Pt 14. So what about Paris?

Several weeks later...

I started the day with a shower, then went downstairs and ate Croissants and drank coffee. Outside the sky was the familiar colour of fish, but it was nonetheless warm although a little humid. I rolled myself a golden Virginia, then found a comfortable chair in the conservatory where I sat for an hour reading about Hemmingway’s good café in the place St. Michel.

What on earth had happened in Paris all those weeks ago, I thought. I’d spent two of the most memorable weeks of my life there, but hadn’t penned a single word about it, why was that? It was the same when I came back from France the first time, after I’d gone there to recover the First World War remains of my great grandfather. That had been a grand adventure too, but it had taken me weeks to process it and finally put pen to paper and tell the story, When I eventually did, I wrote twenty-eight pages and over sixteen thousand words about it. Telling the Paris tale I figured, was going to be something like that.

What a marvellous jaunt it had been though, five weeks and nearly five-thousand miles from Edinburgh, through Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy, then back into France with two weeks in Paris. Every day of the trip I’d managed to write about where I’d been, and what I’d seen and the people I’d met along the way. Even in Paris itself I’d still maintained my discipline, and although I was always playing catch-up, I still wrote regularly from the extensive field-notes I’d taken in my moleskins. In Paris, I’d started the day with Vodka and Pamplemousse while Lyndal pored over books and maps seeking out places to visit and experiences to have. I’d travelled on the world famous Metro and had seen in full living colour the picture postcards of Parisian landmarks. The Louvre, Sacre-coure, Eifel tower, La Madeleine, the Champs Elysee, Arc de Triomph, and Notre Dame. We’d sat by the seine sipping vin rouge and eating frommage whilst the boats that plied the beautiful river lapped water against our feet, and the sun that warmed the Parisian lifestyle slipped slowly away beneath a veil of softest pink. For two weeks I had lived a life I’d never known before, with someone I’ve known all my life, it was a beautiful combination of personal familiarity in a strange and distant land.

Outside, the fish coloured sky turned into a vertical, tumbling sea, and a heavy rain beat against the windows. It reminded me of the night we went to see a show at the Lido on the Champs Elysee, and how it had rained when we came out. Lyndal had opened an umbrella and linked her arm through mine, and we had ambled slowly through the rain, taking in the sights and sounds of Paris by night; it all seemed so long ago. I rolled another cigarette, and stepped outside to feel the rain on my face. I hoped it would help me recapture the magic and romance I’d felt that night all over again. It was a dreamers folly, the moment had already been.

The facts, the facts and only the facts part of me wants to write it up exactly how it was, a blow-by-blow account of what I did and when I did it. But the real fact is that the whole experience was a blurred romance of me and Lyndal in Paris living some kind of surreal dream that had first been imagined a thousand years ago when we first met; but maybe that’s the creative writer in me. He wants to write the facts, but also wants to mix it up with the fiction of what might or might not have been. The romantic fool of course just wants to write a love story.

The rain has stopped for the moment, but the sky is leaden and sulky. I feel like I should be sitting by an open fire now, drinking red wine and listening to Brahms. Suddenly the rain is back again, and with it, a voice calls out in my head. ‘Bonjour Monsieur”. It’s a character I created years ago named Laurent. He lives in a Brittany cottage in France, and works as an obscure kind of creative expressionist. He sleeps only three to four hours a night, and takes long, long walks through the sun, through the wind, and through the rain with his black Labrador named Cassoul. He drinks red wine and plays the guitar, and has but one single love in his life. He has never yet let on exactly who she is, or what has become of their lives. We said a quick hello, but then he had to take Cassoul for a walk by the water. He said we’d meet again soon.

Patches of blue now, but mostly it’s dark overhead. Laurent and Cassoul have gone, and now it’s just me again, and my reasoning for not having written the tale of my two weeks in Paris.

As I left Paris and Lyndal behind and rode out through La Defence on my way towards Normandy and the eventual ferry back to the UK, I had the music from ‘Dirty Dancing’ going through my head. ”I’ve had the time of my life”. Paris was going to be a hard act to follow.

In Normandy, I visited the D-day landing beaches of Gold, Juno and Omaha, as well as the American war cemetery there. I visited the Pegasus bridge at Bentounville that the British airborne forces had captured just hours before the landings occurred. I had a coffee at the first house liberated in France, -the Pegasus café beside the bridge- and I broke a tooth on an incredibly hard baguette there too. I camped at Toufreville where the airborne forces of the invasion had landed, and stood in silent tribute at a crossroads where a handful of British and Canadian soldiers had held off a larger force of German troops rushing towards the invaded beaches. I tied in vain to buy a croque madame, that wonderful toasted Ham, cheese and egg dish that Lyndal had introduced me to in Paris, but it was wasn’t to be; there were simply too many English there, and the gorgeousness of Paris was sadly too far away.

I got the ferry from Cherbourg in France to Poole in England, and hated every minute of it, it felt like I was leaving home. I stayed with friends in Somerset for a day and a night, and then rode my bike back up to Simons place in Gorebridge where the trip had all began. Once there I fell into a deep, dark nothingness of not knowing what to do with myself. Love Simon and his family deeply though I do, I felt really out of sorts being there after five weeks on the road surmounted by two weeks in Paris with Lyndal. I tried to write but nothing would come out as I wanted it to. Maybe I didn’t really know what to write though is closer to the truth. I contacted a film director friend who empathised with my downer and said he’d experienced exactly the same thing. He reassured me that it would eventually pass. Days turned to weeks and still the words wouldn’t come. I summoned Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogel, and even invoked Homer and the Odyssey. I joined the local Library where I took out Ewan McGregor’s book of the Long Way Round trip he’d done with Charlie Boreman, I read Ernest Hemmingway’s The old man and the sea, and For whom the bell tolls; but still there was nothing. I went for rides on my bike and sat by small rivers with my notebooks and camera and thoughts whirling through my head. Nothing, not a damn thing, the Trout weren’t even rising! I thought about smoking pot for while, and how it might loosen up my brain, but that just made my thumbs go weird and gibberish fall out of my mouth. I drank way too much coffee and sat up to all hours mulling things over and writing things down, then crossing them out again. I did Sudoku and crosswords, read the papers, and watched the news. I sat inside when the sun came out, and went outside when it rained.

As the weeks turned into more weeks, I started reading travel articles in the newspapers and began penning out different parts of my Paris experience with the idea of putting together an article of my own. I’ve written travel for the papers before, but they’d been a sham. Half the places I wrote about I’d never even seen, let alone walked around experiencing the ‘…Ambient intrinsic beauty of”; but Paris was different, I’d been there, I’d seen it, and I’d done it.

Several thousand words later, I had an article that was miles too long, and too full of poetic license and heartfelt romance. Sure Paris was a romantic place to be, but this was meant to be a travel article, full of interesting information and little known quirky facts. Above all else it was meant to make people want to go there and experience it for themselves. My article made me want to lie half-drunk in a warm bath with a razor poised above my wrist.

I decided to go fishing; a short break was what I needed. I packed up my bike and took off for the Scottish borders country; it felt good to back on the road again. I headed for the Meggett, a waterway high in the southern uplands reached by a very steep, winding, single-track road that had me sphincter twittering by the time I reached the top and looked back down on the land I’d just ridden. The vista below me was nothing short of magnificent. With the huge expanse of loch something or other squeezed in between the great towering sentinels of heather-loaded hills, it looked for all the world like I’d stepped back into the time of Rob Roy and his gutsy tartan kinsmen. I rode on towards Meggett water where I found a small, sheltered spot of land on which to camp for the night and set a nice fire going. Then I put my fishing gear together and stepped down to the water’s edge.

Swish, swish, crack, snap, plop; the end of the rod snapped off and slid down the line and disappeared into the water; not a good start to a fishing trip. I packed the shattered remains away, then sat by the fire for the rest of the evening contemplating my Paris dilemma. I’ve always been a writer though I thought, even before I knew I could write I was a writer. So why is it that now that I do know I can write, I can’t write anything? Maybe it’s just a phase I thought, one of those blank spots you get now and then. Maybe if I just ignore it, it’ll go away. I closed my eyes.

I went for a walk by the water. A man and his dog were walking there too, I saw them coming closer towards me as I shuffled along like a petulant child with my hands in my pockets, kicking at stones here and there. He was about fifty-five with dark, greying hair and a youthful tanned face and sparkling green eyes, his dog was young and spritely too, but had an age-old wisdom in its face, like most Labrador’s do. The man addressed me directly. “Bonsoir monsieur, why do you look so troubled. Do you not see where you are?”

“Yes I see where I am alright” I replied. ‘But I can’t see where I was before, and that’s what I need to be seeing right now”.

