Harry's or bust.

Just waiting on Stephanie to get her arse in the shower before we head out into the Cornish countryside. Sitting here in the quiet looking out on the hill I started thinking about my trip to France back in June.

Good times and sore heads, starting at the Black Horse pub in Crookham Village blasting down to Portsmouth just in time to grab a beer at the pub just outside the ferry port. From memory there was 28 of us on this run and we did just under 1300 miles in the 3 days of riding we did. Sunday was a write off for reasons ill get to.

So, we took the over night ferry from Portsmouth to Le Harve, Barnsey and I took the senisible option and after some grub headed straight for the childrens play area. This was to all intense and purposes a padded room with a padded floor so we felt right at home, it certainly beat sleeping in a shitty upright chair which is exactly what the old man tried doing. Waking up in the morning we found my dad asleep in the play room along with half the ship! clearly we had started something.

Docking in Le Harve, which is not my favorite place we were met with rain. This only added to the charm of this quite frankly shitty french port town so he high tailed it outta there as fast as possible.

A few coffee stops and some fill ups along our 300 mile run down to Harrys went without a hickup apart from the getting wet... very wet. I felt bad for Andy Hancock "who having only met a few of us over facebook rocked up at the Black Horse ready to roll" as he was wearing just a pair of oilskins and a leather jacket.

The further south we went though the better the weather began to get and before long we were cruising in the sunshine and starting to dry out. We arrived at Harry's Route 66 Hotel in the late afternoon and harry was there ready and waiting on the taps pouring beers as we pulled in.

Harry's is a crazy place, a haven for people on bikes, somewhere they can relax and unwind yet party to the breaking point. Friday night was pretty chilled, after getting the tents up in the field out back and setting the old man up in one of the caravans we set about setting the tone for the rest of the weekend.

After a great dinner layed on by Harry in his dining room "which was actually just the barn, its also where we parked Georges trike" most of the guys including my self headed into the bar and began to sink some jars. this went on till the early hours and before we knew it Saturday was upon us.

Some of us were a little worse for wear but a select few decided to join Barnsey and myself on a ride up to Oradour. Now Oradour was a strange place, a town left untouched since WW2. It was left as so by the people as a reminder of what happened there. June 10th 1944, the German SS came to Oradour and massacred 642 Men, Women & Children with no explaination of why. they raised the town to the ground. Its a very humbling place and is very quiet. not even bird song. The town is cut off from the modern world and is only accessable through the underground museum. If you are ever in this part of France go take a look.

We got back to Harrys around 5pm and Nathan was on the grill cooking up a storm, the weather was warm and people were turning up at Route 66 from all over. Along with Virus, a rock / metal band based in the local area who had come down to Harrys just for us.

Quite a few jars later and the evening was in full swing with the band rocking out without a break! people were everywhere and Harrys lounge area infront of the stage had become a full on mosh pit! everyone was jumping around like a maniac and only cleared when our pal Carl grabbed the keys to Chris's Softail Deluxe and rode it straight into the middle of the bar, burning the fucker out whilst the band rocked on!

Sunday....................................................................

To be fair some of us faired better than others and Barnsey, Andy and myself managed to shake of the gremlin and jump on our bikes for another trip out.

Cruising through all these little villages and farm land we picked up these kids on 125cc dirt bikes and they rolled with us most of the way, was cool splitting lanes and working our way through them. I think they were enjoying the ride as much as we were.

we found a pretty cool little town about 50 miles away with an old castle and little coffee shop. 

Coffee and crepes, not your average hangover cure but it did the trick. and we chilled in the afternoon sun laughing at all the antics from the night before.

We took a really good route back and arrived at Harry's to find most of our crew still nursing their heads, sat in a cirle in the courtyard outside the bar.

Sunday was a quiet affair as we had to cover the long haul back up to Le Harve early the next morning.

Packed and ready to roll Monday started early. an the long run back up began. never in my life have i pushed so many bikes so far. After all the arguements about how Harley's are old unreliable tractors it was the Japanese bikes breaking down all the way up to the port. we had so many breakdowns that Dad had to go on ahead and get them to hold the ferry gate open !! Back in the UK we were met with rain and recovery trucks for the rice burners. 

I think the struggle on the way back was one of the highlights when i look back at this trip, everyone coming together to help eachother out, no one got left behind nor did anyone at any point get the hump, guess if you didnt laugh and all that! Good times, with good freinds.