Dont Panic Mr Mannering !!!!

And so it begins…. As Peter prepares to leave his home in Edinburgh for the long run south to Portsmouth, the rest of us scurry around like demented things trying to desperately remember if we’ve forgotten anything !!! Thursday will then see Peter and Andrew, riding down to join up with Steve, Chris & Joe in Leicester, the five of whom will thy hopefully rendezvous with me at Chieively  Services on the A34/M4 junction. The aim is then for us to meet with Andy, Jill and Jon at Portsmouth as they are coming from the south west area. 

With departure of the ferry scheduled for 1700 hours and arrival in Spain at 17.30 on Saturday it promises to be an action packed start to the trip. Hopefully we can get a fairly quick exit from Santander to allow us to at least put in a few miles before the sun sets… Nothing booked for the first night ( or for the rest of the trip for that matter) as you can’t easily make up time on a C90, so it just depends on how the bikes are running. My plan (such as it is) is to try to clear the urban surroundings of Santander, possibly putting in around 50 miles before we look for a place in which to spend the night, be that a layby, a camp site or heaven forbid a reasonably priced hotel…. Whatever we find I’m sure the fact that we are at last up and running on our 4 week adventure trip will still bring a grin to most if not all the teams faces,

We have a small (9 people) team this years due to a few unfortunate withdrawals; 3 due to business commitments and a further 2 due to motorcycle accidents. So what could have been a team to equal last years fantastic trip, at least in numbers, is in fact something a little more modest. However I still have high hopes for the fundraising efforts of the team with father and son duo, Steve and Chris getting things off to a magnificent start. Only time will tell how the group will shape up, but they will have to go some to top last years lot, which on a personal level hit an all time high….. Watch this space! 

So as I sit here with my head exploding with the stress of the last minute preparation my campervan decides to spit the dummy and conk out halfway down my drive... It seems that the something has failed on the gas conversion, however I managed to get oit started again on petrol and it is now parked up outside the house once more. I had managed to escape to a little sanity (?) last weekend as I was just about Scoot tripped out. I'm sure few of the participants ever realize just how much organization and preparation goes into these trips. It feels as though I have lived this trip for the last 6 months... OK, it's not full time, but it damn well feels like it. Now all I want is to get on the road and start riding, which is what it's all about.

From here on in, it's not about me, its' about the team and just how well they work (or not!) together. If I've chosen the participants well, I'm in for a nice easy ride; if not....... Hmm, that doesn't really bear thinking about.... Oh well! I'll soon know, by the time we get to Algeciras Heaven or Hell will have been settled......