“Then you are in the wrong place”. He said. “Be where you are now, see what you see now, and live what you live now. The past and the future, they do not exist, there is only the Now. The place will present in a different now where the vision you seek will come, until then, drink wine and be happy”.

I opened my eyes again. The sun had gone down, and the fire was dimming slowly. I piled on some wood and opened a bottle of Red. ‘Thank you Laurent’ I said aloud.

Over the next few days, the wind blew and the rain fell down across the borders. I went to Selkirk where I tried to buy a replacement rod. I walked into a hardware cum general store where I hoped to make my purchase. ‘No’ I was told, they didn’t sell fishing rods here. Then the sales assistant told me about the pet shop up the road. “Do they sell fishing rods?” I asked her. “I don’t know” she replied, “but they do sell fish”.

I ended up going into Galashiels about five miles away where I bought a complete new outfit of Rod, reel, Fly line, leader and flies for the non too expensive amount of forty-five pounds. “So where can I fish around here then “? I asked.

“Och son, do ye no ken the Tweed is the best sport river in Scotland”? Alistair, the shop owner said, “and there’s plenty of good Troots around the noo, and quite a few Salmon too, you cannae go wrong”.

Don’t I need a permit to fish the Tweed though?” I asked.

“Oh aye, you’ll need a permit son; but if you go to this wee spot just oot of town…”

So he drew me a map of where I needed to go, and told me I could camp there and no one would know I existed.

Quarter of an hour later I rode the bike through a tiny gate off a quiet road, down a narrow secluded lane, and parked it beneath a tall umbrella-shaped tree, just metres from the mighty river Tweed. I couldn’t wait to get started. I opened my package of sparkling new gear, and put it all together toot-suite, then headed through the bracken to the waters-side and cast my flies onto the racing torrent of water. It wasn’t too long before I’d caught the first of what would eventually amount to a dozen or so wild brown trout. Feeling suitably happy with myself, I headed back towards the bike to make a coffee and get the tent set up for the night. As I walked back through the tall, tall grass, climbed the fallen trees, and dodged the scratchy bracken, the ground disappeared beneath me, and I fell five feet into a dried up river channel, landing heavily on my camera that rested at my side. Crunch, Craaak…aaargh! Two cracked ribs at least. I lay on the ground unable to move as spasms of pain coursed through me. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think. All I could manage was ‘aaaargh…fuck!’ After several futile attempts at climbing out of the hole I’d put myself in, I eventually scrambled out into the light, and hobbled gingerly back to where I’d parked the bike. As I sat cross-legged by a small diddy-kai fire, poking twigs in to boil enough water for a cup of tea, I heard the metallic latch of the gate click open, then the unmistakeable creak of the gate swinging wide.

A big, round man appeared in full fly-fishing battle-dress. Chest waders, a Barbour jacket and fly-vest, and a tweed hat with various flies hooked into it. A large landing net hung from one of his shoulders, and pliers, tweezers, hook disgorgers, a magnifying glass, Swiss army knife and all manner of other accoutrements swung like little pendulums’ from a multitude of lanyards around his neck. “Are you fishing here?” he asked me scornfully as he rolled to a halt holding a twelve-foot rod.

“Well I umm… I think I’ve cracked a rib or two actually”. I looked at the patches on his vest. ‘Trout fishers Assoc.’ ‘Salmon fishers Assoc.’ Tweed River Assoc’. Bailiffs Assoc.’ Fisheries and Wildlife River Management Assoc.’ ‘Invasive weed control Fed.’ ‘Scottish Borders Rivers Warden’. This was a man I probably didn’t want to meet whilst fishing in Scotland without a permit.

“Cracked a rib you say…what”?

“Umm yes, what? I fell down a hole by the river and landed on my camera”.

“Landed on your camera you say, down a hole…what”? My name is James,” He said, thrusting a huge meaty hand into my face”. James Bonnington-Malesbury actually, but mostly I’m called Bonnie. You can call me James; I’m the secretary of the Tweed River association”. I stood to shake his hand, wincing with pain as I rose. “So are you fishing here”? He repeated.

“Well I thought I might, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to”

Do you have a permit”? I looked kind of sheepish at him. “Well you have to have a permit you know, we can’t have rabble turn up here just willy-nilly can we, what ever next, what”? He looked at my bike and the Aussie flag sticker proudly displayed. “Australia you say then is it; you’re an awfully long way from the Antipodes, Ben Kelly and so forth what”?

“What? Ben Kelly”?

“You know, Ben Kelly the bush-tucker man, Life wasn’t meant to be easy and all that twaddle what”?

“Oh right, Ned Kelly the bushranger, such is life”.

“That’s the one; he probably didn’t have a permit either. Hahaha…never mind, shot at dawn through the chest”.

“Hung actually”.

“What?”

And so it went on till my water boiled and I offered him a mug of tea and some insight into an Australian national hero. Bonnie was also president of the Invasive weed control federation, and sat on a panel that decided who could be a river Bailiff and who couldn’t. At the end of the day though I still didn’t have a permit to fish here, so after we’d discussed everything from Salmon spawning habits to the mating rituals of highland Otters, and he said ‘shall we wander down for a fish then what’? I was quite pleasantly surprised.

“I may set the rules” he told me, “But I’m hardly Dirty Henry am I, what?

“Who”?

“Dirty Henry, Carl Eastwood, you know, do you feel lucky punk…the enforcer what”?

“Oh right. Sphincter says what”.

“What”?

As we wandered down to the riverside, I asked if he’d mind me camping beside his beautiful river for just one night. ‘There’s no camping allowed by the Tweed’ he answered quite indignantly, then put a finger to the side of his nose and said. ‘but if you don’t say anything, neither will I…tally ho’.

And so it was that I spent the night camped by Scotland’s premier sport fishing river, catching Trout on one of it’s prime beats without a permit, but with the full permission of Bonnie, the secretary of the Tweed River Association,

The following morning the rain was pouring down, and as I sat there in the tent doing Sudoku and drinking tea, my will to keep going went downhill rapidly. As soon as the rain stopped, I packed up my bike and headed back to Gorebridge, bedraggled and in pain.

Back at Simon’s place I revisited the Paris travel article and realised it wasn’t really that bad after all. Sure, it still needed a lot of work, but at least I’d made some inroads into getting something on paper. As Laurent had intimated, there is a time and place for everything, and maybe here and now just wasn’t it. I thought that maybe when I got back down to Somerset and did the week’s work I’d promised to do, I’d be able to get back into the swing of it all again. A week turned into another week, then on Friday the 23^rd July I loaded up the bike and rode on down to Somerset, where I had a date with the former CEO of Pepsi cola.

Part 13. Out of Italy and back into France.

Friday 28^th May 2010

When I woke up in the tent near Cinque-terra at Levanto that morning I felt 100% better and ready to get on with the trip that I’d grown weary of. I’d ridden north from Pisa, across the top of Cinque-terra the afternoon before, capturing pics of the stepped terraces and the Mediterranean way down below. The riding had been spectacular, and I was so engrossed with the views from above that I never took the time to visit any of the world heritage villages that nestled on the cliff below. But that was yesterday, and as I loaded up the bike once more and started towards Nice, I realised once again that I didn’t have any room for regrets.

The road that hugged the ridge between seafront and hinterland was nothing short of enjoyable hard-work.. Like Rioveggio, I found myself riding a road that twisted with the acutest of turns, plummeted into G-force drops, and climbed steeply again, like a roller coaster. Often I was reduced to first gear, and even then I struggled to manoeuvring the heavily laden bike around some of the bends; putting my foot down time and again as I manhandled the great lump of a thing around turns barely wide enough for the tiny little three wheelers that plied this stretch.. There were no other bikers on this road though, because unlike the roads of Tuscany that leant themselves to high speed and impressive cornering, this one was just twisted and demented, like someone’s idea of an interesting tourist route quickly sketched out at a Friday session at the pub. The scenery though was nothing short of inspired, with lookout points dotted all along the way that took in huge segments of the rocky coastline below and vast simmering expanses of the big blue Mediterranean beyond. On the landward side of me, tall Nordic-type forests grew with bracken scrub covering the ground between monstrous boulders that seemed to have unaccountably rolled down the hill and into each other, forming large collections of giant stone marbles. The road swept on and on. Left, right, left right, hairpin, uphill, downhill, hairpin, left and right, over and over again. I barely got out of second gear for over an hour, and the temperature gauge on the bike was redlined and worrying me for most of it. I pulled over at a small spring that trickled down from the hills above, and filled my water bottle. A small shrine had been erected at it, and the derailleur gear and pedal sprocket from a racing bicycle were arranged, forming a sculpture that embraced the top of the spring’s outlet. Within the arrangement, a glass-framed photograph of a cyclist looked out at me, and deep into my eyes. Behind me, the high-pitched hissing of rubber on bitumen turned me around to see the passing of a solitary bike rider. As he sped by, he smiled and waved hello. I quickly looked back at the photograph of the bike racer killed in the Italia Giro race here in 2006, and then back at the passing rider, but he had disappeared.

