Not so much a trip, more of a……

[Wapping]

…. Last minute jaunt to avoid the London Marathon, which locks the good folk of Wapping into our houses for the duration of Sunday. That it also gave me a chance to get better acquainted with my Royal Enfield Himalayan, was just a bonus.

Two nights away from London (being Friday and Saturday night respectively) following two routes I have used before, when running motorbikes in.

FRIDAY

Friday, brought me a mid-afternoon Chunnel crossing over to roughly Cap Gris Nez, so only about 30 minutes from Calais, a short hop down the motorway. At the motorway exit, I turned left instead of right, but only to buy fuel and some cable ties. The latter being to hold my tank bag clips in place, it having tried to jump off on the M20.

I usually stay at a very small B&B cafe but unfortunately they were full, so I stayed at the perfectly adequate L'entre-mers hotel, a stone’s throw away from the massive gun emplacement and museum. The hotel has a very friendly owner and helpful staff, none of whom speak much English. The food is good and the breakfast excellent, with top-notch scrambled eggs and bacon.

The hotel, though inland a bit from the coast has stunning sunsets. More particularly, on clear nights you can see the lights of Dover and the south coast, thinking away across the narrow strip of water which divides our country from our nearest neighbour.

 

[Wapping]

SATURDAY

Tap on the map image. It should open.



Started dull, overcast, with a bit of drizzle in the air, but what’s that to a hardy Adventure rider?

Away across the near enough empty roads of north east France I went, rarely seeing anyone, let alone a car.

Drizzle, as it sometimes does, eventually turned into rain.

As I trundled down the D roads and the occasional C or V classified roads, which are sometimes little better than farm tracks.

The villages I passed through, all deserted at mid-morning, were typically French, each usually dominated by a big church.

And the occasional cafe:

One church showed the scars of the heavy fighting for the approaches to Dover in the months after D-Day, the bullet holes plain to see. The centre part had clearly been rebuilt, looking as if a shell or bomb might have cleaved it apart.

More to follow……

 

[Traffic893]

Very nice, so far.

 

[Wapping]

Thank you.

Saturday continued…..

I paused in Bollezeele, with its big square. It’s somewhere I prefer to the more popular Cassel, just down the road. The parking is much easier, for one.

I thought the cafe I usually have a coffee in was shut, but it wasn’t. It used to be run by a very deaf old lady. It looks like it’s been sold and the interior definitely tarted up to the 21st century. In a way, it’s a bit of a shame, as I like the old style village cafes.

The brasserie restaurant at the bottom end of the square, was full of Belgian bikers, 10 or more bikes parked outside.

But I had sandwiches for lunch, so I pressed on…..

 

[tjmouse]

Enjoying this as well. Cheers Wapping

 

[Arsey]

SATURDAY

…

Je notice that vous avez Les deux navs de sat !
Is this in case the blistering pace of the Himmy causes a delay in the GPS catching up, so double up and be safe ?

 

[tjmouse]

Je notice that vous avez Les deux navs de sat !
Is this in case the blistering pace of the Himmy causes a delay in the GPS catching up, so double up and be safe ?

Haha. Looks like he’s beta testing MRA Next but has the Garmin as backup/security

 

[Wapping]

My next stop was at the ‘small’ (if over 1,000 graves is ‘small’) Commonwealth War Graves’ site at Pernes. I have stopped here before, but I stopped again for two reasons:

1. The area around it has been done up, quite nicely, so I wanted to see.

2. It is quite an intimate site, the vast majority of the fallen all having died in the fighting of the 1918 German spring offensive, which raged for seven months over the area. The graves therefore span quite a narrow period of the 14-18 war, all condensed into that one period.

They are arranged, near enough in date order. So I looked up any that coincided with 22 April, the date on Saturday. Unsurprisingly there was several, in a line.

The cemetery also holds graves of soldiers ‘ workers from the Indian sub-continent and China. These are separate from the main body. In a way it’s rather nice that they have their own space but a part of me wonders if it doesn’t simply reflect the social attitudes of the age. Putting that aside, the carvings on the gravestones are not patronising and the stonework is of equal quality.

Alongside these, there is a dozen or do graves from the latter part of WW2, along with a couple of French graves.

All in all, it’s a nice place to be buried, out in the peaceful French countryside; far removed from the terrors, injury or disease that killed them.

I think it is worth a little stop, if you are passing, as are so many of the small sites, sometimes just in the corner of a field, miles away from the acres of graves of the Somme and Ypres.

 

[Mad Hatter]

My next stop was at the ‘small’ (if over 1,000 graves is ‘small’) Commonwealth War Graves’ site at Pernes. I have stopped here before, but I stopped again for two reasons:

1. The area around it has been done up, quite nicely, so I wanted to see.

2. It is quite an intimate site, the vast majority of the fallen all having died in the fighting of the 1918 German spring offensive, which raged for seven months over the area. The graves therefore span quite a narrow period of the 14-18 war, all condensed into that one period.

