More beans for breakfast. That should help to keep the fuel bill down for the bikes! We packed away and paid our bill at the site and headed for the local garage to fill up.
Bugger me if Monsieur Price didn’t disappear into the garage with the French mechanic and reappear with “une rondelle de cuivre” in his hand and a big beaming smile on his face (Copper Washer to you). Ten minutes later and it was fitted. We set off for the Spanish border and the Pyrenees.
GONE FISHING
After an hour of steady riding, we turned off the N10 and headed for DAX. We began to climb into the Pyrenees. We had turned off from the main drag to cross via the mountains rather than skirt around the side. The scenery was spectacular. Little did we know that, on a scale of 1 to 10 for scenery we would see on this holiday, this would score around only 3.
We continued up into the mountains, and stopped in St. Jean Pied De Port at a small supermarket to buy some lunch. Bread, cheese, ham and a fresh cooked pizza.
DINNER IS SERVED
We also bought some provisions for our evening meal. Henry almost emptied the charcuterie counter for tomorrow’s breakfast. They say you should never shop for food when you’re hungry. They must have had Henry in mind when they said that!
Then it was onwards and upwards after checking the bikes again. Before long we were able to send a text back to base-camp “The Three Amigos sing Viva Espana”. We crossed the border at a place called Luzaide. Typical French. No marking of the border, no sign, no nothing. Just a mad dog barking right in the middle of the road, right on the border.
BORDER GUARD
FRANCO / SPANISH BORDER
We took a few photos with the “Welcome to Spain” sign in the background and sent some back to Frances at base camp. She had agreed to post pictures and daily reports on the Lonely Bob Fan Club Forum. A thankless task but apparently well received. We then carried on towards Pamplona (where they do the annual bull run). Now, if it was a Bullet Run……
We started to cut across Spain in a general south west line and stopped, late in the afternoon, in a small town to refuel. It was hot, damn hot! The bikes were glowing. Henry consulted his Camping Almanac and fond a site in a small town called Noverette. I put the town name into the Sat Nav and off we went. Half an hour later, we were in the town centre and following signs that said “Camping”. We ended up on the far side of the town with no further sign of a camp site. Henry and I had a huddle to try and make some sense of the directions in his book and the layout of the town. With that, I looked up to see Bill walking across the road to two local workmen in day-glo (or dago as Bill called it) orange overalls.
“Senior, Camping por favour?”
Now we didn’t have a clue what they said but the waving hands said “Back up the way you came and first left, old cock”
Who said Bill couldn’t speak the lingo?
Ten minutes later we were booking in and five minutes after that we were making camp. We were next to the toilet block but at least that would be a blessing at 3 a.m!
TENTS UP, READY FOR A BEER
Henry went to the shop and came back with some wine. No bread, no chips! I cooked up the provisions that Henry had bought for lunch along with some Uncle Ben’s boil in the bag rice.
That’s when it happened……
I turned to tell Henry that dinner would be in about half an hour and realised he was changing from his Kevlar jeans into some shorts – in the open air! Now why he decided he had to strip of his boxers as well, I’ll never know.
Suffice to say, I now qualify for the “I’VE SEEN PRICE’S PARTS” T shirt. There are times when you would welcome a little sun blindness, this was one of them.
We sat about and enjoyed our supper and the wine. We discussed the bikes and how well they were holding up. I hoped that this wasn’t tempting fate. They were parked lose by and could clearly hear us! I’d found that the entire engine and gearbox assembly was getting so hot that I had to make sure that my boots made no contact with the alloy casing or I would get burnt – through the leather! With the higher temperatures we were experiencing, we were stopping for a cool-down break every 60 – 90 minutes. Mucho agua also.
We decided that, at the rate that Bill’s bike was using oil, there would be no need to do an oil change when we reached southern Spain. It was more like a total loss system but, apart from the expense, there was no perceived problem.
The only niggle was that Bill’s bike had developed a habit of not wanting to start for about 10 minutes when it had been stopped. We tried a new plug and that seemed to help a little.
We had an early night, or at least tried to. It turned out that the toilet block was more of a “village pump” with people congregating to “chew the cud”. I unzipped the tent and stuck my head out….. a few choice words later and silence prevailed. I knew that we would be off early in the morning and couldn’t wait to hear the three Enfields bark-up.
STATSISTICS - DAY 4
198 miles Camping Lou Payou - Noverette
742 miles in total
Average 186 miles per day