The view from the vantage point opposite the spring was of a large sweeping arc that took in the waterside towns of Dieva Marina and Lemeglio. They spread out far below like a pair of model villages set beside a blue plastic sea. I stood there smoking a cigarette with the sunshine, birdsong and the gentle trickling of mountainside water for company. It was another one of those moments I’d come to know very well; where all I could do was smile and thank God I was alive. I rode on till a few miles further down the road, when I stopped at the run-down shell of a roadside villa, and just had to have a poke around. It was a stone built place on two floors. The ceiling between had caved in, but the solid timber beams were still intact and looked like they would probably outlive everything else there. A small stone fireplace sat in the middle of one wall on the lower level, offering little heat to those above, but then maybe the rising warm air was enough. Outside, the stairs to the second floor were set into the side wall with no access from inside the house. The garden had no visible boundary, and ran steeply uphill, scampering between giant boulders and tall majestic pines. A tiny grotto cowered in one corner, overwhelmed by tree branches and long, long grass; and an overgrown well nestled into the undergrowth like a portal into another world. I tossed a coin in and made a wish. As I remounted my bike and started the run down hill towards Genoa, a group of six touring bikes rode past me. We exchanged the waved hands of brothers at arms so to speak. I felt strangely relieved to see them. It seemed a long time since I’d shared the fellowship of the road, and if I’d seen another bloody scooter, or worse still, accidently waved to one…!! With a press of my thumb I flicked the bikes engine into life and twisted the throttle hard. I cleared the coastal forest track in no time, and soon the bike was stretching it’s legs, and powering along the open road again. I was heading for the Riviera.

But I didn’t make the Riviera like I’d originally planned. Instead, I hammered my way nearly four hundred kilometres to Nice. By now all I wanted to do was get to Paris as quickly as possible. I passed through a long series of tunnels in the Liguria region of Italy coming into Genoa. It was in one of the short stretches between two of these long, dark passageways that I left my second Italian mirror dangling from the side of a car. The idiot driving thought it was fine to pass me a hundred miles an hour just inches from my legs; naturally I thought otherwise, and when I caught up with him a kilometre up the road I explained myself clearly with the heal of my boot. Freelancebush Two. Italian side-mirrors Nil.

The Autoroute was an incredibly boring ride. The long, straight, grey tedium of it really got to me, so about every fifty kilometres I had to pull into a services area just to get myself interested again. It was at one of these services near the Italian / French border that I came across a hoarde of Harley riders on their beautiful custom rides. They were from Germany like so many other riders I’d met, and were on a ten day ride through Italy and part of France. “It is nearly fifteen hundred kilometres altogether,” Heinrich boasted proudly.

“Really, wow, that’s about a thousand miles then”. I replied.

“Yah, about that” Heinrich beamed. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d already covered more than twice that amount and still had another two thousand to go. Instead, I told him. “Maybe your mum will let you go out for a proper ride one day”. Actually I didn’t say that at all, but I did think it.

I pushed on. The skies got darker, the air grew cooler and the road seemed longer and more and more tedious. I crossed the border into France with a punched fist in the air and a yee-hah, I felt like I was in familiar lands again. As I pulled the bike into Nice the heavens opened up completely and the rain poured down almost monsoon like. From the autoroute I could see the glowing neon sign of a Nivatel hotel, and immediately took the off ramp and made my way towards it. By the time I parked the bike under the hotels canvas awning I was soaked. I walked in and attempted tired, wet and hungry French, but thankfully, the receptionist spoke perfect English and saved me the embarrassment of it all. I handed over my passport and trembling credit card and booked myself in for the night. The room was as you’d expect from the Novatel, big and well appointed with a large comfortable bed that I immediately sprawled all over, and rang Lyndal. “Can you grab some of the little soaps and shampoos while you’re there”? She asked me.

Saturday 29th May 2010

Five rashers of bacon, three scoops of scrambled egg, a huge bowl of cornflakes, a bowl of fruit salad, two Croissants and an endless mug of coffee cost me twelve euros. It would have cost me that much regardless how much I ate for breakfast, so I pigged-out, and set myself up well for the big day of riding I had ahead of me. The night at the Novatel had cost me more than I really should have spent, but what the hell; I was clean, rested, and fed, and ready to go again. I booted outa there just after 9am, and rode hard for more than just a couple hours. Thirty miles from Marseille I pulled into an AGIP services station and fuelled up. While I was inside paying for the fuel I saw this bike pull in and park beside mine It was huge and dwarfed TDM like it was a toy. I walked back to my bike looking at this hulk of a thing and the equally huge bloke and tiny slip of a woman who had stepped off it. The giant held out his hand as I approached and introduced them both. His name was Albert and hers Christina, and the bike they were riding was a 1970’s BMW R 1200 Classic Luxury in electric blue. They had ridden up from Milan in Italy and were on their way to Barcelona in Spain for a week of touring. “I like your bike very much” Albert told me “But it is too small for me and Christina”. “Have a seat,” I told him, “See what you think”. .He let out a big Grizzly Adams laugh, and said he’d probably break it. Albert must have been six foot eight; and twenty-five stone if not more, and Christina, although slim and tidy looking was quite an Amazon herself. At Alberts’ invitation though, I happily sat on his bike. It was like being in a convertible with the doors and panels removed. “How much does this thing weigh”? I asked him after attempting to raise it off its side-stand. “About three hundred and fifty kilos”. He said. “But even more when it is loaded”. That put it at about a hundred and fifty kilos more than mine. We stood there chatting about this and that till it was time for them to leave. No sooner had they started off, and I was putting my helmet back on when a black TDM 850 pulled in next to me, and this hot, bubbly, perky little blonde hopped off it and shook out her hair; her name was Antoinella.

Unfortunately, Antoinella’s boyfriend Lucca stepped off the bike too. They were from Bologna in Italy, and on their way to Marseille to party it up for a week. We stood there for a while comparing bikes. Lucca’s was shiny. He’d fitted spotlights to it, and polished crash-bars too; which just made it look even shinier.. It was three years younger than mine, and sounded tight and sporty. It was a good-looking bike. Lucca pointed out that my bike had only done twenty-six thousand miles, and that the seat looked really comfortable. He liked the way it was loaded, and the way it sat on the road. He pointed out the scratch marks on the fairing where I’d dropped it in France the year before last, and said how it added character. He commented on the sound of the engine too, saying it had cleared its throat well, and sounded like it just wanted to goooo!. He was right. After wrapping an arm around Antoinella while Lucca photographed us, I took off onto the autoroute, revving the bike out through the gears and smiling at the sound of the screaming roar.

Sixty miles later I pulled into another services just for the hell of it. It was a major stopping point for truckers, bikers and cars, and it was busy. I went into the shop not really knowing why, and came out ten minutes later with some sandwiches, a drink, and a big tub of chicken salad. I left the bike parked near the front of the building and walked around the back where the area opened into a massive garden setting with trees and pathways and picnic tables and chairs. I found myself a comfortable patch of grass beneath a tree, laid my jacket out on the grass and half lay on it, resting on one elbow while I munched on sandwiches and salad. The day was perfect. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was about twenty-six degrees. Mums and dads sat at the tables playing eye-spy with their kids. A young teenage girl dressed in a white Tutu, wiped the face of a chocolate labradore. Cars zoomed by on the autoroute, and a helicopter whirled playfully overhead. Giant lorries from Italy, Romania, Germany, Britain and France formed a great long train that filled one side of the parking area completely, spitting out smoke and roaring now and again like some dozing mechanical serpent stirring with a dream. The drivers themselves stood in a circle of camaraderie nearby, eating burgers, drinking coke, belching and farting and telling truckers jokes; in a smaller circle next to them, their kids tossed balls and Frisbees, and dared an old pot-bellied driver to try and keep up.

I sat there eating and drinking and taking notes about the dappled sky and green green grass. I smoked a cigarette or two, then scooped up my jacket and got on the bike to leave. I’d covered two-hundred and seventy miles and still had a hundred and eighty to go.

The rest of the ride towards Lyon was peppered with service stops, and fag breaks at lay-bys, strange thoughts, mental arithmetic and the simple yearning to get to Lyon and call it a day. At one point I got a text from Lyndal, she was at the French open watching the Hewitt v Nadal match, and she was freezing. That seemed weird as by that stage my riding jacket was strapped to the top-box and I was riding in a tee-shirt.

