traffic is nothing compared to my aches and pains downstairs. The only consolation on that debilitating run, was the dramatic landscapes of northern Spain, the frigid, frosted mountains to the sunny plains of vast flat desert expanses, and strangely, the belt from my jacket being constantly flapped by the wind, jiggling enthusiastically over my groin.....kept a hint of a smile on my face anyway.

Amy already settled on 16th floor of Barcelona hotel and swapped rooms for one with a bath (thanks) and no hint of pee smell. 



Headed off to little plaza for tapas, but found the dirty unpleasant waitress too wrapped up in her fight for Catalonian independence to tolerate a couple of indifferent tourists. 

Aha, unrecognisable menu....not gonna get fooled again! Before we could fire up Google translate, Miss Piggy came to take orders. The disdain!...when Amy asked in Spanish what something on the menu was, Piggy said in good English: ‘this is a Catalan menu, you need a Spanish menu (though we were all now speaking English), we don’t have Spanish menu, just Catalan...this is a Catalan bar!’

There were more demonstrations at the weekend and I was just understanding their depth of resentment towards their Madrid masters, a bit like the Scots to London..oh, and the Welsh, the Cornish, N/Irish, and of course Brexiteers to Brussels.

Three very different languages.

But I have learnt that the Catalan fight for independence is separate from the Basque independence movement, which is now pretty much defunct.

English: Will you please let go of my chorizo

Spanish: Por favor, suelta mi chorizo

Basque: Txorizoa joango zara

Catalan: Et permetrà alliberar el meu xoriço

Can’t wait to get to Mallorca to practice my English.

We ended up with burnt black pudding croquettes, more Iberian Secret and a quick exit without tip. 

The pizza house next to hotel was far more my thing.

Amy washed her smalls and hung them out to dry

Bloody Hell.. That Was A Cold Start

Santander was a pleasant 12°c at sea level, so ferry a worthwhile vault over that wintry French landscape, but minor schoolboy error when choosing first nights hotel. I clearly took a gamble on the weather for that time of year, no choice there, just didn’t realise hotel's altitude 2500ft amongst the Pyrenees foothills. Normally, that just wouldn't register, as it didn't with Amy in the car with four wheel drive, heated seats and her crazeee audio books, but with my sensitive old body and 700 lbs between my legs (the bike!) a 5% downward swing in temperature, can really piss me off.

Sunny and bright (though that extra hour of morning darkness is a bit weird) but hard frost this morning, everywhere! Bike cover starched with mountain cold.

Hardly fun pic, just proof Im not too big a poof.

With Amy driving what is a convenient support vehicle (in this case meaning she carried all my luggage in the car and the only bike luggage was cold weather clothing) I had to dress up this morning like the Michelin man and meander gingerly down the mountain over icy roads and stupid fog. 

Icy road but above the fog...for now!

Fog is annoying at the best of times for driving, but on a bike it’s just miserable. The cold dampness gets into every nook and cranny and ices any exposed skin, but more annoyingly it gets on the inside of the visor so is just impossible to wipe away with the glove (the right glove forefinger has a rubber wiper blade for the outside of the visor, but obviously cant reach inside), so you end up having to ride with the visor up, suffering constant face burn and streaming eyes to add to the poor fog visibility....slow, slow riding then!

As I descend, the foggy bottom beckons....and meandering into it.

Last look at sunshine before the fog miles

            

After a while the totally car free road stretches out and the sun starts to shine again as I head south again, Amy already many miles ahead in her warm car, comfy seat and serial child killer audio book that she couldn’t wait to get back to.

Alone again on deserted highway

Onward to Barcelona, 300 miles, 5 hours...in a car. That means with fuel stops (bike gobbles fuel over 70, but cant overstate the pounding my arse gets on a trip. 6+ hours of arse torture, singing to myself and watching the world go by.
Night in Barcelona (Amy will have parked, bathed and opened 2nd bottle of Pinot by the time I get in), then a day of sightseeing and 11:00 ferry to Palma, Mallorca tomorrow night.

Awful News...Bay Of Biscay Dead Calm

Disappointing start to the day as the sea dead calm and Amy blissfully sleeping, while I’m wide awake listening to the constant dry bone creaks and cracks this old cabin made all bloody night.

The irony isn't lost on me.

Been on deck and so so pleased the temperature is much kinder.... and we still have 6 hours of southbound sailing to go.

Meant to be 50ft waves, sea serpents and iceberg though.... bloody millpond.

Santander was warm and sunny, felt like I had over insulated on the car deck, sweating under umpteen layers whilst waiting to ride off. I waved adios to Amy as she awaited her tannoyed instructions and I hit that sunny road. It was good to ride in Spain again, the unfamiliar signs, sights and smells and the warm sun on my back...felt really good. 

The plan was for us both to drive to a small hamlet just outside Pamplona for the night, 3 hrs max. Thought I’d be needing to shed a layer or two en route, but within a couple of hours, felt the snap of cold yapping at my neck, toes and ankles. The snow dusted peaks of the Pyrenees appeared alongside as my heated gloves were called into action. 

