Loading the bikes was easier than I thought. We took all the kit we had to try it all out, and it fitted beautifully. The bike did feel a bit weird to start with, cornering felt a bit wobbly, but as the first part of the trip involved us taking the B645 through Kimbolton, I soon got used to it. The wind was more noticeable too, specially on flat open sections of dual carriageway.
As a trial run it worked really well. First thing I learned was to KEEP UP with my other half as he has the sat nav.. We got separated on the A14 when I saw a bike come off at a junction, well in the distance. I wasn't sure it was Graham but followed it anyway. It wasn't him. It was a Triumph Tiger with two up which promptly fell over as soon as I stopped behind it. Made sure they were ok (they were, but she didn't deserve to be, with 4 inch stilettos on!!), then tried to get back on to the dual carriageway only to find it was one of those rare junctions that you could only come off from. Ho Hum. Quick phone call to Graham who told me where he was, stuck the name into my now deleted sat nav app. which tried to send me to Ohio, and then Scotland. In the end I used my common sense, got back on the A14 the wrong way, turned round at the next junction and caught up with him that way.
We had programmed Graham's sat nav to get to the campsite using the shortest route, knowing that would keep us off dual carriageways and main roads. 3 & 3/4 hours to get there, using roads that probably haven't seen any motorised traffic in years... I learned lots on Friday, all sorts of road surfaces, roads with hardly any road markings. I found that braking on that gravelly sandy stuff at the side of roads ISN'T a good idea, and that roads with grass growing on them don't tend to have petrol stations on them, which became an issue at one point although I didn't actually run out. That's another thing I learned; Super Teneres have a much larger tank than my bike does...
We stopped off at a lovely pub in the middle of nowhere for a break and a bite to eat, where the landlady raved over my bike and the fact that I was a girl!!
We then got to the campsite. It was a huge site! I think in future and given the choice, I'd stay at a smaller one, but it had everything we needed. Except towels, which we'd forgotten, d'oh. It did have a lovely bar and restaurant, and everything was super clean. I'd heard a few horror stories about camping, so was quite relieved.
Our pitch was about 30 yards from the sea. Tents went up very easily for me, as all I did was hand out tent pegs. Sleeping wasn't as big an issue as I thought it would be, although another thing I learned was that airbeds work far better if you inflate them fully. I also discovered that having to get up at 2am was worth it as at that time there were no sounds other than the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and of owls calling each other... was very serene and almost the best moment of the trip.
The real best thing was the view from my tent first thing in the morning.
I also learned that the mirrors on my bike make good cup holders :-)
We did make an attempt at taking some photos but we were both really more interested in riding. We did stop at Leiston Abbey, but all I'm prepared to post is this one!
All in all, a really good trip. We did about 300 miles which is the most I've done so far, over two days. We were toying with the idea of finding another campsite on the Saturday night, but the weather was a bit cold and miserable so we came home.
We've spent today cleaning about a ton of flies off the bikes!