I knew that once I got to Lyon, I was less than three hundred miles from Paris, and that all I had to do was put my head down tomorrow and I’d be in paris by mid afternoon. I saw a sign saying ‘Lyon 20km’s’, then I started seeing the outskirts of a city, and the industrial estates that are always found there. I kept going. I rode right through Lyon, alongside the Rhone River, following the signs for Paris even though I was still hundreds of miles away. After ignoring a dozen hotels and camp sites, Lyon eventually spat me out the other side. I punched the air and twisted the throttle hard, gunning the bike quickly along the highway, but soon the sky grew dark and heavy, and rain began to fall in great heavy drops. That was it, I was gonna have to stop whether I wanted to or not, and near the small town of Mionnay, about twenty miles further along, I spotted an Etag Motel attached to a large services area. I pulled in, parked the bike, and walked to reception.

The man behind the counter was friendly and helpful, but spoke little English. I was tired, slightly wet and hungry, and spoke very bad French. We too-ed and fro-ed for a while, not really sure what each other was talking about, but at the end of the day I simply needed a room. My credit card shrieked when I pulled it out of my wallet, and whined even more when he zipped it through his machine. Even so, the bank said ‘thank you for your purchase’, and the cashier handed me an Alpha-Numeric room key.

The room was small but well appointed, with a comfortable double bed, a television, mini-bar, bathroom, bedside lamps and a large desk with a swivel chair and lamp. I flicked on the tv and sat watching Deal or no deal in French. Despite the language differences, human emotions are the same everywhere, and I soon found myself getting right into the show. After ten minutes viewing I realised what I was doing and snapped out of it and switched the tv off. I had a long luxurious shower, and washed out a couple of tee shirts and some socks while I was at it. Then I dressed in the last of my fresh clothes, and walked out to the exorbitantly priced petrol station café that they dared to call a restaurant.

Despite the prices, it was busy, but not mad, and there were plenty of free tables for me to sit and eat my full roast dinner. It had been handed to me on a large white plate covered by a silver lid, and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in, I was famished. I lifted the lid off to find a morsel of food that wouldn’t keep a Goldfish alive, let alone a road-weary biker with a more than healthy appetite. Rather than just scoff it straight down though, I thought I’d have a closer look and see exactly what I got for my fourteen Euros.

1 x Very thin slice of beef.

2 x Wilted flower of broccoli

9 x tiny rounds of carrot.

17 x Peas.

28 x kernals of sweetcorn.

There wasn’t a potato anywhere in sight, nor gravy. I went up to the servery and asked for some potato and gravy, and maybe just about five times of everything else too. There wasn’t any potato I was told, and if I wanted gravy it would be another 4 Euros. I went and sat back down sans gravy, and ate my meagre expensive dinner in two or three bites, then washed it down with a three Euro cup of muddy-water coffee. Back in my room I sat up till after one in the morning, listening to the Stereophonics and writing my journal. Outside, the autoroute hummed with traffic, and dark, heavy clouds rumbled overhead. I thought about how I’d be in Paris tomorrow, and seeing Lyndal again for the first time in more than three years. I wondered what it would be like to see her again, and in Paris of all places.

Pt 12 Heading north to Pisa.

Wednesday 26^th May 2010

We walked around Stefans bike and then around mine, comparing luggage, comparing ride heights, drinking coffee and eating marmalade on toast. I told Stefan of my great desire to own a bike like his, and asked if he’d mind me sitting on it. “You can take it for a ride if you like Tim” He said, handing me the keys. A voice from above whispered ‘God don’t really do deals isn’t, but here you go I guess”. I looked at Stefan like he’d just given me a winning lottery ticket. “Really, are you sure?” He was sure all right; I was the same as him after-all, a biker on a journey, why shouldn’t he be alright with it. He gave me a quick run through the gear configuration and the various knobs and switches, and said I’ll see you soon, then he put some water on the boil, and I started up the bike.

To say the ride was smooth is to say the sea is made of water, or that the Stars are a long way off; but to say the ride truly was god-given is closer to the truth. The engine thrummed like a heavenly choir, and the gears changed up and down like they knew my very mind. I moved off from the grass and onto the gravel track where I opened the throttle, and felt the machine come to life beneath me. I took it over the pine-needled woodland floor and through mud-filled bulldozer tracks. I ran it third-geared up the side of rough-hewn track-land and down through the trees to the sandy beach abutting the camp. The bike was like an animal I’d come to know well, and never questioned for a moment the why’s and wherefore of my requests. It was a high bike though, and my feet could barely touch the ground less on tip-toe. It was nonetheless the most stable bike I’ve ever sat upon. Not for the slightest of moments did I have any fear that I might not be able to control it, nor that it would slide out from under me, nor lose it’s own footing on the loose, rough gravelled roadway, or the deep, muddy trenches I took it through. After a fifteen-minute ride through the woodland, I alighted from it back at the campsite, and ranted and raved like an excited schoolboy about how great it was, but not before Stefan took a photo of me sitting on it. My deal with God was done.

We shared another coffee, smoked another cigarette, and packed away our respective camps. With the sun rising high overhead we swapped e-mail addresses and backslaps and handshakes, and promised we’d stay in touch. Moments later, two thousand cubic centimetres roared in perfect harmony as we rode out of the camp side by side. At a crossroad, we turned in opposite directions, and with waved hands held high, we bid each other fare thee well. Then the road to Livorno and Pisa became my sole focus, and I was back on the road again, my guts burbling in time with the engines subliminal roar.

The road to Pisa was little more than a blurry and way too long experience I’d rather not have had. For the most part, I simply felt sick, my repeated attempts at inducing vomit amounting to nothing more than making my condition seem worse. I did however reach Pisa by about 4pm, and after a futile attempt to find the leaning tower, I booked myself into a hotel where I promptly dumped all my luggage on the floor of my room and almost immediately fell asleep. When I woke again, the sun was on it’s last legs, and I saw that I had slept for over five hours. I had a headache again and my stomach was bloated. I was sure I needed to eat though, and staggered off the bed and made my way to reception. The man on desk there was a miserable old sod who made no effort to communicate whatsoever. So despite my willingness to attempt his language, and after too many shrugged shoulders and ignorant looks of indifference, I smiled and said. “Well fuck you very much for nothing anyway”, and went in search of somewhere to eat.

The end of the road took me to the Pisa University restaurant, where blooms of twenty-year-old students were gathered; waiting to eat good food at heavily discounted rates. As I was neither a student nor a twenty year old, I kept on walking. A footpath sign read ‘Full English breakfast all day long’. Had I been healthy, the idea of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and sausage could have quite appealed to me, but in my condition the very smell of it made me queasy, so I hurried on by holding my mouth. A yoghurtaria took my eye, but I figured it would make a better dessert than main course, so I kept on walking but kept it in mind. The air was clear as I made my way northward past Italian restaurants serving too rich food, and street vendors selling tat and giftware from battered cases and dodgy-looking car boots. Above the tall roofline I could make out a shining castellation type structure, but took little notice as the lingering aromas of the town was both hungering and tormenting me beyond anything else. There had to be something simple around there surely, a sandwich-bar would have been perfect, but nothing that straightforward seemed to exist in Italy anywhere I’d been so far, so my hopes weren’t high. As the street began to broaden into a square of sorts, I found a small but brightly lit pavement café serving simple wraps, coffees and teas, chips and burgers and cold drinks. I sat down, ordered a chicken and salad wrap and bought a bottle of Peach flavoured Ice-tea. A man sat there going through currency exchange rates on an Apple I-pad, while his wife bemoaned the fact that their housekeeper had to return unexpectedly to Mexico. A young man sat in the corner on his own, chain-smoking cigarettes and jittering like a victim of shell shock. I scoffed the wrap greedily; it felt good going down, and the ice tea was cooling, and refreshed me somewhat. I paid the bill, and then walked on to see what the square held in store.

With the last of the suns rays playing rainbows on it’s tilted and lopsided length, the leaning tower of Pisa set within the Piazza dei Miracoli looked like a stick of kaleidoscopic Blackpool rock. There were very few people around, save those sitting in the peripheral bars and cafés enjoying the view from afar. The great Cathedral too was flood-lit, and the domed building of the Baptistery shone like it was lit from within, like a Chinese lantern perhaps, but alas, I had left my room feeling rather sickly, with scant regard for sightseeing or photography. I walked around the great landmark, admiring the sight I had known for as long as I could remember. Maybe I should go back and get my camera, I thought; but the very idea brought a convulsion to my guts, reminding me that I was sick, and that bed was the only real option. Heading back towards the room and the warm comfort of my recovery bed, I stopped at the Yoghurtaria and bought myself a cone of cherry yoghurt that I slurped on while covering the mile or so back to the Hotel. Back in my room that night, I began what I’d come to remember as a night of sleepless torture. A night where the bathroom and I became intimate companions, where my guts turned inside out as the demons of food poisoning were purged from my bowel; and where for eight or nine hours or more I forgot where I was, or for that matter who I was too.