The roads are smooth, winding and with so little traffic, just accompanied by the beautiful rumbling hum of the Triumph's 1600cc twin at 3500 rpm, sounded like the pulsating drone of a V1 Doodlebug (without the engine cut I hoped).  2 hrs in and the sun starts to drop while the early icy moon hangs above the mountains. bit like a zombie film, as I raced to safety before sunset, when the flesh eaters come out to play (or it just gets really cold and icy). 

The big roads shrank and became narrow winding racetracks (splashed with wet patches to keep me alert and my brakes warm) as the sun sank down below the now blackened hills. Just enough light and dry road left to heave the old beast around those tight bendy hills to give me some pure, simple reward for those boring, exhausting motorway miles before.

Handlebar muffs look silly, but proper essential!

Amy greeted me at our rustic recluse.

We are the only staying guests at this lovely rural hotel stuck high (enough) in the Pyrenees Basque Country, but we are treated like old friends by the staff and local beer swillers.

Amy carries a bottle of Pinot in her bag for such occasions, filling up her emptied glass from the bar, so she ever only buys one drink...but can carry on drinking for hours. 

She started to question her tried and tested tactic when she realised the cost of a glass of nice local white here was £1:20p, a bit less than her Sainsbury’s Pinot Grigio in her bag.

Food simple but good, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast so ready for scoff. The noodly soup they served was from a giant bowl left on our table, to help ourselves many times over. 

Iberico Secreto (Iberian secret) was yum yum. Some slightly fatty but mega tasty cut of port flashed grilled like only country folk can do...could have been horrible, but was a true treat!

Amy’s Spanish is much better than my tourist rep, but neither of us could understand anything on menu. Receptionist didn’t understand simple request (in Spanish) for a room with bath and all the friendly locals saying hi or bye or goodnight, just spoke in tongues, like we were in the wrong bloody film! Just never appreciated how Basque differs from Spanish...not just a tweaking dialect, but a wholly different lingo....as Amy pointed out very succinctly.....’it’s  like Welsh!’

Here you go...

English: Will you please let go of my chorizo

Spanish: Por favor, suelta mi chorizo

Basque: Txorizoa joango zara

I can see why E.T.A wanted independence so much, they're a completely different race.

Ocean Waves

Crept out in the dark cold dank Hampshire morning, Amy in the car and me firing up the rumbling grunt of the 1600cc twin engine, the pipes carelessly pointing at my Dad’s bedroom window to sing him a last annoying wake up call from his last annoying son. Short but cold leg down to Portsmouth. 

I love ferries! Such a civilised way to travel. Cozy in our little cabin, cooler box stuffed with my beer and Amy’s wine, the 30 hour crossing to Spain is just pure lazing around. 

Piss stinky but cosy for 30 hours

I’ve ridden numerous bikes down to Spain through France before and never actually done the maths. The reason for this Santander route was simply one of survival. Cutting out 500 miles of France was only because January temperatures (plus the really ugly, boring flat bits in the north) aren’t conducive to comfort, or indeed survival on a bike, as 5c is quickly reduced to -5c windchill at speed.

Of course this sounds more than tolerable to most real men, but when you’re churning along at 90 mph, being hammered and buffeted like a heavyweight boxer, for hours and hours, perched upon a throbbing arse and burning coccyx (and more than likely drenched through with icy rain), it is so bloody horrible. 

It’s hard for car drivers to really appreciate the pure horrors of some biking, when so accustomed to the warm comfort of that warm comfy metal box in which we all love to sit.

Anyway, it turns out, after much spreadsheet shenanigans, it actually works out a bit cheaper the longer the ferry route, so not only do I start my biking journey in the more temperate climes of northern Spain and save myself 500 miles of bruising arse kicking, but I save myself a few Bob, to be spent no doubt on £3:40 pints in the bar.

Tribute to Nigel....a Majestic twin sighted in Portsmouth

My cheapness doesn’t always favour me as this ferry attests. It’s the runt of the fleet, the oldest they have with more rust stains than paint and designed more for the 2 hr hop to calais than the 30 hr ocean hike we’re on.

The cabin shower pod stank of old mans piss, which I ingeniously resolved by having a shower whilst squirting shower gel and hot water all over the walls, loo and floor, getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing all the nooks and crannies I could find to banish the stench. 

The boat is mainly full of leathery English chavs and really tiny Spanish lorry drivers, though having just popped to the bar I found a gaggle of larger(and fatter)English lorry drivers, most of whom aren’t aware of earphones and slouch everywhere, pint in hand watching some squawking film or football match on their device at full bloody throttle, so everybody else has to endure their collective, cacophony, cocktail of crap...(phew). 

Tempted to put on the Stevie Ray Vaughan at full volume, but quickly dismissed such folly...I huffed instead and drank my beer, trying to grasp the plot or half time scores.