They are arranged, near enough in date order. So I looked up any that coincided with 22 April, the date on Saturday. Unsurprisingly there was several, in a line.

The cemetery also holds graves of soldiers ‘ workers from the Indian sub-continent and China. These are separate from the main body. In a way it’s rather nice that they have their own space but a part of me wonders if it doesn’t simply reflect the social attitudes of the age. Putting that aside, the carvings on the gravestones are not patronising and the stonework is of equal quality.

Alongside these, there is a dozen or do graves from the latter part of WW2, along with a couple of French graves.

All in all, it’s a nice place to be buried, out in the peaceful French countryside; far removed from the terrors, injury or disease that killed them.

I think it is worth a little stop, if you are passing, as are so many of the small sites, sometimes just in the corner of a field, miles away from the acres of graves of the Somme and Ypres.

Many thanks for writing up and sharing your trip. It doesn’t have to be an epic to be great and I like the way you roll Wapping

 

[Wapping]

Saturday…..

By early afternoon, the sun had remembered that it is supposed to shine and the road dried quite quickly, as I trundled through the French countryside.

I stopped, as usual, for a coffee at the cafe in Anvin, by the railway tracks. I have never seen even the hint train there, so I assume it is only used for agricultural produce. The cafe is, as so many are, ‘A local cafe, for local people’ but they are all quite friendly.

For some reason or another, Royal Enfield, hasn’t caught on in France, quite the same as it has here. The bike generated quite a bit of interest, each time I stopped.

My next stop was at what I call my ‘Picnic stop’ by the stream at Parenty, somewhere I tripped over by chance years ago. It requires a bit of a detour off the route for a couple of miles but it’s worth it if the weather is kind. Or it was worth it. It seems Covid brought an end to the trees and to the benches in the triangular strip of land by the road. I hope it’s only temporary.

Next stop and the end of Saturday, Baie de Somme……

 

[Wapping]

For very understandable reasons, most people associate the river Somme, with the battlefields of WW1, lying some distance away to the east.

Like most rivers, it eventually becomes an estuary and flows into the sea, a long way from its original source. This is where the Somme (and apparently five other rivers) does just that, entering the English Channel, between Le Touquet and Dieppe.

It is a very popular tourist area, all but completely flat, with a huge range of wildlife, bisected with streams and canals. It certainly is very different to the rest of that part of France.

45 minutes or so of meandering across the flatlands, bought me to my fuel stop at St Valery sur Somme, where there was four very muddy (but very happy) Dutchmen on very big, off-road KTM’s. They clearly had had a very good day out.

Then it was down to my overnight stop at le Neptune hotel at Cayeux sur Mer. Not the grandest of hotels but everyone was friendly, the meal was good, the shower worked and the bed was comfortable. All in all, good enough for one night, plucked at random from the internet.

Next stop….. Sunday and back to home.

 

[ymfb]

Great job as always, keep it coming.

Thanks

 

[Wapping]

Thank you all.

Yes, I’m testing out the Beta version of the MyRoute Next app and, in a sense, getting used to an Android phone. The XT is indeed there for back up, as I know how it works. They are both running the same identical route, created originally in MyRoute on my iPad. I have, as have others, found some bugs in the Next app. Chief amongst these is that the positional cursor, which shows the bike’s position on the road, lags behind its actual position by between 50 and sometimes up to 200 meters. For example, this means that the bike is shown as still approaching a roundabout, when in reality you have already left it. Similarly, turn instructions arrive late, inevitably.

 

[Wapping]

Sunday

Again, tap on the map image, it should open.



Like Saturday, Sunday started dull and overcast. The French weather forecast said the morning’s rain would drift away eastwards, leaving Calsis dry by the afternoon. That proved to be wrong, it hammered down from mid-morning through to me arriving back in England at around 17:30.

Once I got out of Cayeux sur Mer‘s maze of little streets and one way system, which is not helped when MyRoute Next’s app lags behind the bike’s real position, I was back into the flatlands of the Baie de Somme. But, it wasn’t for long. Soon the bike was climbing up towards the hills and forests and forests of the forest d’Eu. Again, it was all as rural French as you like.

I have been through the forest area lots of times, in all the seasons bar deepest winter. It is really attractive in spring, as it is just starting to turn green. The roads are well maintained (something the UK can take note of) and a very good mixture of bends, some deceptively tight. On one of my Wanders (but coming the other way) one of the gaggle did end up in a field. He was upright, so all was well.

I had seen the signs to the former V1 rocket site before, but had never been to see it. Being on my own and with the day ahead of me, I thought I might as well.

 

[Wapping]

The Poteau de Montauban V1 launch site was just one of a large number of permanent V1 launch sites which stretched from this part of France, along the Belgian coast and into Holland, usually secreted in woods for camouflage. Many of them were discovered by reconnaissance overflights by the RAF and then bombed heavily but were often very difficult to hit, despite the immense tonnage dropped. As far as I know, this site was never bombed directly but was overrun after D-Day.

