I started next day with what outback Aussie types are oft known to refer to as a dingo’s breakfast, which normally consists of various bodily functions and a keen look at the adjacent scenery, but no food. As tempting as it was, I decided to forgo the obviously delightful pleasures of being served breakfast by the stunning French babe. The thought of getting caught between the bain maree and the porky seppo loudmouth scared me off good and proper.
Plugging into the groove, I somehow got my wits together – an increasingly bigger effort was required to do this as the days went by – and headed straight for Nimes, further on toward Avignon, and ultimately into Aux-En-Province, which was the place where I’d have to make a major decision regarding my route, and consequently my movements for the next couple of days. My options were thus:
- turn right, and head into Italy, and perhaps even to Tavulla, the hometown of a certain Mr Rossi.
- turn left, and go back toward Calais.
- or go straight ahead, and head into Switzerland and through Geneva.
Decisions, decisions...
I’d mulled over my route plan as I drifted off to sleep the night before, though, as per normal, I was still undecided when I took off in the morning. However, as I rode, I became increasingly convinced that it would be a bad idea to head into Italy. If I listened to my head, or, more to the point, the voices therein, I reckoned that the best course of action would be to head straight back north to Calais, mostly on account of my worn tyres and the bike being waaay overdue for a service.
For some unknown reason my romantic and adventurous heart kept butting in and reminding me that I was in Europe fer chrissake – who knew when, or if I’d ever be back that way? It would be madness to not see as much as I could in the time I had. Besides all that, I could quite literally feel the thoughts and wishes I had expressed to me by some of my mates and mate-ettes back home, who’d told me quite openly that they were living life vicariously through my exploits. So many conflicting thoughts, so few brain cells…
My original, best-scenario plan had included a quick foray into the flesh pots of Marseilles, mostly because the place is mentioned in an iconic Angels song, and I still had a soft spot for the notion that I was a hell-raising wild-child in that old-school rock ’n roll mould. My abrupt changes of plan, and the cold, hard fact that I have the mentality of a nineteen year-old trapped in the body of a fifty year-old seemed to have put paid to that idea.
My stunted naviguesstimation skills served me well once again, and I got hopelessly bushed in the centre of Aux-En-Province, which, in turn, led me to being railroaded down a freeway into Marseilles anyway. Strange the way things work out. Unfortunately, when I got there, the flesh-pots somehow completely eluded me, and I became hopelessly lost yet again while trying to find my way back out of the joint.
After locating myself on the map, I headed back to Aux-En-Province, only to find that the road I actually needed to take north did, in fact, exit not very far from the road I had come in on. Either my map was not too flash, the roads had changed a fair bit, or I was just plain lost again. At least I was getting used to the sensation of hopeless geographical embarrassment by now. Along the way I fuelled up at a service station where I noticed a lad on a street-fightered ‘Blade doing the same thing. We gave each other companionable nods over our respective fuel tanks and went our separate ways.
Following a hectic session of much untoward roundabout abuse I eventually found the right road, and headed north to the town of Sisteron. There had also been an enormous bushfire burning out of control as I’d moseyed on down through the Cote d’Azure while on my way to being lost in Marseilles, and the roaring winds which had been fanning it along nicely were now buffeting me all over the shop.
That goddamned wind, combined with the extremely worn front tyre, and my general structural decline meant that I was now having to wrestle the bike every step of the way, which was becoming very tiring. I’d hate to be thought of as a killjoy, but there were a few moments there where I distinctly thought of my mission that day as a chore. I’m proud to say that the adventurous spirit shone through, and after a few mental uppercuts, I was able to tune my attitude into a more appreciative and receptive frame of mind.
Sometime I guess you have to put things in perspective. Even though I was mostly cold, quite often wet, and as tired as I’ve ever been during that trip, I was on my ‘bike, and I had clear roads in front of me. It doesn’t really get a whole lot better than that, especially when I remembered that I could have been up to my spotty arse in some form of greasy mechanical mayhem at home. When I considered my options, it wasn’t really that big a stretch to appreciate the brief opportunity I had to live life to the fullest.
I took a couple of chocolate breaks, which served to alter my body chemistry, and ultimately cause my attitude to develop more positively. It’s amazing what a little bit of caffeine and sugar ingested at the right time can do for the weary and jaded spirit. Rejuvenated, and somewhat refreshed, I decided to take the chance that the tyre, and engine would survive a brief sojourn into Italy. I rode north through Briancon, then north-east to Sauze d’Oux, where I thought I had identified a D-road up across the hills that I could follow into Italy and back into France. This would allow me to purge both my demons; I would be able to say I’d ridden in Italy, and I would also be able to keep the length of the trip to a manageable level. Unfortunately, the map gremlins struck once again; there were a lot of road works happening in the area, and I just couldn’t find the road I’d marked out as my ideal route.