Thursday 27^th May 2010

I must have slept at some stage, although I really don’t remember when, and the night of purging had taken a heavy toll. I felt completely exhausted, as if I had run a marathon or two and then back again. My head still thumped, and when I tried to stand up, I had to lean on the wall for fear of losing my balance. After a few minutes of uncertain integrity the fog began to clear, and then I realised I was feeling quite hungry, properly hungry in fact, like full English breakfast hungry. Could it be over I wondered, is that it? I sat back on the bed, gently prodding my tender stomach to see what would happen. No, it wasn’t over at all. I dashed to the toilet and continued where I’d left off sometime earlier. Definitely not over, I realised, but just as definitely getting through it. I gathered myself, gathered my affairs, and made my way downstairs to settle my bill. A different miserable old sod was on duty when I booked out of the place, so I like wise told him, “Fuck you very much” as I paid the bill. Then I loaded up the bike and headed back towards the Square of Miracles, and the not so kaleidoscopic leaning tower.

There were people everywhere now; like Ants they marched and walked and scurried and bumped into each other as they jostled into ridiculous pose, trying to ‘hold up’ the tower for a friends camera. I took the obligatory tourist shots to simply show that I had been there, but the sky was like mackerel and the crowd too big and messy to really make anything nice of it. I turned the camera to black and white and searched out some different shots. If I wasn’t able to capture the tower itself, then I’d get some reportage shots of the madness it generated. I moved along the edge of the crowd, pointing my lens at the posers and their comrades taking the pics. I shot the fat American burger queens, struggling their big-mac butts up the fountains steps. I shot the medium format photographer as he set up his Mamiya for a Pulitzer Prize winning picture. I shot the young glamour girls and the Japanese tourists. All the while, unshaven Police stood around in their shirt hanging-out uniforms and filthy shoes, smoking fags and generally looking disinterested as hundreds of tourists shouldered for position to strike the perfect pose. If I couldn’t get a good enough shot of the tower itself, then a postcard with someone else’s perfect shot would do me fine I thought, and went to a nearby souvenir shop and bought exactly that. After an hour my guts were talking to me again, something along the lines of “I really need to be emptied’. So that was it. Pisa had had its time and I was outa there. As I walked to the bike, I could feel a massive pressure building up inside of me. Oh god no; please, not here. I needed the toilet urgently, like yesterday urgently. I tried to walk quicker but that just made it worse. I clenched my cheeks together, trying to force it back in. Oh no, not in the middle of town…aaaargh!

The show that erupted from me was akin to the Ten Commandments, Titanic, Apollo 13, and world war two all rolled into one international event. There was nothing I could do but stand there and take the looks of horror and disgust as everyone within fifty meters of me heard it, and smelled it, and felt it’s massive power. It was mammoth, like biblical and cosmic; like the big-bang. It was the caf de foo-foo of flatulence. The stench was putrid, like the well-rotted flesh a murder victim left to ripen in the sun. People were gagging, and choking and covering their mouths and eyes. Mothers hurried their children inside and bolted the doors quickly behind them. Waiters cleared tables and brought down the shutters. Dogs and cats fled in panic, and the Police called for back-up. I stood there for five minutes with my trousers vibrating as wave after wave of chunder-inducing stink rumbled from my bowel and out into the quickly abandoned street. I began to feel light-headed as my body rebelled against the spasming muscular episode unfolding inside of me. I wanted to sit down but my legs wouldn’t move, they just stood there trembling as megalitres of hot, foul gasses emptied themselves from my inner sanctum and spread like mustard-gas across the cobbled courtyard, seeping in beneath doors, and finding cracks in walls and windows. By early afternoon the worst of it was over, and people were returning to the streets. I had managed by then to make my legs move a little, and had hobbled to a small bench that had withstood the onslaught and was still mostly intact. Here I sat and smiled contently to myself. The police had formed a skirmish line, with riot shields and batons drawn, but after the sniffer dogs had all expired, they decided I was too deadly a force to deal with, and gave me safe passage to leave. The tourists were gathered in a great crowning arc, and were pushing to see the man who’d brought the whole of Pisa to it’s knees. And oh the poor tower of Pisa itself, sadly it leaned no more. Now a crumbled mass of glorious stonework, it lay smashed and broken upon the ground, a victim of my thunderous Italian pay back. There were but two things left to say gentlemen….Oo- and fucking -rah.

Part 11. Deeper into Italy

Monday 24^th May 2010.

“Where are you from?” Christian asked me as I punched my PIN number into the credit card machine the next morning and gritted my teeth hoping it wouldn’t spontaneously combust or burst into hysterical laughter. “Melbourne, Australia” I answered the hotel manager, hoping that the lull in credit card thought might make it not notice my escalating balance due. “That makes more sense’ he responded, “you do not seem like English people, they are so anxious and in a hurry all the time; you my friend mister Bush are nice, like you are relaxed and happy with your life”. I smiled at that. He was right of course, I was feeling very relaxed and happy with my life, why wouldn’t I be? I was on a journey by motorbike through northern Europe and down to Rome, and then onto France for the second leg and a week in Paris with my mate Lyndal. Aside from some self-set very flexible agenda, I really didn’t have to be anywhere, or be doing anything at any particular time. I was free to come and go as I saw fit, and the way I saw it, that was what it was all about…freedom. The credit card machine went ‘beep’ and thanked me for my purchase, and Christian gave me a map of Siena and told me some of the places I really should try and see before setting off to Rome. Then we shook hands warmly and bid each other Ciao.

I found my way easily into the huge medieval Piazza del Campo. The place was alive with tourists and native Sienese sitting in the shade sipping drinks and people watching. As the sunlight played on old and young alike, strolling in the massive open space, licking ice creams and munching foccacia’s, I snapped many pictures, but try as I might, I just couldn’t get a well exposed photograph of the great bell tower that dominated the square. The sun was directly behind it and no matter my efforts I either ended up with a dreadfully over-exposed shot, or one that came in silhouette form, denying the tower of it’s wealth of beauty and fine artisan detail. Youngsters played and splashed water from the trickling spring, and mothers took photographs of their children looking in awe at the intricate statues adorning the fountains and water filled ponds of the plaza’s northern side. I bought myself a blueberry ice cream and struggled against the suns heat to finish it before it melted as I strolled lazily uphill through the tiny, shadowed lanes to the Piazza del Duomo where the Duomo di Siena, or Cathedral of Siena itself stood in emblazoned sunlit glory.

Sweet mesmeric music drifted to meet me as I climbed the stairs to enter the piazza. A violinist there moved with his music, feeling every note, living every sweet, sweet tone that wept from his strings in tortured ecstasy. I sat on the ground, resting my back against some great column and listened as he breathed in his strings and totally immersed himself in his rapturous passion. I called out ‘Bravo’ and tossed him some Sheckles, then I walked through to the nearby cathedral; a magnificent gleaming white structure filled with the tiniest of details and sculpted by the hand of pure craft. It was medieval Gothic, at least I thought so, but the statues and gargoyles that peered down from it’s highest of high points definitely understood contemporary slob. They laughed and ridiculed me and my efforts to capture there existence on camera, led to Ice cream running down my arm and splattering across my not so white T-shirt and onto my jeans and then my shoes. Did anyone notice that? I wondered as I attempted to clean myself up without being obvious. Of course they did. Children pointed me out to their parents, a Nun walked by and looked me in disdain, a photographer pointed his lens at me and said ‘Messy’; but did I care? no not really, for just like the age old stonework, the peeling paintwork and the rusted iron railings that filled so much of Siena, I was just another part of the scene; and besides, the alluring aroma of Pizza was calling me from not too far away, and my stomach was telling me to eat.

So I paid five euro’s and got a slice of pizza and a small can of coke. The coke was fine as far as coke goes, but the pizza was definitely a little bit dodgy, it really didn’t worry me though, I’d probably eaten worse before. Nor did it worry me as I sat at the side of the road eating it and drinking coke that the local Carbinieri pulled up alongside my bike and told me I couldn’t park it there and had ten minutes to be gone before they came back. I’d done Siena now anyway, and within an easy hours riding I would be seeing the distant hills surrounding Rome. I rode on south to a campsite at the Boisierre lakes, and unravelled myself from the day, typing out my thoughts on a less then fully charged laptop.

“I, for one, have an idea that he will never bring this journey off’. So read the words of Homers Odyssey; and I for one, have likewise thought the same. As I sat in the tent that night, flicking through the pages of a well-loved and much-read book, it occurred to me that tomorrow I’d actually be in Rome, I’d have reached the halfway point of my own odyssey, and that from there I’d be heading back towards the uk again. ‘What, I wonder will be the elixir I shall return home with? I have yet to seize the Golden fleece of my journey’. The almost-full moonlight dancing on the water reminded that the stage of completion was near. Any moment now, I would be entering into the great Ordeal where my resolve would be tested fully, and my reward bestowed upon me should I survive the unknown test. I finished writing for the night, and then walked to the campsites washroom where I could re-charge the laptop in one of the power points lining the wall there. As I stood there with nothing but the sound of insects buzzing in my ear, my stomach began to rumble, and an acid bile rose slowly into my throat.

