York to Belgium (Oudenburg) and back....

[divuk83]

......on a scooter as part of the Darkside Drink it Dry tour 2006.

Click on the pics for hi-res ones.

Day 1: 13/7

Drove from York to Maidstone to stay in a hotel the night before the euro tunnel crossing. As we had a 10.58 train I though I would head down the day before so I had less distance to travel in the morning. Came down the A1(M) most of the way and made it in a respectable time of about 5 hours including 2 stops. 250 miles covered and put a whopping 5.5 litres of petrol in at grantham and about 8 litres in at Maidstone. Spent rest of the day slumming it in the Madistone Marriott (I get free stays through work!).

Day 2:
Drove the 30 miles down the M20 to the Euro Tunnel, bit of a slower ride as it was pretty windy and its hard work on a heavily laiden scooter on 12" wheels. Met up with all the rest of the people (about 70 other scooters) who were going and crossed on the tunnel at 10.58. It was just a case of going the last 70 miles to Oudenburg on the E40.

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Stopped at the only petrol station on the E40 to let others fuel up and wait for the stragglers to catch up. I still had plenty of fuel so didn't need to fill up. 1 of the lammy's had a loose exhaust stud about 20 miles back. We stopped to try and fix it, but in the end he took left it at a nearby hotel and went pillion with one of the other guys. He went back to repair this later on when he had caught up with someone with spares!
Arrived at the Groenedijk Motorcycle Loft Hotel. https://www.grd.be/motorhotel/ A great place with basic accomadation designed for bikers. The place has a good bar, food, BBQ and indoor parking outside the rooms for your bikes.

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Pulled up and most of us went straight to the bar! Hoegarden in a glass stright ouf of the freezer. Nice Even the Stella tastes better over there. First night was just a get to know everyone night with lots of Beer and a BBQ. Met so many people and spent naff all money as people kpet buying me drinks!

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Also went out into village of Oudenburg to find a local pub for a bit, though we ended back at the hotel after a bit! Continued drinking into the night and I assume I went to bed at somepoint!

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Day 3:
Got up to a self serve breakfast and lots of coffee which was really nice, just what I needed.

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Went out into Osotende on the scooters late morning. This was a bit of a mistake really as quite a few guys went in on the bus. Sat around in a beer garden in an irish bar for most of the afternoon. There were loads of Irish bars all over the place, aparently Belgium is the Ireland of Europe (isn't Ireland the Ireland of Europe?) After getting quite sunburnt in the blazing heat and sick of drinking coke, we headed back to the hotel for another BBQ and more beer.

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Day 4:
Woke up a bit earlier and enjoyed another cook it yourself breakfast in the self serve kitchen. A few guys from a local scooter club had popped into the hotel the night before and offered to take us to Brugge the sienic route. Everyone set off early afternoon to terrorise the locals in Bruge. Was and impressive sight seing 70 odd scooters drive through small streets of Brugge into the town square.

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Wandered arround the streets of brugge taking in the sights and some of us went to get some munchies. I had Rabbit in Beer and other had some local muscles in sauce. Very nice food.

Made our way back to the hotel late afternoon and decided to go on a quest for beer at a local supermarket. On the way back 5 of us spotted a local bikers bar full of hells angel/harley riding types and decided to go in for a beer. This was a quality bar with a coffin behind the bar and "Radar Love" by golden earing playing etc. Turned out to be a really friendly group of people, the barman was from Dartford and one of leaders of the club was from sheffield. Got chatting and they kept buying us beer. We wished we weren't on the bikes as we could have stayed for a few more beers. They even invited us back, next year we will be taking them up on that!
Headed back to the hotel and had more BBQ and Hoegarden. Went to bed about midnight as we had a 9am start to get back to the UK in the morning.

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Day 5:
Woke up feeling pretty good, due to taking it easy the night before. Another quick breakfast, packed up the scooter and topped up the oil. Set off a bit after 9 for the 11.58 tunnel crossing. Luckily we set off early as my fuel gueage did its move to the bottom in a matter of seconds trick just after passing the only petrol station on the E40! pulled off the motorway on my own and managed to bump into some friendly french police and with my limited knowledge of french managed to ask them where the nearest petrol station was. The understood me and said to follow them and they would take me to one. Top stuff. Managed to catch up with the rest of the group by the time I got the Euro Tunnel, which was good as I though I might miss the crossing!

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Got off the tunnel, said goodbye to the rest of the guys and set off back on the 280 mile trip to York. 30 degree heat made for less than pleasant driving conditions and I kept stopping every hour to let the bike cool down and to buy ice creams! Got back to York about 7pm. 718 miles covered in total, great weather and made loads of new friends.
I reckon I spent about 40 quid on petrol which considering the stupid price per litre that still makes for bargain touring.

Roll on next year.

The rest of the pictures can be found here: https://www.divuk83.net/images/gallery/index.php

Dave

[Jack_Cheese]

Quality

Very tineresting read. How old do you have to be before riding on the continent?

Jack
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[lurcher]

great report,just been to the biker loft 2nd time in 2 years,fooking awesome place to stay ,for food and getting wrecked at the bar,try the cherry beer if you go again, it give 4 of us memory loss ,we went to the nurbergring,france,belgium l,burg,germany and holland

[Method]

Thats great

Brilliant read! Well impressed you managed all that milage on a scooter! Im not very clued up with those things, but it must have been painfull?
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[Modo]

Looks like great fun was had by all Great read! Great pics!

[Nb]

Looks like you had a great time. I'd like to do a trip like that one day, albeit not on a scooter...
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[Method]

[Steve H]

Nice write up
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[divuk83]

[divuk83]

Bringing up an old thread, but though I would add the vid that was made of the trip by a mate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8go0WXBiuFI

Dave