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10/10/2006: "Big Update Part 1 - The Holiday"

During mid-August we had our first go at proper touring with the bikes - a week long trip to Devon and Cornwall, visiting Sarah's family in Ilfracombe before carrying on south to St.Austell and the Eden Project.

We set off from Kegworth on the Thursday morning, via the A42 and M42 to just South of Birmingham, before heading cross country down to Cheltenham and my grandmother's house for a cup of tea. Setting off from there, we made the decision to put on our waterproof oversuits (bought on the Monday before from Hein Gericke in Nottingham) over our leathers, because although it wasn't raining, it had been a bit cold on the first leg of the journey.

This turned out to be a very lucky decision, as a few miles down the road towards Stroud, it started raining. Hard. Really hard. Within a few minutes we were riding through puddles and streams running across the road which were deep enough that I could feel the water hitting the tops of my feet. Like I said - it was raining very hard!

As we got through Stroud and headed down towards the M4 it eased off to a level you could describe as 'rain' rather than 'monsoon'. This sudden improvement in vision allowed me to notice that the transparent pocket on top of my tank bag had let in water to the point where it resembled a fish tank, with my long-suffering phone doing a good impression of a goldfish. As I pulled it out, water cascaded from the casing. Not good. It was still on, but none of the buttons were working. I 'turned it off' by pulling the battery out, then dried it off with a tissue and buried it in a slightly drier part of Sarah's panniers.

We had planned to carry on down through Bath and Glastonbury to Bridgewater, thus avoiding the tedium of the motorway network as much as possible. However given the delays the rain had already caused us, we decided to use the M4 and M5 instead. It just about stopped raining as we pulled into Sedgemoor Services on the M5 for something to eat, although it made up for it about 15 minutes later with another downpour. Again, the route plans were revised. Rather than take the A39 across the top of Exmoor, we would use the North Devon Link Road (our usual route to Ilfracombe, which is quick, if a little boring). Or so we thought.

As we pulled out of the services, the sun came out, and by the time we got to the Bridgewater junction there was hardly a cloud to be seen. Back to (the infinitely preferable) Plan A then!

We picked our way through Bridgewater and onto the A39, stopping a few miles down the road to finally take off the waterproofs. The weather got warmer and the road got twistier as we came out of Minehead. The climb up Porlock Hill onto Exmoor proper provided a bit of entertainment, as I was stuck behind a very slow Peugeot 206, and ended up slipping the clutch of the ZXR at about 6000rpm just to keep moving.



Once we got up onto the moor, we were rewarded with an amazing view across the Bristol Channel towards Wales - so good in fact that I decided we needed to stop before I crashed through looking at it rather than the road! A few photos later we carried on, through Lynton/Lynmouth, Combe Martin, and finally - Ilfracombe.

We spent a few days in Ilfracombe, catching up with Sarah's family and visiting potential wedding venues (more of that later), before hitting the road again on the Monday. The A39 was again the road of choice, this time under the guise of 'Atlantic Highway'. The name sounds like we should have been riding Harleys, but I think the ZXR was a better choice for dealing with the bends!

We made it as far as Padstow by lunchtime, and after two laps of the one-way system we found our way into the car park, where the nice lady running it decided we didn't really need to pay, despite what the signs said. We went and bought fish and chips and sat by the bikes eating them and watching people parachuting down onto the sand of the Camel Estuary (there was some sort of RNLI event going on).

After lunch, we left Padstow for the final run across to the south coast and St. Austell, where the local Travelodge was to be our luxurious abode for the next two nights. After booking in, changing and unpacking, we headed out for a pub meal (and a pint of Tinners) before retiring to bed. Tomorrow was Eden Project day!



Sarah's brother Martin arrived in time for breakfast, and after eating we headed off in his car to the Eden Project. I could go on and on about how amazing it is, but I don't think I could do it justice and this is long enough already, so just go and see for yourself, ok! It's well worth it. By about 3pm, we had had our fill, and headed back to St Austell to grab some food and get changed, before returning to the Eden Project for the evening's entertainment - the 'Eden Sessions', headlined by Muse!

The arena at Eden is probably at the smaller extreme of the venues Muse have played in the last few years, and the feeling of relative intimacy combined with the setting (with the biomes lit up in the background) to produce an amazing atmosphere. Probably the best 'big' gig I have been to for quite some time.

Wednesday dawned and it was time for the worst bit of riding - a straight blast back up the Motorway back to Kegworth. And it was raining again. Surprisingly it wasn't actually that bad, and I found I can just about last the ZXR's 100 mile tank range without unbearable discomfort. But this was purely functional riding, rather than a fun part of the holiday.

We had a brief stop in Kegworth before leaving the next day for the Reading Festival. I'll cover this bit in bullet points:

- Muse (again), Gogol Bordello, Capdown, and a whole lot of other bands were fantastic.

- Huge, huge respect to the singer from Panic! at the Disco for getting up and carrying on after some *insert very rude word here* hit him with a bottle during their first song.

- We missed Sonic Boom Six, by only finding out they were playing half way through their set while still at the tents. Gutted.

- Our campsite flag, a Devon flag with the words "Super Massive Flag Pole", fixed to the top of my 7m telescopic flag pole, was the talk of the field, and invaluable for finding the tents again.

- Everyone camped near us was great, especially the guys playing 'Gladiators'-style pugel-stick fighting on top of two huge logs, and the guys improvising songs about beans on toast round our camp fire on sunday night.

So all in all, a pretty damn good holiday! There are more photos here