Tuesday 25^th May 2010 ‘See Rome and die’

I wish I could say that Rome was a the crowning glory of my adventure, that it was everything I hoped it would be, and that the journey to get there simply paled into insignificance when compared to the splendour that was Rome itself; but I cant. Maybe I could blame the rampaging microorganisms that curdled in my gut for my very downhearted opinion of Rome. On the other hand, maybe the Peugeot driver bumping my rear wheel at sixty miles an hour as I rode tourist like along the pencil-pined roadways didn’t help my demeanour either. Perhaps it was the slight ache in my left foot from smashing the Italian drivers’ side mirror off as he pulled up alongside me. It probably had a lot to do with the insane amount of vehicle and pedestrian traffic there, and also the fast-paced, cheap, tackiness of it all I don’t know for sure what it was that made me dislike Rome so much, but that’s simply how it was, and I have no desire to ever return.

I’d bought a map as I entered the city, and had worked out roughly where I was and where I wanted to go. First up was the Vatican, then I’d planned on going to the Colosseum, and from there I figured I’d just make the rest up as I went along. So I started off along this great five lane roadway that resembled the starting grid of a formula one race track. Cars drove at a ridiculous speed, changing lanes with total abandon and zero regard for anyone other than themselves. Scooters in their hundreds zipped in and out, weaving through the tapestry of traffic like a demented bobbin on a loom. Road markings meant nothing and traffic lights even less. Red became Go. Green became Stop, and Amber didn’t exist, and no matter my attempts to move left or right, the traffic simply forced me to follow a route I really didn’t want. After twenty minutes, I found myself near the Olympic stadium, where I managed to pull out of the flow of madness and park the bike at the side of the road. I stood there a while feeling decidedly unwell, and watching this never-seen-the-like-of-before, mass of machinery go by in some kind of orchestrated insanity to which I didn’t possess a score. I rolled a smoke and pulled out the map. I could see roughly where I was, but couldn’t quite rationalise which direction I was actually facing. I stopped a girl in the street and asked for some help in finding the Vatican. I figured it was an important enough landmark for everyone in Rome to know how to get there, so I was quite surprised when she told me in rough English “it’s either up this way or down that way’. Great, I thought, I’ve got a fifty-fifty. She then phoned a friend, but he couldn’t help either. I was two lifelines down and none the wiser; I figured I’d ask the audience, and called out “The Vatican, does anyone have any idea how I get there?” About 75% pointed left, and the rest simply looked at me blankly; that was good enough for me. I thanked the girl and everyone else, then locked in Left, and headed back the way I’d just come. Half an hour later I parked the bike amongst a great stand of scooters and sat at the side of the road holding my pounding head in my hands and feeling vomit rising closer and closer to the surface. I had no idea where I was, I thought all roads lead to Rome, but here they all seemed to take me into one-way lanes that led off in every direction except the one I needed. I guzzled water, I sweated, I spat burning bile from my mouth. My breath tasted rancid as I burped into my hand, and my stomach was bloated and aching; all I wanted to do was find a road to get me the hell out of there. I was beginning to hate Rome, and it wasn’t even Rome’s fault. I strained to find a way through on my map, but it didn’t seem to matter what the map told me, as the reality of the streets was completely different. “Fuck it” I screamed into my helmet, and went straight up a one-way street in the wrong direction. Cars blasted their horns, scooters dared to play chicken with me, but didn’t realise I was past caring, and more than one ended up doing the sidewalk as a last second decision. Suddenly I knew where I was. A sign pointed me to St. Peters square just a hundred meters away. I sideswiped a scooter “get the hell outa my way” and cut across it and up onto the wide footpath where pedestrians scrambled to avoid me and my right on the very edge attitude of, talk to me and die. I leaped off the bike, ripped off my helmet and tried to breath. My guts were foul, I wanted to let rip the tremendous wind that had built up inside of me but nothing would happen; I couldn’t even burp properly. My head was spinning, my body racked in a cold sweat, and I was rapidly becoming dehydrated. I guzzled down water at a stupid rate, but all it did was add to my already bloated and uncomfortable stomach that ached as if I’d swallowed a football. I knew it would pass eventually, that all I had to do was walk it off, drink plenty of water, eat some plain food and soak up the nasties eating me inside out; but I could barely stand up straight, let alone walk in 30-degree heat. I soldiered on though, through a thousand people or more, all jostling for position on footpaths that were way too narrow, I crossed roads, dodging traffic that would rather run me over than slow down or even stop for the red-light in front of them. All I had to do was reach St. Peters square and see the Vatican. At least then, I could find a place to stay the night, work through the sickness that was rapidly devouring me, and tomorrow I could make my way out to the Colosseum and take some time out to enjoy the rest of the glory that was surely Rome.

So I sweated my way up the hell that led me into St. Peters Square, dodging the Hot-dog sellers and the purveyors of everything cheap and nasty. I shouldered tacky tourist bus spruikers aside with a don’t even think about it glare, and ignored the pretty little things in their tiny little skirts who tried in vain to shove all manner of pamphlets into my hand at every crack in the pavement. Eventually the vast columned circle called a square opened up before me. Towering Roman-built architecture surrounded me, dizzying me with its height, dazzling me with its brilliance and bringing gut-turning convulsions to me with its vulgar and tat-filled interior. The Vatican building itself was immense, but so out of reach through the swirling crowd of tourists queuing for miles to get in, that it may as well have been a hundred miles away. Priests stood amongst enthralled, ice cream toting audiences, telling the story of Saint Peter and his execution in the square, and all the while the cry of ‘Hot-dogs, souvenirs, cheap-crap for sale’ filled the area that was the seat of the Catholic church, reducing it to little more than the like of a travelling circus arena. I stood by the fountain and filled my water bottle there. An American woman in a god-awful floral top pointed to me and said to her equally fashion unconscious husband, “Hey Frank, I don’t think he should be doing that, why don’t you go say something to him?” I gazed at them with maniacal eyes while emptying the entire bottle over my head, soaking my shirt, my trousers and everything else around me. “Go ahead Frank, make my day”. I shook the water from my hair, scrubbed at my eyes and let out a huge belch. God it tasty vile, like someone had taken a crap in my mouth and left it to ripen in the sun for a few days; but it relieved some of the pressure in my gut, and the water had cooled my temper a little. I watched Frank walk away with his wife nagging at his tail between his legs, and made my way into the mass of age-old stone columns and sat in the shade for a while, trying to decide how I felt about it all, and what the hell I was going to do about it.

A man was playing in the small waterspout there with his young son. He was chasing after him, and splashing water and making monster faces and sounds. The boy was giggling and laughing hysterically. After a minute or so the mans wife arrived with another two children, they were both girls aged about seven or eight, and dressed in pretty little dresses with their hair done in sparkly tinsel and ribbons. Immediately I thought about my girls in Melbourne, and walked to the nearby Vatican post office where I bought them a nice card, wrote them some loving words and then posted it. The moment I put the card in the post-box I knew my time there was done, and I had to make plans for my escape.

I walked back to the fountain and refilled my bottle yet again. I took a long hard slug from it, put it back in my bag and braced myself for the road back. By the time I got to the bike I was near to bursting, I’d drank nearly three litres of water in the past hour or so and my bladder desperately needed emptying. Now I am not so gauche to urinate in public, but by that time, I’d decided Rome was nothing but a toilet anyway, and had sent numerous text messages to that effect. Even so, I needed to find a proper loo, and I needed to find one quickly; I also needed to a get out of Rome free card. I roared alongside the Tiber River, circled around the town centre time and time again, and crossed the same bridge four times, but Rome wouldn’t let me out. Somehow I got myself onto a ring road that circled the town, and despite my best efforts, I wasn’t getting away without a fight. With my guts on fire and my bladder on the very edge of letting go completely, I darted across three lanes of traffic and into a petrol station where I settled matters with my insides, and filled the bikes tank and re-ordered my thoughts. Somehow, I had to find a chink in Rome’s armour and thrust a sharp pointy stick into it, but its guardians were clever, and re-routed me over and over into a labyrinth of one-way roads that took me only deeper and deeper into the beast’s bone-littered lair.

