After a great breakfast we reluctantly left our salubrious dwellings in Bath and headed off in the intermittent rain for London. We are booked into Aron Guest House in South Ealing for 65 pounds per night – one of the cheapest we could find. We will be staying 3 nights as we have some chores to do before crossing th channel into Europe.
Enroute we stopped off at Stonehenge and astonishingly …our English Heritage card was accepted ( saving use 19 pound each and 2 pound each for the audio guide) …so it cost us about 89 pounds from memory and we have been able to use it in three places altogether – so maybe we covered costs.
It was Vince’s first time at Stonehenge and he was impressed. I found out afterwards that like Bath, it’s another place he’s wanted to go for a very long time but missed out on his earlier UK visits….so it is very special that we can share these places together on our honeymoon.
There is a majesty about the place, and although you can’t go inside the circle or touch the stones, the sense of history is palpable and we were humbled in the atmosphere. It has changed since I was there in 2007 – now you park a long way away and you get on a curtesy bus to the actual site. Although it rained and we had to carry our helmets around it was still very enjoyable.
As as we left Stonehenge it really started to bucket down …we didn’t have our wet weather gear on so we got completely soaked and again some water in the panniers! I’m so over rain!
When we checked in to our Guest House around 2.30pm …it felt like I was checking into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel …if you’ve seen the film I’m sure you get the picture!
We had hot showers and got into dry clothes and caught the tube into London. We looked around London for a while and then went to collect our tickets from the Apollo in Victoria to see Wicked. That done we slipped into a little Italian place across the road and had dinner before the show at 7.30pm. Wicked was fantastic and we both really enjoyed it. The train journey home felt long as we were both exhausted….we didn’t get to bed until midnight …well past our bedtime! An amazing day!
… and Vince says … the wet-weather riding from Stonehenge towards London down 90km of the A3 was absolutely manic – I’ve ridden in wet-weather before but the deluge yesterday was torrential, and at times I was struggling to see where the road was. So much water was dumped onto the road that it seemed almost flooded in places, and it was nerve-wracking feeling the front tyre slipping at times – thank goodness for the TKC80’s. The weight over the rear wheel didn’t help as that was making the front-end light, and on the flooded roads it was quite skittish. I was watching cars and trucks plough past me at speed and I’m surprised some of them didn’t start aquaplaning in places. When I eventually caught up with some slow-moving traffic I dropped into their little convoy and took advantage by watching (a) their tail-lights so I could see where the road went and (b) how big the puddles were when they hit them so I had some forewarning of what was coming up, and our little convoy stuck together (nicely spaced out) and just chipped away slowly at the drive towards London. Close to London we picked up the M4 and headed towards our B&B and the sun came out and the rain slowed down, so that was good as the traffic was getting more congested and a little bit antsy in places. If you want to do some miles in the UK then I don’t think you can avoid riding in the rain, but I’d enjoy a dry day every now and then I think 🙂
A few GoPro and Olympus photos from Stonehenge…
… and Dave – I’m a hi-viz convert now !!! We’d probably be pancakes by now if not for all the hi-viz tape festooning the bike, and I’ve even started wearing the hi-viz vest at times 🙂
Hi Guys,
really loving the story.
A true modern adventure, not in the wilderness, but in the present day “in our civilised world”. Really enjoying your photos and accounts of your daily experiences. Just think that you could have done a world cruise on a luxury liner, circling islands in the Aegean, surround by boring, obese rich people and utter opulence, being bored sh*tless, whilst being served by waiters in starched shirts & jackets. But no, you are immersed in a real life adventure, along with the daily challenges that life throws at you. – Awesome!
A shame about the weather, but it constantly reminds me of why I originally came to Oz. With so much exposure to the wet weather, look out for the skin starting to web between fingers & toes…..lol., you’ll know there is a problem when the gloves become difficult to put on.
I see you guys are still persevering with the original clothing (heated gear excluded) and must be so over the wet weather riding by this time? Are Bavarian suits on the agenda?
Glad to see the tyres are living up to expectations and was wondering what the locals favour in the way of tyres for their local conditions?
Very disappointed to hear that the panniers are not holding up as expected, despite I believe your attempts with A.C. here in Perth to rectify the problem? Is it the lid seal, rivets or somewhere else? Maybe silicon every rivet from the inside and gaffa tape around the lid?? A pain, I know, but until you get them sorted, or until the weather fines up? Can you get assistance from BMW whilst in London?
Keep ’em coming…..
Cheers,
Dave (and Gabriele), whom recently experienced some non- sealed riding on the GS on our ANZAC long weekend away.
G’day Dave – can’t afford Bavarian suits unfortunately, so we’ll stick with what we have I think – I’ve got my old Akito Desert jacket & pants, Karen has a Dryrider adventure jacket and Akito Desert pants. Karen is fed up with wearing wet-weather gear on top of her riding gear as it’s so bulky, but from a riding perspective – once you’ve got your gear on and headed off into the wet it’s not that bad (unless it’s bucketing down in which case the riding becomes a bit challenging). We did swap our panniers at Auto Classic – they were very good about it – but when the rain is pouring down they just suck the water in like a wet vacuum. We’re using dry bags now to wrap our gear in and we’ll see how that goes. We’ll cross over to France tomorrow via the Eurotunnel train and I’m hoping for an improvement in the weather. We’ve managed to fluke enough dry spells to allow us to enjoy what we’ve come to see – for example – it wasn’t raining (much) when we walked around Stonehenge – even if it did bucket down afterwards, so in that respect we’ve been very fortunate.
I’m looking forwards to getting off the B&B circuit and into something a bit more challenging, and the language differences in Europe will contribute to that. First stop after we got off the train tomorrow at Calais will be to visit a WWI cemetery in Dozengham Belgium where one of my dad’s uncle’s is buried, and from there it may be a quick trip to Paris before heading to Frankfurt for the HU Meeting on the weekend 14th-17th May. Not quite the hard-core adventure of other riders but we’ve seen a lot and I’m enjoying the riding.
Are there photos posted up on Meetup of your GS adventures over the ANZAC weekend? I’ll go look for them later – for now I need to go pack our gear in preparation for tomorrow.
Great hearing from you both. Stay safe and chat soon 🙂
Vince & Karen