Amy and I spent most of the day slouching on our little foam beds. Actually really nice knowing there is nothing whatsoever else we should be doing, especially after the traumas and last minute shite we had to do, sort and arrange before leaving for our little adventure (although Amy did the Bulk of everything, I felt most of the pain, as always)

I love airplane food and miss school dinners, but olde French ferry food is something else. The kitchen smell sort of kills your appetite even before you get to the restaurant (look, I love greasy spoons and all sorts of bottom feeding, but only when they celebrate their shitness, not trying to pretend they’re something better). 

Managed to hook a plastic label from my salad and showed it to the cashier ( what! No waiters!....this really is a canteen). Interestingly, I was more concerned they might not believe it was real, like I was a professional food spoiler, always looking to stitch up innocent restaurants, I took a pic of offending label and even apologised for complaining. 

Label was actually the only edible part

The manager (who had nicely nautical gold braided cuffs) was most apologetic and waived the cost plus two free cocktail tickets for the bar. The result was totally non-confrontational and strangely anticlimactic, but when Amy asked me; ‘If the Captain had taken time to deal with the food problem, who was ‘driving the boat?’, a hint of joy returned to my soul.

I’m in the bar now, necking another fantastic £3:40 pint of Kronebourg while Amy gets settled back into her favourite prone position she’s occupied all day. She somehow thinks I’m a bit drunk, but as she has spent little vertical time aboard, she has no appreciation of the pitch and roll this ocean creates....the Channel gets quite big as it becomes the Celtic Sea and unlike the Dover Straits, sight of land soon vanishes. 

To bed...Amy tucked up in her bunk watching her downloaded 135th episode of made in Chelsea, but obviously distracted and keen to ask me about the ship’s heave, as I enter the piss stinky cabin.

Since Amy recently confided a fear of being on a ship on the open ocean, I have naturally recalled any suitable info that might terrify her just a little bit more.

Earlier in the day, as fog shrouded the English Channel, the ship emitted a fog horn blast every 90 seconds. As shipping is generally spotted on radar, they give the blast to also warn whales out of the way, so I explained about whales and rogue ships in our path, along with icebergs, pods of killer whales breaching dangerously close to our bow and even ghost ships and though she pretended not to believe me on all of it, I knew she wasn’t entirely sure.

Coincidentally, any recent conversations with family or friends involving the Bay of Biscay, you’d be forgiven for thinking it like a French 'Cape Horn'. Most people have been helpful in their tales of winter storms and rough seas. Amy googled it and the first article she found was about a stricken vessel being salvaged...'all souls lost'.

Sometime during the night we will enter this terrifying icy graveyard and just seeing Amy pop a sleeping pill, makes me proud of the fine work done.

Panic!

So, all packed. Bike’s loaded up and heading down to Petersfield for the night at my Dad’s and then the early morning ferry to Santander in northern Spain, across to Barcelona, then another ferry over to Mallorca for a five months.

Amy is travelling in the car on her own, but with all our spring luggage as company….it’s like having my own support vehicle (lovely face and big breasts).

Anyway, just past Richmond (really deep into journey then!) pull over as I’ve noticed a little rattling before I hit the motorway.

Look down and see an oily spacer just sitting there on the collector box to the pipes.

This worries me somewhat. Fuck knows what it’s for, but it’s rather substantial and looks like it should be doing something important.

A panicked call to Jack Lilley who just serviced the bike (and 1200 bloody quid, but I’m over that now) and sent them a pic asking if I should be worried?  They said ‘Yes, maybe...probably’ and suggested that they either pick it up or I bring it in straight away.

So now I’m sitting in Jack Lilley’s at 4:30 Friday afternoon while the mechanic strips the back end of the bike down looking for this bastard spacer’s natural home.

I'm contemplating worst case scenarios if they over-run or damage has been caused etc; No Bike for morning ferry!!!! so I get train to Petersfield and travel with Amy to Spain, which means no bike and coming back in Feb to pick it up etc, or me staying behind untill bike sorted, then re-booking ferries and hotels etc.....neither scenarios that desirable.

I’m really not panicking, ferry leaves at 8:00am tomorrow, with cabin, two nights hotels en-route and Barcelona ferry and cabin all booked and all highly non-refundable.

I think secretly I really like these last minute dramas, make my dead bones feel so alive!  

Jack Lilley did their bit with smooth efficiency. The vagrant spacer was from the swinging arm, the big metal bit that keeps the rear wheel attached to the bike. Seems they had dropped it when changing the tyre two weeks ago and not locating anywhere, just replaced it with a new one. My newfound ring of steel was therefore redundant and could have enjoyed the ride through Spain without me ever realising and with my rear wheel remaining attached to my bike, which is obviously my preferred option. 

Just under an hour and I was back on the road headed to Petersfield for fab dinner, lovely wine and warm bed at my Dads, in preparation for the early morning ferry to Santander and a fond farewell to a crazy hangover from last night which has haunted me all day.