“So how did you manage to get out of there?” Stephen asked me over a hot cup of coffee and a cold German sausage. “Dogged determination” I told him. “That and playing the beast at its own game and going where I wanted to go, not where it sent me”. I’d forced my way through the traffic, I’d ridden straight through Red-lights, and I’d beeped and tooted and abused and kicked the scooters, cars and pedestrians that got in my way. Eventually I’d made my way onto the Auto route and just kept going as long as I could. By eight o’clock that night I was drained and in desperate need of some food and somewhere to lay my head down. I saw a sign for a campsite near the town of Civvitavechio, so turned off the Auto route and wound my way towards a large Pine forest where I found the camps entrance, set in a woodland clearing.

It was very quiet there, not a peaceful quiet mind you, but an eerie quiet. It was dark too, but not a nighttime dark, more a Stephen King type dark. The woman behind the desk spoke little English, and my Italian had never even got passed Go. I read the Tariffs board and worked out it’d cost me 18 euros for the night, more if I wanted electricity. Fine, I really didn’t care, I just wanted to eat something even though It’d probably make me sick, which wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I handed over my passport and credit card, but the credit card machine wouldn’t work, so I reluctantly handed over 20 Euros, and then had to ask her for the change. I asked where the restaurant was, she said it was closed. Okay, so what about the shop that’s advertised on the front board then? It was closed too she told me. ‘Is there anywhere I can get something to eat here, anything at all?” She shrugged her shoulders, out of either disinterest, or non-comprehension. Bloody hell, if I hadn’t felt so done-in I’d have turned around and ridden straight out of there again, but I was wasted, and really needed to sleep.

“And so here you are now, enjoying a hot drink and eating German sausages”. Stephen said as he pulled a map-case out of his pannier and made his way to the table where I was sitting.

The receptionists’ husband had come out and bid me follow him on my bike to where I should put my tent up. We wound our way past deserted caravans that looked like they’d not seen life for years. I followed him deeper and deeper into the woodland; past the deserted and derelict restaurant, and the boarded-up shop with it’s remnants of long-passed holidays still sitting on the rickety verandah, and its tattered curtains peering out at me through filthy broken windows. It got darker and gloomier the further we went. I thought that maybe I could be murdered here tonight, and my body be buried in a shallow grave and all my belongings sold on e-bay. The track swung left past a pile of freshly felled trees, then right, towards a large washroom complex. The driver stopped his car here and pointed from his window to a large patch of open grass surrounded by a wild-looking hedge. I waved my hand as he drove away, and turned the bike into an opening in the hedgerow and onto the grassy campsite where I saw a man boiling water on a camp stove beside his tent. Parked to one side was a motorbike as laden with luggage as my own. It was a BMW GS 1150, and belonged to a doctor from Hanover in Germany named Stephen.

“And yeah, for sure there were other sights I’d wanted to see” I told him after retelling my tale of horror in Rome, “but after the circus Vatican, I wasn’t about to have my vision of the colosseum blown apart too. I didn’t want all my bubbles burst at once”.

Stephen had arrived at the campsite an hour or so before I had, and had likewise felt uneasy about being there. He said that he had considered packing up and leaving but couldn’t face the prospect of having to find another place at night, and going through the whole breaking camp, and setting up routine all over again. When he’d heard my bike coming along the track though, he’d decided that things were possibly looking up, and had put some water on the boil for what he rightly considered my much-needed coffee. We sat at the table of a long deserted caravan and pored over maps of the Alps, and shared stories and coffee and cigarettes. My guts were still very unsettled, but the sausage meat and the Mars bars that Stephen offered went a long way toward making me feel better. He’d ridden down from Hanover to Trento in Italy, just fifty miles north of Verona on the first day of his week-long trip, a journey of nearly a thousand kilometers, and was on his way to Rome to see the Vatican. Well that had been his plan until he met me and I told him of my experience there. We laughed about where we were, and talked about our respective lives, and why we did what we did; but the day had taken its toll on me, and before too long I had to call it a night with the promise we would talk again in the morning. I fell asleep that night not feeling any better, but not feeling any worse either, and when I awoke in the morning the sun was fully up, and the sinister woodcutters forest seemed less morose, but still a little surreal

Pt. 10 Superbikes to Florence

Saturday 22^nd May 2010

Today I needed to make Florence –the town, not the woman-, but the best laid plans of mice and men etcetera…

I ‘ve spent too much time gawking and not enough time riding, but ‘je ne regret rien’. Nonetheless I needed to make up some time, so I took the high-speed autostrausser to Bologne then turned off towards Florence, but I took the wrong turn, and instead of turning around, I did the only sensible thing I could do; I took another turn to see where it would take me.

Braaaaam-braaaaam, vroom vroom…braaaaaaaaam. Screaming superbikes were everywhere, I’d pulled straight onto a race track with a loaded up touring bike that had the handling ability of a boat in a forest. The road ran from Rioveggio across to Loiano, a distance of about twelve miles give or take a snake-turn or two, and it was where the boys came out to play. If I thought the road through the Alps was a winding wonderland, then I was in for an enormously big ‘HELLO’ from above. It was exhilarating riding, even on a tractor, as the sticky black track swung left then right then left and left again. Harder, harder, tighter, faster, steeper. Left, right, left right, hairpin turn. Downhill, faster, faster, screaming revs. My heart in my mouth. Up gear, down gear, down another gear, brake hard…harder. Screeching tyres, smoking rubber, burning brakes, screaming engine, sphincter twittering, nail-biting edge of the seat, magnificent fucking Oo-rah’s gentlemen! But fast and hard as I was going, I was never a match for those who knew their stuff, and screaming wheels raced past me with sparks flying off their foot pegs and leather shredding from their knee-pads at every turn. Leathered lothario’s diced with Adonis in jeans as Aprilla’s, Buell’s, Bmw’s Cagiva’s, Fireblades and every conceivable make and model of superfast bike that’s ever been born, raced down this madness of track called a road that cars simply knew to avoid. The air was electric, the sound was phenomenal, the stench was addictive and the whole place alive and dynamic. The road reached a junction where even the boldest held their breath. While cars drove sheepishly passed, and their drivers looked meekly away; the racers held their steel, then when the racetrack was clear, they screamed off with one wheel raised high, and raced to the sky up the other side of the valley.

But the thought of doing it all again was too much for me, so I turned off into a pretty little woodland where bunnies and fairy’s lived, and made a cup of tea and had a sandwich, and considered an afternoon nap.

As the water boiled, and steam filled the high-octane air that intruded into the waterside woodland, I could feel the adrenaline being carried away on a fast-flowing stream of fairy-tale lullaby music. Presently serenity returned, and the rush of nervous energy was drained, and I again became as one with the world. I drank my tea whilst sitting on a rock in the water, dangling my feet like a dreamy child into the cool mountain stream. I wondered whether there were any Trout nearby, and sat there with my eyes peeled looking for the tell-tale sign of a feeding fish. Then a rustling of leaves from the other bank caught my attention, and a barefoot woman stepped down to the waterside.

“Dario, Dario”. She called. But Dario didn’t answer, so she slipped out of her jeans, pulled off her top and stepped into the water wearing just bra and knickers. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. Obviously she hadn’t seen me sitting there in full-view on a rock hiding behind a tree branch, wearing nothing but a camouflaged jacket and my drab khaki greens, and holding a camera in my hand. I remained perfectly still, uncertain exactly of just what to do. The ‘Click’ of the camera would be a dead give-away, but what an opportunity to miss; so I sat there in perfect stillness and silence, enjoying my privileged treat. She started fumbling around her back, nooooo, she was going to take off her bra. Take it off, take it off, take it off, take it off, but then more rustling occurred, and a man arrived and stole the woman away. That was it, the moment was gone and the magic was over; my bubble was burst, and the pricks name was Dario.

I peered down the flow of water. Was that a rising Trout I spied? There it was again, and again. I put my socks and shoes back on, grabbed my affairs, and started back to the bike to get my rod and reel.

I considered setting up camp for the night here, but it was obviously in regular use as Brick bbq’s and litter-bins however discreetly erected, were nonetheless there. I jumped on the bike and sedately rode a mile downstream where I found a track that led to the water’s very edge. There I found a perfect grassy spot hidden from the road, surrounded by trees, the water at my feet, and firewood in abundance. I parked the bike, and without bothering to unpack the rest of the gear, I got my fishing rod together, selected the perfect fly and crept down to the water’s edge. Several minutes went by without tempting a fish. I cast into streams, riffles, eddies and swirling back-flows where large boulders blocked the waters flow, and insects swept round behind into the open mouths of waiting trout…nothing. I walked downstream to where the water divided into two separate runs, and chose the fast gravel one first, leaving the deeper slower pool for when the sun was lower and the Moths came out….still nothing. So the sun wasn’t yet low, and the moths weren’t out, but a caterpillar fly would probably do the trick. No? Maybe a Tadpole pattern then, I’d seen them swimming in the shallows further back. No? How about a Greenwells Glory then, or a Cinnamon and Gold; a Grey hen and Yellow maybe? A cock-y-bundoo, a Black gnat, a bit of bread on a bare hook?…what then? I threw a stone in the water and hoped I’d knock a fish out instead. Down but not out, I walked back to my campsite and set the tent up, and made a cup of tea on a raging fire of driftwood and yesteryears green, green boughs. As I sat sipping my tea and considering what cunning plan to execute next, a movement in the trees caught my eye. What was that I wondered, it did look very big, sorta like a Bear, but surely not in here, not in downtown Tuscany anyway. It was dark-coloured though, and bulky too, maybe it was a Wolf. Did they still have Wolves in Italy? I figured I’d done enough fishing for the day anyway, and quickly gathered as much firewood as I could from as close-by as possible, and built a huge, almost forest-type fire. Then I slipped into the tent, pulled the sleeping bag over my head and prayed that I wouldn’t get mauled before morning…like one time is better than another?

