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We stayed a day in Luxembourg to get some stuff sorted… Here are some photos of the City.

Luxembourg looking out over the valley.

And the old town centre.

Luxembourg City

After the initial GPS problems that plaged us until Luxembourg (Thanks to Ed for making the maps available) we managed to actually get somewhere… that somewhere was Champagne in France. It was great riding via Verdun to see the war memorials and where the trenches had been in World War One. We also played Where’s Heather..

Where's Heather? Verdun France

One thing that has been a constant on this trip so far has been the excellent roads with beautiful scenery to keep it from becoming boring. So far we have done just over 900 miles/1450 kilometres. After spending the night with Natalie and her Family we tried to leave.. but it just was not heathers day… Her bikes battery was flat and we couldn’t push start it.. After multiple attempts in the pouring rain we ended up borrowing Natalie’s jumper leads to start the bike… One problem.. where the hell is the battery.. Luckily after starting to take the bike apart we found a place where the genius BMW engineers put a positive connection.. now we only had to find a good enough negative ground. After a few attempts we found one that worked perfectly and “Sparkie” came to life.

James working to bring 'Sparky' to life

Now that we had two running bikes it was time to set off for Germany…. If only it was that simple.. Thanks to our wonderful friend the weather.. we managed to ride about 150km before the weather was soo poor that we ended up wild camping in the Forest near Flirey on the D958

After a very wet night we managed to ride out on the very muddy tracks.. The weather had not much improved and the days riding was slow and steady to Freiberg in Germany. This lead us to our second ferry crossing. From France in to Germany!.. Totally unexpected but a welcome break for the 30 second journey. One big problem with this section of the trip was that there are no petrol stations which accept UK mastercards or maestro.. A really nice “surprise”.. on the up side at least it shows that the R1200GS can do over 400 miles on 32.5 litres of fuel if you ride like a sissy… riding behind heather makes that pretty easy.. te he he

Having stayed at the http://freiburg-camping.de/ camping site right near the centre of town. Highly recommended except that its so expensive.. 21euro for two people.. for a dam tent!!! dam I feel like scrooge.. We got over it fast enough as soon as we hit one of the beer halls in town for some great beers and quality German food. If your in the area and are interested here it is Martins Brau erste freiburger gasthausbrauerei Http://www.mbfr.de

So here we are.. day three of our trip. After an initial rush to Dover, where we missed our original ferry.. YES great start.. and by only 5 minute. We ended up being moved to the 2:30 ferry thankfully.. Arriving in France we rode for around 2 hours to the nights accommodation covering just over 200miles on day one. The relief to finally be on our way is immense.

Day two.. or should I say the first full day of our Holiday. No more rushing around preparing, no more farewell drinks, no more alcohol.. whoo hooooo.. detox.. 10 pints down to 0.. feeling it now.. grumpy mode has set in.. withdrawal from the booze I say.. or maybe its just the pent up frustration of months of planning and frustration with visas not working out as easily as we had hoped. I guess that IS the adventure.. the rest of the trip should be a “walk in the park”… Heathers still not realised that I am just here to annoy her.. ahh feel the freedom of being on Holidays.. 6-7 months of nobody elses company.. ha ha ha.. she’s looking over my shoulder saying she would not be surprised. Ha ha ha more fool her te he he.. anyway enough about us.. lets talk about the trip..

The GPS crashed..

Old school GPS.. maps.

giving us completely bogus directions in a huge 120km loop.. nothing like technology to really let the trip down. So far its been a complete nightmare using the GPS despite using it several hundred times in the past it must start speaking french as soon as it crosses the channel. All I have say about this is f.garmin.. fill in the dot with whatever suits!! As I am sure many people have heard me say in the past.. Its blasphemy to call support.. Its a sign of a shit product.. oops oh well that must be Garmin. Its caused me to break my cardinal rule of not using support. At least we had some humour on route.. Heather had a bus load of boys mooned her as the bus drove past.. she had a little giggle. ha ha ha.. got to love being a kid… could not imagine having a group of oldies going past mooning.. that would be seriously twisted…. At least it livens up the motorway miles.. that and the gps asking us to do u turns at 130km/hour when you can’t. Heather also managed to show off her ultimate Skills.. while pulling over to take some photos of a really sweet panorama she dropped her bike.. of course what most people do is to stop and pickup the bike.. not our trusty heather.. she takes the photos while leaving her bike smashed against the gutter.. At least we get blessed with a few really helpful Belgian teenagers who helped pickup the bike so we didn’t have to take all the luggage off.. the only casualty was her left mirror.. RIP mirror. At least she got some good photos to make it all worth while.. Having read that people in Belgium are not helpful we have been completely surprised by how helpful they have always been with us.. maybe its because they know we are stupid!!! (or not english)

Day three started with some amazing riding around in yet more circles thanks to our trusty gps.. I know fool me once fool on you.. fool me twice fool on me.. at least the scenery was beautiful on route with some amazing flowing roads with some of the most amazing forest to resivour roads I’ve ever ridden with huge panoramas of the country side. After finally getting completely lost we ended up being helped by a really nice Belgian guy who gave us access to the internet in his house to print out good old google maps directions.. yes we are on our way again to Russia we come.. with some love on top in a liberal dosing..

Score Board..

Mrs Lamb: I would like to add that James has had more wobblies and to put icing on cake he stepped on bubble gum, I almost laughed as you could imagine add on top of his frustration.