Going to bed at 1.30am wasn’t on my list of things to do on the night before setting off to Europe!
I was doing the final bits of packing and decided to test my Sat Nav. It’s actually one for a car, but I’ve used it on other trips on the bike and it’s worked well. I did a quick route test on it and all seemed good. But, I thought, it would be good just to update the maps as I hadn’t done it in a couple of years.
The shenanigans started at 9.15pm. The update started, with an estimated 1 hour and 10 mins. Not to worry, I could finish the rest of the packing and then call it a night at 10.30. Lovely jubbl….oh…wait…the update failed. Ok, I’ll just use it as it wa….oh…the Sat Nav doesn’t work at all now because it can’t find any maps. From 9.45 to 1am different options of fault finding took place. Eventually, it turned out that the update wouldn’t fit on the 8GB micro SD card so when I put a 16GB card in…it did the update successfully in 30 minutes. Joy!
Fast forward to this morning…up at 7am. Not quite as fresh as I’d hoped…but still grand.
Popped the top box, panniers and tank bag onto the bike..set up the Hero cameras…and set off!
Had a quick pause at Clacket Lane services after 92 miles…then got to Folkestone for LeShuttle crossing at 13.46. 145 miles so far. There was a “technical issue” on the train so it was delayed a bit…but got to France at 4pm.
There was one other motorbike on the trip. A fella who is a freelance sports photographer and was riding to Paris…for the third time in the last week! It turned out he’d gone on a few interesting trips and he showed me the experiences he’s had… including shark cage diving and paragliding. Fab stuff!
Once in France there were two jobs. One…get to Ghent. Two…get some fuel. And not necessarily in that order.
Can you spot the small diversion I made to get fuel?
The low fuel light was lit…so I pulled off the motorway to find liquid sustenance. The first petrol station I got to was boarded up 😂 The next was working. Phew. I turned back round and rejoined the motorway…only to find a petrol station a few kilometres away. Typical. Haha!
The weather had been fabulous all day, and riding through Belgium was no different. It was fab.
My accommodation was easy to find, and I headed into Ghent. It’s a delightful place with oodles of charm.
It’s got plenty of nightlife too. And if you like bicycles or scooters then it’s the place for you!
At the time of writing I need to find accommodation for my next destination….Bremen in Germany.
That should be around 5.5 hours of riding to get there. If it’s anything like today then it’ll be a dream!
I need to check the miles done from France…but worry not…I’ll keep you updated with a running total of the mileage 😊
Thanks for reading about Day 1! If you have any questions do get in touch 😊
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