The local history society has made a good job of recreating the launch ramp and a replica V1, the ramp pointing out of the edge of the forest, setting the V1 on course for London and the south east. Similarly, there are some quite good multi-lingual explanation boards, telling the function of the surrounding bunkers and the V1 weapon itself.

As a brief footnote, the Germans quickly realised that the fixed sites were vulnerable to air attack, so they moved to less efficient but more tactical temporary and mobile sites, which were difficult for tge Allies to pinpoint. They also realised that the now dormant fixed sites could be faked-up to look like they were still active, leaving the allies to waste tons of bombs, bombing entry targets repeatedly. In a sense, the number of V1 sites alone, emphasises the huge area which was, until it could be overrun by land forces, under strong German control.

It is maybe worth a 30 minute or so stop, just to see the efforts made to recreate the site and to explain its functions.

The rain was now falling heavily, so it was time to move on.

 

[Wapping]

On across the rolling fields of France I went. There was so little traffic and so few people, that I really could have been alone in the world.

The small town of Hornoy-le-Bourg, gave me a good opportunity to stop at the bakery for a bun and a coffee in the cafe next door. The clientele were, as usual, all local, with I guess, not so many Englishmen dropping in. They were all friendly, as was the canary.

The locals, as is the case with so much of rural France, clearly had a love affair with bicycles and their maintenance.

 

[Wapping]

I had no pre-planned idea where to stop for lunch. But, it being Sunday in France, everything was likely to be shut much after two.

I had, at some time in the past, been past this kebab / pizza restaurant in Bernaville, so I decided to drop in to give it a go.

It is certainly a popular enough place. The owners speak no English, but it’s not hard to order a burger. I must say it was very good, as was the coffee. It being France, the horse racing was of course on and the PMU betting in full swing.

It was now raining heavily, so I just continued my route, along the D roads to the coast and the Chunnel, where I arrived, dripping wet.

On the train back, I met a party of Indian guys from south east London, all on sports bikes, who had been to Amsterdam. They were all new to riding and had, they told me, yet to discover proper waterproofs.

I told them they should sell their sports bikes, buy some waterproofs and get a Royal Enfield. Happy days.

The end.

 

[Northern jock]

Looks a great wee trip, nice and peaceful. Two highlights of small French towns for me are the local, slightly run down old cafes, nice places for a coffee and to watch local life.
And fresh bread and cheese, eaten on a bench in the town square, again watching life go by.

I guess there is a third highlight, cold beer sitting outside in the evening watching life part 3 go by.

 

[Wapping]

Or not quite the end….

If nothing else, the short trip across the water (so much easier if you live within 90 minutes of the Chunnel) reminded me that:

1. You do not need 100 bhp or more to enjoy riding a motorcycle. The Himalayan only boasts about 25 bhp, from its single cylinder engine. It will though cruise quite comfortably anywhere between 55 and 65 mph all day long.

2. On paper, its 15 litre tank should give about 150 miles of range, using the usual pretty good rule of thumb of 10 miles per litre. The bike actually returns 81 mpg (ie about 21 miles per litre) or about double that of most bikes. This gives it the equivalent of a 30 litre tank, when compared with other bikes.

3. The very basic motorcycle is comfortable all day. I have though fitted the ‘Touring seat’ as the standard seat is too soft. I have also fitted heated grips, which I must confess I did turn on, as it was not much above 10 C in the rain. Above all, the bike is cheap. In a word, excellent.

4. People knock sat nav’s. Taking the small D and unclassified roads of France, especially in the rain, using just a map and handwritten instructions is hard. I know this, as I have done it. Having a well prepared pre-planned route, just makes life a lot easier.

5. You do not need to speak French or to worry about ‘biker friendly’ hotels or cafes. Everyone is friendly.

6. People swear that there are no good roads in north eastern France. This little jaunt proves them wrong. Likewise, you do not need to go miles and miles. Each of the two day’s routes were no more than 165 miles each and I was never much more than 80 miles from Calais. Yes, it rained, but good kit keeps you dry and warm.

7. Make your own entertainment as you ride along. If you see something you fancy looking at, stop. Or just make a mental note to come back at some other time. Whether you ever do, doesn’t matter.

8. Above all, just have a bit of fun, without being a nuisance to anyone and everyone.

Give it a go!

All the best.

Richard

 

[Wapping]

Looks a great wee trip, nice and peaceful. Two highlights of small French towns for me are the local, slightly run down old cafes, nice places for a coffee and to watch local life.
And fresh bread and cheese, eaten on a bench in the town square, again watching life go by.

I guess there is a third highlight, cold beer sitting outside in the evening watching life part 3 go by.

Absolutely, spot on.