Round the Bend 2007 - Richard’s Story with apologies for the length and lack of photos

Part 3 - Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, Day 2

Man, are we knackered! Alan got in to St Andrews shortly before Jim and I and was out getting the beers and grub ready for our arrival but instead we all wandered up to grab a dodgy pizza whilst the buzz was still keeping us upright.  We were abed by midnight or so and unconscious instantly. Saturday morning and we were the object of some attention with people reading the stickers on our panniers, which I had stashed in the family's holiday flat (I chose St Andrews as a stopover for a very good reason!) and giving us money, which was very nice. 10am and we had to be off which meant, of course we were still nowhere near ready and 12.30 pm was our actual ride-away time.

Having been used to the wide open spaces and empty roads of the Far North, we found the slow pace of the traffic in Fife to be very frustrating especially as overtaking was almost impossible.  It is a surprisingly long way around the East Neuk but eventually we hit the Forth Road Bridge and the pace quickened.  Although we wanted to be as anal as possible about following the coast, sometimes you have to be realistic and accept that crawling through a city is simply a waste of time, so the first of several 'corporate decisions' were made to skirt Edinburgh (where Alan and I had lived as students for 5 years) and head over to the coast at Prestonpans on the A198 and up and through North Berwick then rattle down the A1 toward the border with England at Duns for our first Landmark of the day - The most Northerly Point in England.

Next stop Skegness and our night's kip kindly provided by Alan's good Fazer friends, but that is still a long way away.  The weather is being kind to us and our pace is good with Bamburgh Castle, Newcastle and finally Scotch Corner on the A66 where we stop for a very very late lunch where we catch up on fluid and food but it's also where the heat and exhaustion catch up with us!  It is hard to explain, long after the event, just how low we both felt.  The sun was splitting the sky and after looking at the map we saw that we had become the proverbial flies climbing the wall and not seeming to get anywhere.  We'd been on the road for 5 hours but had barely covered half the day's mileage. Fuck. My face was burning, and could barely string a thought together so fast decision making was not on the agenda.  We knew that we had to get a move on so we climbed back on and opted to play catch up on the motorway and head off at Darlington which would be the worst decision of the day as we would only realise much, much later (nothing quite like a apparent disaster in the making to hold the reader's interest, eh?). The motorway was hell in the heat but we just kept plodding on as best we could both locked in the private rooms of our helmets, each with his own personal event horizon where dinner and bed would be just visible.  I think we were just beginning to realise just how big a challenge we'd taken on. 

After filling up in Whitby and with the last of the afternoon sun keeping the evening chill at bay we slipped back into combat touring mode and the miles clicked away as we sped through Scarborough, Filey, Bridlington then following signs for the Humber Bridge. As we got near we were joined by (or we caught up with) a large group of classic bikes who we diced with as we headed over the Bridge and the fun and euphoria came back with a vengeance.  It is something I've often noted with the bike that when I have my MP3 player on random I often get exactly the right music coming through at exactly the right time.  With spirits being so low but the bridge in sight and with good company a couple of uplifting songs came on and the piss taking started.

kssht "Rich." kssht [count to 7 for the music to kick back in]
kssht  "what?" kssht
kssht  "You listening to something good?" kssht [count to 7 for the music to kick back in]
kssht "I was. You ve just it off!" kssht
kssht  "Aye I know, you were bopping so I thought I'd ask!" kssht [count to 7 for the music to kick back in with gritted teeth]
kssht  "Bastard" kssht
kssht  "Hahahahahahahahahah" [count to 7 for the music to kick back in whilst grinning like a fool]
kssht  "Fuck off" kssht [big cheesy grins all round]

Over the Bridge and Norman Cook starts in with "You've come a long way, Baby" and I'm on the pegs, bouncing the pegs and generally monkeying around.  Off the bridge and we've only Grimsby, Mablethorpe and Skegness to go before we start looking for Ugg's house.  Radio comms consists of "Look!", "what?",  "I can see the sea!" "Oh, Ha Ha!". And we hit the strangest part of the Country so far.  It's flat and full of rectangular fields so the roads are dead straight with 900 corners every mile or so.  We get into the swing of things and scare the crap out of a few drivers coming in the other direction by leaning over their bonnets and almost grazing their paintwork with the panniers and suddenly we're in Skegness just as it starts to get dark.  We turn inland and get to the postcode Ugg Gave us which is in the wrong place (the postcode is right but the systems are all wrong) and Ugg comes to find us and guide us in by whioch time it is pitch dark and we're glad of the "GS wall of light".

Ugg's hospitality is wonderful and we're quickly getting on the outside of a couple of beers, some hot grub and recounting war stories of the last few days.  Off to bed with Alan snoring like he's drowning and me wanting to kick him in the head but not having the energy.