France - Catching the ferry

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The Saturday finally arrived and I was about to head off down to Portsmouth to catch my ferry to Le Havre. I’d originally planned to take my Honda VFR 750 on the trip but having recently bought a Honda ST 1100 Pan European and rode it back up from Teddington SW London, I had decided to take the Pan because it was an excellent touring bike and did the ride back from London with ease.

I’d decided my route down to Portsmouth should avoid the motorways because they are quite boring on a bike so I programmed the Sat Nav to route me around the A roads which gave me a journey time of 5 hours to cover the 231 miles to the ferry terminal. Having programmed my arrival time in to the Sat Nav as well I was leaving home with 20 minutes to spare but after stopping to fill up and check my tyres, this reduced to 15 minutes. I was confident I would make up time on my journey and up to getting to Leicester, I was 45 minutes ahead of my planned arrival time, however when I hit Leicester, the traffic was grid locked and my 45 minutes grace soon reduced to 7 minutes when I finally got through the traffic.

Back on the open road again I started to get further ahead of my schedule taking the A5, A43 and the A34 down past Newbury and making up another 30 minutes without excessive speed but I was getting ready for a break now so decided to stop for fuel and a feed, just north of Winchester. Once back on the road again, I re-programmed the Sat Nav to take me the fastest route to the ferry terminal and straight away I was 30 minutes ahead of schedule again. Back on the A34, I headed towards the M3 then onto the M27 and finally arriving at the terminal with 45 minutes to spare and I was directed straight to the front on my lane to wait for boarding. Soon a few other bikers joined my lane and after chatting for a while, we then move onto the quayside to await our ferry’s arrival.

Soon the ferry arrived along with another ferry, both of which started to un-load together causing grid lock on the quayside but it soon cleared and the bikes were directed up the ramp and onto the ferry ‘Norman Spirit’ the crew gave us all ratchet straps to secure the bikes and soon I was ready to sail. The others bikers were having a few problems securing their machines so I gave them some help before heading up to the lounge and a comfortable seat for the next 6 hour ferry crossing.

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Photos

Honda VFR 750
Sadly left at home this time

Ready to sail
Just got to check the tyres and we're on our way

Ready to leave
231 miles to go to the ferry termial

Secured on the ferry
All i've got to do now is to get some sleep before arriving in Le Havre at 7:30 am