At a bit of a loss as what to do next, I headed into Susa, where a young nut-job on a two-stroke supermoto wheelied across a roundabout in front of me, then turned back to urge me to do the same. There have been rare moments in my life when I have been ever so grateful to see and recognise a fellow enthusiast, and this was one of them. It was so refreshing to observe another soul who was willing to live in the moment, but there was no way I could do a wheelie for him in town. I may be deranged, and sometimes mildly irrational, but I’ve also had my fair share of close calls, so I shook my head and made a “naughty, naughty” hand signal at him.
We hung together, and as we entered the next part of town, he turned to me and indicated with various intricate hand signals that he thought my bike was making a crazy noise, which he obviously liked – gawd bless his rotten little heart. I gave him a big thumbs-up back, and proceeded to lay down a bit of demonstration riding, spanky style. Throwing caution to the wind, I produced a couple of really dicey wheelies on the narrow mountain roads as we climbed back up the stony face of the Alps.
To be honest, I really shouldn’t have done it. I had no way of knowing what manner of traffic was coming back the other way, and if I fcuked it up, I had my choice of a sheer three-thousand foot drop into nothing, or an authentic Italian rock wall to impact on. Yet, there is nothing that feels quite like a good spontaneous wheelie, so that makes it OK I guess. Perhaps you can begin to see how my tragic logic sometimes has me at loggerheads with society in general.
My new friend hung with me the best he could, and every time he caught up, I’d stand it up again. Each time I did so, he’d go apeshit with excitement on his bike, and start bouncing up and down on the pegs like a deranged baboon. I’ve never thought of myself as an extrovert, or attention seeker, but there is something so irresistible about sharing a common bond with a total stranger. Who knew what the outcome of our interaction might be? It satisfies me to think that my monos could have inspired him to go home and practice harder.
He must have got a good rush of blood to the head, ‘cause he stuck it up the inside of me on a tight hairpin as we came into the next town, and promptly buggered off past a line of c*rs – on the wrong side of the road. The last I saw of him, he was standing amongst a group of his mates out the front of the local hangout, waving madly at me as I rumbled past.
I couldn’t find the road I saw marked on my remedial map, so I resorted to more random naviguestimation once again. I cruised into the next little town, and wandered around until I found a tiny single-lane back road heading out into the sticks. I wasn’t really sure of the faded signs I saw as I cruised through the joint, but it seemed to be heading in the general direction I needed to go.
It did indeed lead to another little burgh, which was wedged up in a tiny crack in the side of the valley. The road getting up there quite literally turned back on itself for about four hundred vertical metres, and about the same horizontally. I nearly got dizzy and had to stop along the way, but I was ever so glad when I got to the top to find a sign pointing me in the direction I had to go in order to get back across the Alps into France.
The road over the top was simply stunning, and the scenery was tailored to match. Once again, I was right back up in the big-boy mountains, and thoroughly out of my depth with the geography. The sight of the cloud boiling up over the tops of the peaks was both calming and very intimidating at the same time, though it was pretty obvious that as scenic as it was, the sun was effectively blocked right out, which meant that I was rapidly becoming cold again. I decided to get down out of these high altitudes as quickly as possible, and find some warm accommodation to rest my cold and weary bones. I scampered across various alpine meadows and vacant ski fields, trying to find succour before the impending storm caught up with me.
Try as I might, I simply couldn’t find anywhere to stay in the resort towns as I came back down below the snow line. I got tired of looking pretty damn quick, so I decided to get back on a motorway, and hauled arse down out of the mountains as quickly as I could. As I rolled through a grungy little industrial town tacked onto the side of a massive hydro-powered plant, I came up behind some yuppie wanker in a bright orange Lamborghini. I drew much wry humour from the fact that he was lined up with dozens of other cars, stuck behind a decrepit old truck just like everyone else – ‘cept me of course. I took the whole messy lot on the wrong side of the road, got onto the M-road in top gear, and sat on one-eighty for the next hour or so with my head on the tank and all my extremities tucked in to reduce wind-drag. It was a most surreal experience – I saw maybe two cars during that leg of the trip, and the whole time I was on that road, I was heading down hill. That fact alone made me appreciate just how magnificent the Alps really are.
I eventually got down to a more sensible altitude, where I paid far too much for a room at a hotel in Granges Ser Augn. I was lucky enough to be able to check my e-mail, which was again very fortuitous, ‘cause I had a letter from home informing me that my bank was becoming somewhat cranky on account of the fact that I was in arrears with my credit card payments. When I went to use said card to pay for the dodgy pizza I had for dinner, the transaction didn’t get approved. I paid cash with the few scant Euro I had on me, and spent a restless night worrying about being stranded in the middle of France with no cash, and a channel ferry deadline in two days time.
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