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Another of Matt's crazy plans further complicated by the ineptness of Stuart and myself. Rather than do the Dragon rally again in Wales (getting a bit bored of arriving late Sat, drinking in the cold with bearded blokes and then leaving early sun) Matt suggested the BSA owners' club winter rally in the Netherlands. Friday night after work and Stuart, Matt Ellam (pillion on the Guzzi) and myself dashed towards Dover and the ferry (Norfolk lines £40 return) to Dunkerque. A late ferry from the UK, 1.5 hours on the ferry, + 1 hour foreign time, and a long way to go! After an arduous trek with surprisingly few wrong turns we made it to the village where we were all supposed to meet up. Where was everyone! Who had brought the map? Crap, I thought Stuart would bring one! Stuart said exactly the same. It's about 4 in the morning and we're in some small village in the Netherlands and it's started to rain. After a few circuits of the village (probably waking everyone with raucous exhaust notes) I concluded they weren't here! I suggested there was a half built house a couple of streets away that we could stay in - Matt Ellam looked displeased. Turns out that we were supposed to meet there and be guided to the site. We were a little late! Not a problem, let's call Matt, or maybe Dan. Both phones turned off! Finally plucking the courage to call the BSA club rep. we guessed the dialing code and got no answer. "Try again" Stuart said, "the first time just wakes them up, they answer the second time"! Sure enough someone did pick up the phone the second time - and immediately hung up! :( Finally, in desparation, we flagged down a van driver (in the UK I'm sure he'd have run us down) who pointed us in the direction of the site and we made it, only to realise it all seemed to be locked up! After furtive bimbling and attempts to prise open what turned out to be someone's bedroom, Matt opened a door to a bunkhouse! Result! and by the light of our mobile phones I made out Matt's helmet. Bed at last - 6am.
The next day was overcast and we were all knackered and staggered off to a sit-in kebab shop! The evening was fun and we were served up big plates of chilli and bottles of beer were about €1 each :) Admiring the bikes in the barn I spotted (hard to miss) some home made aluminium panniers on a Triumph Tiger. Having made a couple of sets of hard luggage I was interested in the angle-alu construction and rivets. Really nice boxes, but "a little wide". Meaning to go to bed early I kept being offered extra beers by BSA club locals and turned in prettly sozzled. That night the loudest snoring I ever heard took place. The experience was a mixture of pain and sleep deprivation coupled with an interesting insight into social etiquette ragarding strangers, foreign countries and extreme snoring. I thought it was just me awake and being too polite just wrapped my head in the pillow and hoped for the best. Matt Ellam obviously wasn't going to be quite as patient and started making loud and progressivly funnier statements, that would stop the snoring for about 20 seconds. As the chortles came back form others I realised that almost everyone in the bunkhouse must've still been awake but too shy/polite to do anything other than just 'take it'. The z900 at full revs with the silencer removed was louder, but not by much.
The bunk house was interesting and I was impressed by the welded steel bunkbeds. Less impressive was the stink some brute let out of his behind in the toiled cubicle. I suspect it took the glaze off the ceramic - that cubicle remained out of action for about 24 hours. I also suspect it may have been the snoring man! Heading back on the Sunday, Stuart, Matt Ellam and I took a different route to Matt and Dan as we were heading to a different ferry port at different speeds! We decided to take a detour around the coast and witnessed some crazy looking sand surfing buggies in action. We crossed the impressive North Sea Dyke Road and slipped through the bollards to ride up to some amazing wind turbines. Stopping at a small bar, in a small town, in desparation for some food it turned out that one of the customers was some type of caterer. Hard to tell what was going on but he finished his fag and beer and 20 mins later his daughter turned up with 3 dinners! She drove off and we paid the barman - very strange, but nice! It got darker and darker and more and more tiring. We stopped to collapse at a French rest spot on the Autoroute but it smelled of wee :( Braving the cold on deck to look at the sky and talk grand plans and pipe dreams, we sailed back to the UK. Starving we found another kebabary and watched despondently as rough looking blokes strutted around, fights went on, pissed women shreiked at the police and some leathered looking lads jumped in their car with their take-outs and roared off up the street. Welcome to the UK :( I returned home knackered, a few travel lessons learned and impressed with the Netherlands as a country and the nice people.
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