Sunday 23^rd May 2010

I woke up alive and unscathed, which was a good way to start the day I thought. I considered tying on another fly and having a go at the elusive trout again; but then, given my appalling lack of success the previous afternoon I actually wondered whether there was even any point. I made a cup of coffee instead, broke camp and then headed onward towards Florence.

Once again, I found myself entering the racetrack Rioveggio where superbikes played and cars simply didn’t fit in. Within minutes of leaving the babbling brook behind, I was in the heady fuel-injected realm of leathered Lorenzo and his knee-scraping horde of gut-wrenching cornering crusaders. The road now wound its way up the other side of the valley. The engine revved hard in third and second gear corners as I leaned the bike into anti-gravity mode and dared myself lower and closer to the smooth, dark bitumen. The well-versed and infinitely more experienced riders than myself though screamed past me at an alarming rate, leaving me coughing in their exhaust fumes and feeling more than just a bit pathetic and green at this game of ride as fast and skilfully as you can up a road built for speed and high adventure. I pulled into the side of the road at an early opportunity and gave the racers the space and freedom they needed to do what they seemingly did best. I lifted the camera to my face and photographed the madness as they sped adrenaline fuelled into tight, tight corners with knees out wide and dipped down low. The noise filled my senses, the deep, deep strumming of high-tensile pistons pounding inside a fire-filled chamber, and roaring from the machines exhausts intensified and fortified the arena as if a great clamp had been placed around the entire scene and tightened to maximum pressure. I lifted the lens repeatedly as Ducatti’s, Triumph’s, and Suzuki Gixxer’s blurred on by in a mighty rush of power and unimaginable speed and agility. Out of the blue a tourist bus chugged its way awkwardly onto the scene, closely followed by four impatient bikes champing at the bit to get past, and snarling in aggravated impatience. The bus chugged by slowly, and one of the bikes pulled in to where I stood, and parked up. It was a BMW 1200S, a race-built machine ridden by Marco, who regularly races this road

“I had to pull in here for a few minutes,” He told me. “The bus holds us up and so you end up with several bikes all grouped together, wanting to go fast but going way too slow; it’s very dangerous”. I told Marco how Impressed I was with the riders and bikes I’d seen and their ability to handle these insane corners at such high speeds. “Don’t be too impressed” he said, “There are as many bad riders here as there are good ones, and plenty of them come off and end up with very expensive pieces of machinery twisted into nothing but mangled wrecks. Quite a few have died on this road too” he added. “For the likes of Valentino, it is okay, he can afford to go fast, and he can afford to fall off also, but for the rest of us it is still only Sunday, and the sun is shining”. We shook hands and wished each other well, then Marco flicked his machine into life and blasted out of there; the sound of his howling engine still audible long after the sight of him had vanished.

I still had to get to Florence though, that was my goal for the day, so I upped stumps and rode ever upward to the accompanying music of throbbing pistons and snarling exhausts. I reached a plateau quite unexpectedly, and saw Marco’s bike propped up on its stand. Beyond and all around it I saw what must have amounted to over two hundred bikes and bikers, comparing rides, comparing bikes, sharing the thrill and devouring the tales of danger. This was their 19^th hole, the bar at the top of the hill called the Chalet Raticosa. With a constant braaaam-ing of bikes coming and going, I parked my tug-boat amongst the throng and set out with my camera to capture what I could see.

Colours, colours everywhere. Racing Reds, growling greens, blasting blues and fiery oranges. Leather jackets, leather trousers, leather suits. Sponsors names, Agip, Pepsi, NGK, Shell, Playstation, Lucky strike. Helmets and gloves, guys and dolls.. The bar was full and overflowing as I walked up to order myself a beer, and bikers spilled out of there in happy, back-slapping enthusiasm for who they were and what they were doing. Bikes around me everywhere; BMW’s, Buell, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Cagiva, Aprilia, Ducati, KTM’s, Harley’s and Triumphs; virtually every make of bike ever to hit the road had a representative there, and every rider had a story to tell about broken bones, shredded flesh and very-near misses. More than one knew a rider who would never meet them there again, and more than one had attended too many bikers funerals. ‘It’s the rush though’ a young guy on a Ducati 888 told me, ‘when you’re pushing yourself to the very, very edge of where you can go, and you can stay there longer than the other guy, and go faster than the other guy, then there’s nothing else like it in life…except maybe sex of course’.

I pondered the idea of sex on a motorbike for a while, but the thought of clutches, gear levers and throttles somehow tangled with bra-straps, knickers and shoe-laces just didn’t quite cut-it for me; besides, there’d be nowhere to rest an ashtray or a can of beer would there? I came down off the mountain and saw my first of two road accidents involving bikes. Both of them were from too fast, too hard and possibly too deep, and both of them ended in wrecked bikes and bruised but still-breathing riders and pillions. I may not be the fastest or the best rider in the world, I thought as I rode by surveying the carnage and debris-strewn scene, but at least my bike is still upright, with all its bits attached. With time though the mountain became a hill, then in turn a level road. Pine trees gave way to grassland, and then rural became suburban, as the road began to descend again. A river snaked along the valley floor, taking my eyes along with it, and leading me onwards; on towards the city of Florence which had appeared out of the horizon like a crayoned picture before me.

I pulled into the first Piazza I found and parked among a string of buzzing scooters. It was quaint, with a cobbled road and a statue of someone apparently quite important, standing in the middle of the square, looking vaguely imperial and wearing a cloak. I looked around the square a little, then spied a pizzeria and headed towards it.

“G’day. Yeah the one with the Salami on it thanks…cheers mate”

“You’re from Melbourne aren’t you” I said to the young woman ordering the pizza beside me. She was too. Her name was Jenni and she was from Beaumaris on Melbourne’s bayside. She was a law student at Monash spending a couple months on exchange in Florence, studying international law. ‘Aside from that’ she told me, ‘why on earth wouldn’t you want to be in Florence, it’s got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world’. I said I’d have to take her word for it as I’d only just arrived. The only thing I knew about Florence was that Michelangelo’s statue of ‘David’ was here somewhere, and that it was a stopping place for me on the way to Rome. “David’s right around the corner from here” Jen told me, “but it can be a helluva queue sometimes”. We sat for a while chomping pizza and talking about home, while loud American tourists seated nearby complained about the price of the delicious food but praised its quality equally. “I’ve gotta get going” Jen said after half an hour, “I only came down here to get a quick take away, I’ve got an exam two days from now, and I’m way behind already”. With that she was gone, and I was left with the nasal twanging of ‘the second amendment states that…” Blah, blah, blah….yawn. I finished my meal too, and left the gun-control lobby to their debate, and sought out David.

“Lyndal says Hi Dave” I told the huge towering statue set high on a plinth beneath a vast glass dome. ‘Hi Lyndal’ replied David. “Look at the size of your hands’ I said to him, ‘and your feet too, there not really in proportion are they’. “And oh dear… “ I added. “You’ve got a very small willy for a man of your stature” I looked up at David from way down below. His hands and feet were definitely way too big for the rest of his body, and his head looked like it belonged to the Elephant man on a good day.

“Of course Michelangelo deliberately sculpted David disproportionately to emphasise the magnitude of his strength” I heard a female guide telling her massed audience of wide-eyed American followers. I wandered around him, noting the sling hung over his left shoulder and the stone held loosely in his right hand. Oh, David as in David and Goliath I suddenly realised. “And the reason he was sculpted with such enormous hands” She continued, “was to emphasise this strength even more so, for even as a young and slender man he was able do defeat the giant marauder that was his enemy, namely Goliath. Big hands or not I thought, he’s still got a tiny willy.

I’d seen what I’d come to see in Florence, and although there was so much more to this beautiful city I decided to move on. I walked into a small shop and bought myself some bits and bobs, I got some souvenir postcards, and ate an ice cream beside the bike, then I fired it up, jumped aboard and headed towards Siena where I immediately found the Piccola Villa’s, and booked myself in for the night.