Bombers and Bikes, Day 14, Bochum to Sittingbourne

 The forecast was right. We had a spectacular thunder storm. I was in bed, when the most almighty crack of thunder woke me. Gradually the storm moved away and the rain eased off but it was still raining, or at least, raining again, when we went for brekkie.

It was raining when I went to put my gear on the bike, so I grabbed my waterproofs. In the end though, I decided to risk it without them, as the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to leave. It was about 18 degrees as well, so would have been a bit warm with the waterproofs on. It proved to be the right decision. Though we had some light showers along the way, it was never enough to really wet us.

Like yesterday, we made good time on the motorway, cruising between 60-70mph for the most part, even on the unrestricted parts, which saw cars flying by, easily in excess of 100mph. It made me think what a huge contribution to cutting greenhouse gases Germany could make, if it just did away with the unrestricted autobahns. Those massive BMWs, Mercedes and Audis must be guzzling fuel and pouring out tons of emissions, at such high speeds.

The usual blockage that is Antwerp, was so much easier to traverse than we had expected. Sure, the traffic was tailed back, but we filtered again, avoiding the odd knobhead, as necessary. Soon after, we made our fuel stop, the last on foreign soil. Again, it was at a motorway service station, but somewhat cheaper than the one in Germany. We had a brief stop, for an 80 cent wee, in my case, before cracking on towards Calais. We had plenty of time in hand to visit the supermarket and still be early for our crossing back to Blighty, so as planned, we popped into Auchan and I grabbed a couple of bags of soft chewy sweets and 3 tins of strong, and stronger beer.

I said I like a strong beer!

Back at the bikes, we agreed that once we got to check-in, we would definitely take the earliest crossing offered, as we were still about two and a half hours before our scheduled crossing. We were offered the usual, one before booked, crossing, so 16:20. That gave us a bit of a wait in the terminal to look forward to. However, when we got inside, the boards were saying the crossing was delayed, pretty much to the original time. Toileted we sat down to wait it out, when all of a sudden, the board said we should proceed. 😕  

Surprisingly, we got through passport control pretty quickly and were loaded onto a train almost immediately, a good hour or so, before the early train time, that they had said was delayed! Confused? So were we, but not complaining.

The ride home was uneventful, apart from the foreigners hogging the centre lane on the M20. Strange, back home they immediately move into the nearside, once they have overtaken something.

Catherine was surpised to see us arrive back so early, as I'd not been able to let her know we were that much earlier than we expected. We had got lucky, definitely. Being home early meant we were able to have an earlier dinner, which then meant we could sit down to watch some of the build up to the England v Holland match. The match, like all, was a little frustrating but England got the job done, with a brilliant goal from Ollie Watkins. Will he start the the final against Spain on Sunday? I very much doubt Southgate will drop Harry Kane, despite him underperforming in most of the matches. Anyway, we are in the final. Can we take that last step? It'll be tough but we need to be brave and grasp the opportunity. COME  ON ENGLAND! 

Phil, will be off in the morning and life will return to normal once again. We've had a good couple of weeks. Not everything went as smoothly as it could have, and some plans went astray but all in all, a very enjoyable trip.

We have another trip pencilled in for September but Phil thinks he may not be able to make that, due to family commitments, so we may have to wait until 2025 for that. Next big trip though, might/should be another Wild Hogs trip with Grizzly. I shan't spoil the surpise by saying where we plan to go but, it's likely to test my organisational skills somewhat. 😉

That's all on this trip, save for some stats, as usual, so look out for those. 

Thanks for following this 'adventure'. Till next time.