I had a great crossing from Bilbao to Rosslare. Brittany Ferries are excellent. Their ships are big and spacious and the crew are always friendly and helpful, so it was a really nice crossing. I also spent the evening with John with his Yamaha Tracer 900, who lives just north of Dublin. He’d also been travelling around Spain and France so we managed to put the world to rights during the evening over a sumptuous meal in the restaurant.
I had a superb night’s sleep, as I always do when I’m on a ship. As we were getting ready to ride off the ferry I also met another guy from Ireland – who watches my videos. It’s a small world sometimes…
By the time I got off the ferry it was 3.15 so I really have to shift to make the 220 miles and the 7.30pm evening ferry from Belfast, as you need to check-in at least an hour before departure. And shift I did… After some extremely hard riding I got to the ferry port in Belfast at 6.10pm. I stopped outside the ferry-port, went online and booked my crossing – and then rode through the gates with 15 minutes to spare before the sailing closed. Phew…!
I was the only bike onboard, so the bike must have felt quite lonely on its own. We left Belfast on-time and arrived in Cairnryan at 9.30pm after a quick and efficient crossing. I was hoping to be home by 11pm but fate intervened – as it always does. Turning left out of the ferry terminal and heading north to Ayr, about 15 minutes later there was a tailback of vehicles. I got to the front and was told that a HGV had come off the road and overturned and that the road wouldn’t be cleared for a couple of hours. Not wanting to wait, as it was cold and damp, I turned around and headed south to Stranraer – then east to Dumfries and the M77, north to Glasgow and then north-west to home – about 170 miles…! I finally got home about 1am and didn’t even bother unloading the bike. I just said ‘thank you’ to the bike and put the cover-on – as my warm and comfortable bed was waiting…
