Now France is the kind of place that most people on a big adventure motorbike trip kind of just need to get through, to get somewhere more interesting.
I’m now 2,500 miles into the trip. All of those miles have been done in France. It’s taken me 2 weeks to do them.
Which would make you think, quite naturally, that things have been progressing at a fairly relaxed pace. However, it’s been quite the opposite.
Because, you see, the Old Enemy has turned out to be a little of a dark horse.
If you really wanted to, you could ride from Cherbourg to Barcelonette (where I am now, just shy of the Italian border) in a day; it’s only 700 miles by L’Autoroute. But I’ve done that before.
Now us Brits take pride at being better than the French at most things. But when it comes to the Autoroute - they’ve got it sorted. The traffic flows freely and at speed, you could live in the service stations for days on end and the public toilets don’t smell like a World War 1 trench.
But there is one major problem. They are ACTUALLY the most boring thing known to man. I managed about 50 miles on one last week before I gave in.
In those 50 miles I tried everything - singing to myself, sign-language conversations and selfies with other drivers, sneaking up alongside wagon drivers and then popping up next them by standing up on the foot-pegs, practicing new hi-speed banana eating methods.
Everything. And it still almost killed me with with boredom.
So I’ve been avoiding them.
Hence why it’s take me so long to get this far - and here’s why.
Getting brekkie, getting myself sorted, washing up, packing up the tent (have ‘gone feral’), food and cooking gear and then loading it all on the bike takes about 90 min.
That seems like a long time - and yes, there is a degree of faffery involved. But when space is as tight as it is, loading the bike is a bit like one of those wooden puzzle things you get from your gran at Christmas - and more often than not, it involves a spot of bungee wrestling and then an “oh s**t I forgot to pack that” moment.
Then it comes to riding the thing. Or rather HOW you ride it.
You can travel by motorbike any number of ways, but for me it’s all about creating your own kind of piston-powered orienteering.
First off, that means paper maps only (though Google Maps are allowed for towns). Then it’s basically a case of working out which 50 miles of ‘D’ routes (B-roads) you want to take to a given point of interest (town, junction, chateau, McDonalds). At the end of each point you stop, look at the map, read what route you think will be best and work out were you want to go next, hopping on and off to take a look at whatever comes along.
What route is best means finding those roads that test your abilities as a rider - ones where you feel every bump, dip, pothole, corner, bridge, chicane and switchback. All whilst trying to navigate using maps and road signs, going from junction to junction, point to point like some kind of demented border-collie*.
I’ve never been a speed-demon; 60 horsepower is all I’ve ever needed. And this bike’s engine rattles like a jack-hammer. Its soft suspension means that it ducks and dives left, right and centre with every bend, break or gear shift, making it A LOT of fun.
All of this means I’ve been covering about 200 miles a day, spending up to 10 hours on the road.
Why bother with of all of this?
Well, the great thing is, the rewards in terms of sight-seeing come thick and fast - hills, endless fields of lavender, mountain lakes and passes, villages that have hardly changed in years, ruined castles, ancient churches (have become a little bit obsessed with these), forests that cast looooooong shadows in rolling green meadows - they all just pop up out of nowhere.
And in that sense France, you little ripper, you’ve given a helluva start to this trip.
I might have wanted to be in Istanbul by now, but to be honest I don’t care. Tonight’s my last night here - tomorrow it’s time to head east in to Italy and then the former Yugoslavia.
*There are downsides to this. Like losing a whole pannier with all your dirty laundry and tyre-change tool kit in it.