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Showing posts from June, 2010

Assen 10 - Day 4

Day 4 is not quite over. We have just boarded the ferry for home after a palavver over changing our ticket. On P&O coming back a day early costs a ticket change cost plus additional fare amounting to £60. I kid you not. In the end we got it down to £29 but even that is a disgrace when the website return is £19! Maybe when I next travel I will remember this rip off? The problem was that Claire's hip wasn't causing the expected problems so we cancelled the night stay in Breda and had the run to Calais. We left the hotel around 9.45am and wasted a bit of time getting to the Motorway. We had Steve in tow until the motorway when he shot off. We stopped for petrol pretty quickly as I wanted to make sure that when we arrived at the badlands of the N49 between Antwerp and Brugge that we has loads. We made good time until I followed the overhead signs for Brugge. We had a tour of the Antwerp ring including three tunnels. The middle one carried a toll... So once you ...

Assen 10 - Day 3

Race day. A short ride after breakfast to the circuit. Within 45 minutes we were parked and looking for our seats. The Winterdijk stand was full to busting. We sat for over six hours in the burning sun to watch the main races. Hopefully when we download the pix from the camera we will have a few decent ones. On the way back we got separated but arrived in Diever for an ice cream about the same time. Tomorrow James and Steve ride home and we head for an overnight near Breda.  Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Assen 10 - Day 2

We were up early enough to nosh through a large breakfast and it was about 930am when we finally left Zonnemaire. The plan was to go back to the N57 and continue island hopping towards Rotterdam and then head north. Once we were in Maasland we seemed to be heading east before a 180deg turn brought us to a ferry. It made a change and €5.05 later we were aboard and soon whizzing across the Maas. My Garmin interprets routes created in Mapsource and Tyre with Google Maps as it sees fit. So after the ferry we had a tour of some housing estate before we emerged on a road roughly north and roughly towards Amsterdam. Eventually we joined the A4 to the east of Den Haag and headed north at a greater speed, under the runway at Schiphol and onto the A10 ring. Eventually onto the A6 running along the eastern side of the Ijselmeer. We made one stop for petrol and a snack, otherwise it was non stop to Wapse and the hotel. Once checked in we had a walk into the village to see if d...

Assen 10 - Day 1

We were up early and away by 0715 for the short run to Dover. The checking in was pretty simple and quick and we were loaded straight on the ferry. We were at the back of a large group and the rings in the deck were rusted tight so we were moved to the other side. The sailing was relatively painless and we were soon on the way out of the port. The other group were all over the place in the road out and we slid past. The idea of island hopping seemed a good one. I topped the tank up on the outskirts of Bruges and then we seemed to get in a tizzy as the GPS mapping is out of date. The roundabout trip to the tunnel underneath the West Schelde eventually came up in sight. Just not from the direction I had expected. The day has been warm and sunny and we are both glad we are wearing our vented jackets. I've ridden all day with just a T-shirt and mesh Joe Rocket Phantom jacket. Only cold in the 6.6 kms long tunnel. We had a Coke break in a small place called Boek...