Hellraiser, France

July 08

Write Up

 

One thing I miss living oop norf now is being able to nip across the channel to do European rallies, so when we saw the advert for Hellraiser we looked at the date and location and decided to make it the start of our holiday. We had booked the 8.00am ferry from Portsmouth to Caen and planned to ride through the night and sleep on the ferry as the crossing takes 6 hours.

Thursday night arrived and we had both finished work, packed and loaded our scoots before heading off to bed at 9.30 to try and grab a couple of hours sleep before we set off. Next thing I knew it was midnight and the alarm was going off. We were up and dressed in no time and made all the usual last minute checks before setting off at 12.50. As we had filled up prior to setting off there was nothing much to do but settle down into the ride down the M1 to Watford Gap for our first planned fill up. Apart from lorries there wasn't much traffic on the road and we made it to the services at 3am - at the same time as a coach load of hyperactive kids - bloody typical! One over priced coffee and tank full of fuel later and we were on our way again, taking the A43, M40 for one junction, A34 route which was much quieter.

The sun rose at about 4am which made the journey a bit more interesting. By 5.45 we were in need of more fuel so stopped off at Tot Hill to fill up and have breakfast. The M3, M27 and M275 roads into Portmouth got steadily busier as rush hour approached, but apart from a minor hold up our way was straight through.

We had noticed a few classic cars passing us on the way down and when we arrived at the port we found it full of them - they were on their way to Le Mans for a weekend of racing. We boarded straight away and made our way to one of the seating areas to get our heads down. Unfortunately it was a bit noisy and not even my ear plugs could drown out all the noise, so I got very little sleep, tut!

In the end we gave it up as a bad job and went for a walk around. When we had loaded our scoots on we had noticed another and it belonged to a guy called Gerry (I think) who we ran into on our wanders. We did the usual story swapping before making our way up onto a very windy deck to eat our lunch.

As we got off the ferry we ran into Gerry again and we agreed to ride to the rally together. We set off but I soon lost Bos in the traffic - luckily we had invested in some bike to bike intercoms and I was able to tell him which way we had headed. Gerry had gotten ahead of us, so we assumed we had lost him and carried on our planned route, only to spot him in a layby a few miles down the road. We pulled in to regroup and look at the map before setting off once more.

All was going fine until all of a sudden Bos said he was having trouble with his scoot, so we pulled in and after a quick change of spark plug we were on our way again, but Gerry was long gone. Fuel was running low so we pulled off the road and into a little town to fill up, deciding to nip into the supermarket and buy some supplies for a picnic dinner. We had just gotten comfortable when the heavens opened! A mad dash for the trees and shelter meant that we could carry on with our rather damp meal. By the time the rain relented enough for us to be able to approach the scoots it was too late, and Bos's luggage was wet through as he had taken off their covers as we got off the ferry - typical!

We set off again riding through intermittent showers, but by 7 I was very tired and in pain with my shoulder so I made an executive decision and pulled in to a Formula 1 hotel for the night to give us a good nights sleep and a chance to dry everything out and recharge the intercoms. Half an hour, and a hot shower later things were looking better - well if you ignored all the kit which was hung around the place to dry out! In no time we were sound asleep and knew no more until about 7 the next morning.

A look out the window showed that the weather had not improved, the sky was grey and uninspiring, so we loaded up the scoots with our now dry kit, put on our waterproofs and set off in the rain. However, before long it stopped and got brighter and by the time we reached the rally a couple of hours later it was quite nice. We were greeted by the sight of Gerry at the gate - he had made it safely, but not on his scoot which had given him trouble soon after we had lost him, but luckily he had been rescued by some nice scooterists with a van.

We handed over €15 which paid for breakfast for 2 days, camping, the do and an evening meal which was advertised as a hog roast. We grabbed a quick cup of coffee and chatted to a group of english scooterists from around the M25 area. In fact we were surprised at just how many Brits there were there. Others were from Bristol who had been touring France for the week since the Speedboys rally, and some from Jersey as well. The Bristol crowd included Chuck who I knew of through the SBW forum, so I introducded myself and listened to his tale of woe which included getting on the wrong ferry and sailing around the channel for hours trying to locate the person who went overboard. We also met a very nice man called Nick who splits his time between Britain and France and was able to give us lots of useful tips for our journey.

We put up our miniature canvas mansion and decided right at the last minute to go on the rideout, with me being lazy and going on the back of Bos on my scoot. First port of call was a small place called Hebe where the local pub had put on a traditional spread - including people dressed up in historical garb, as well as a BBQ of local sausages which were served in pancakes. People milled around chatting and as it looked like we would be there for a while Bos and I went for a wander around town.

The next stop was for refueling before a longer stint which took us through Combourg and past Tinteniac . French riders are a bit mad - lots of overtaking at 100 miles an hour, only to stop in the middle of the road a little while later, or to ride along having a conversation with others as they went along or pick up road kill (in this instance a recently departed badger, which was the butt of many pranks wehn we reached our next destintation. As it was another pub near to the camp site Bos and I decided that now would be a good time to nip back, collect his scoot and fill up with petrol ready for the morning, which we duly did in Comborg, although we struggled a bit with navigation as the town centre was blocked off as part of the Bastille Day celebrations.

When we got back to the site, Bos had a tinker with his scoot to see if he could find what the problem was whilst I organised the sleeping arrangements which were cramped to say the least! We went for a walk around the site and found that we had missed some of the games - including a hard fought tug of war. However, the paintballing was still going strong so we stood and watched as mad French volunteers ran around with targets on whilst others tried to shoot them and score points!

The evenings entertainment continued with a punk band who were well received and then the hog roast which consisted of mountains of salad and bread as a starter with a choice of water or wine to drink and then the roasted hog served with a jacket potatoe and ratatouille - absolutely fantastic.

People were milling around eating, drinking and chatting when the dj got going in the small hall, so Bos and I went for a look and it was not long before he hit the dance floor while I was more restrained as I was still broken. After a while the room started filling with a wide assortment of French people in excellent fancy dress. We took a breather and spent a while talking to Nick and Gerry before heading off to bed at 1am as we knew we had a lot of riding to do the next day - the first proper days riding of our holiday which you can read about here.

Taxi xx