BALOO!! 27^TH JUNE 2004.

Weather dry, warm, with flash flooding non-optional!

Distance 250 miles approx on ¾ of a tank!!(Bring it on)

Duration 8.ooam start until 8.00pm (for some!)

RIDERS BIKE

Budge/Di BIRD (wearing new boots, or Wellingtons!)

`Fast Sal` Baby GS

Father Charlton R1150GS (sponsored by Walls)

Andrew Woodward BIRD

Nick Twissell VARADERO (this bike suits, Nick)

Peter Pemberton Bennett 600 DIVERSION

Lloyd Fenech R1 (bit like a rash)

Simon Forrayan 1200 BANDIT (for now!)

Steve/Zoe Mason 750 GSXF

Graham Bailey ADVENTURE!!Black Beauty

`Lovely morning, sun shining, warm air and I arrive at BEW like a mother returning to the nest with worms, to be greeted by its young with all mouths gawping wide! Well..

Unintentionally, (well almost) I had made a fateful stop at BVM a couple of nights before, and had run a pair of dewy eyes over `Black Beauty` my now current steed; a wonderfully endowed GS Adventure no less, with as much charisma as my good self!!(Dare I say a perfect match!)? So I guess the level of surprise was expected.

With all the usual banter out of the way, we set off towards our breakfast stop, which eventually turned out to be a Little Chef on the A303 at Amesbury just West of Andover and very well appointed, this gave Father Charlton and myself an ideal opportunity to exchange comments and views on how size really matters!.

After much merriment and discussion on how many ice creams we could both sell or carry for that matter! We set off once again making good progress in the general direction of Beaulieu in the New Forest, where a motorcycling extravaganza was hopefully taking place.

Eventually access to the massive event was smooth thanks to Budge`s pre ticket booking, but only after a good couple of miles of frenetic narrow lane filtering, which made for a baptism of fire as far as judgment of the width of my newly acquired cool boxes were concerned.(move over mate, or suffer the consequences of an aluminum battering ram!)

Our day just flew by, so much to see, so little time, and we still had the ride home to look forward too!, once we had negotiated our way out of Beaulieu,and survived the onslaught of a flash flood including thunder and lightening, coupled with an impromptu stop for tea in Warminster due to a RTA induced police road block, courtesy of the flash flood which ended up us having to take a cross country detour, all of which I might add, Black Beauty took in it’s stride.(an Adventure, within an Adventure!)

Having travelled the trusty A350, after only just keeping in touch with both Simon and Steve deploying overtakes like Vets, we eventually reached the outskirts of Cirencester where it was time to say farewell as we all split like a well executed display by the Red Arrows, another day of memories, and time spent with like minded individuals that I wouldn’t swop for anything…`well may be a`..!

My thanks to everyone listed above, with special thanks going to Di for making sure Budge made was up and on time to lead us out!!!! Eh…. Rigar!

Capt Canary `sweeping`