The Invasion of France

by Gary Theron

It was an icy November morning when I stopped in at my local Motorrad dealership to have a cup of coffee.  They were having an open day, with free coffee, hot dogs, Charlie Boorman’s bikes on display and all other manner of activity.  Whilst I was clinging gratefully to my coffee, a woman from the Spinal Research charity approached me about a D-Day ride to France, in support of spinal research.  Thinking forward to summer, I signed up on the spot.  And what’s more, She Who Must Be Obeyed was to go with me.

The day drew nearer, and we organised for the girls to go to some friends for the weekend.  We watched the weather forecast nervously all week and eventually resigned ourselves to pretty mediocre conditions.  On the Friday night we dropped off the girls and returned to a remarkably quiet house.  The Saturday morning dawned wet and miserable, but we kitted up and headed for Dover, undeterred.  On arrival at the Eurotunnel we met the group of guys we’d be riding with for the weekend – a really decent bunch of people.  A very long queue of bikes snaked its way onto the train, and we set about meeting and greeting.

65 years ago to the day, the D-Day invasion of Europe began, to beaches just a little further south than our destination.  That invasion comprised 156 000 troops and met with a significantly more hostile reception than we were to encounter.  Our group of (mostly BMW) bikes paled in comparison to the 6 000 ships in 1944, but as the train’s doors opened the deep rumble of motorcycle engines underlined our own mini invasion of French soil, greeted by dry roads and good weather.  Our little group headed eastwards initially, and then eventually south west towards Le Touquet.  Our ‘road less travelled’ route took us through little villages, beautiful forests, and some really decent twisties.  After a wonderful ride we all grouped up outside of Le Touquet, and triumphantly descended upon the town together.

After the obligatory photos on the promenade, we parked the bike, changed out of the biking kit and took a stroll through the little market outside our hotel.  Jules and I had been adamant that wine and cheese were to feature heavily on the weekend’s agenda, and to this end we descended on a cheese stall in the market.  The proprietor spoke no English and we spoke no French (except for the thoroughly inappropriate language learned from my days at a French investment bank in London), but he was enthusiastic about letting us taste everything.  We walked away from that stall having bought a significant chunk of this stock.  We strolled down the main street, had some lunch and just enjoyed the atmosphere of this little beach resort town.

In the afternoon Jules had a nap while I joined a group of guys on a ride out to the site of the Battle of Agincourt.  The riding was good, but the navigation was suspect due to a dodgy waypoint that had been provided, and we found ourselves in a farmer’s paddock in the middle of nowhere, the witty banter flowing nicely.  We had a really good ride back to Le Touquet, and it was nice to get out of our biking kit for the day.  We took another stroll through town, to find a tug of war going on in the high street.  We retired to the beach and settled in next to some chaps playing on their guitars, and made ourselves comfy with a Chardonnay and some Kronenbourg while the evening sun gently settled over the sea.,  We’d paid a visit to a boulangerie earlier and procured a huge baguette to accompany the mountain of cheeses, so there was no need to go out for supper.  We settled into a pub in town to watch the evening coming to life.  The rest of the group descended on the pub and by all accounts we gave a thoroughly good account of ourselves at the bar.  Certainly, there were tales of woe aplenty the next morning.

Sunday dawned clear and beautiful again (although it’d apparently bucketed down overnight), and Jules and I took a walk to the beach and had a desperately-needed breakfast.  The group broke into two – one half who were going to set sail for home ASAP, and other half who were going to take the scenic route back.  We attached ourselves firmly to the latter, and set off for Calais just after midday.  We had a magnificent ride through the countryside, stopping in the village of Samer to eat some of the freshly-picked strawberries.  One of the group ran into problems with the wheel bearing on his Suzuki, so we waited in a village working through options and trying to find a solution.  We transferred his luggage (and partner) to another bike and set off for Calais really slowly, trying to nurse his bike back to Dover, where he could have it cheaply recovered.  On reaching Calais we realised we’d missed our train, but grabbed a final baguette and waited for next available one.  On board the train the banter flowed freely, and somewhere under the English channel we realised we’d moulded into a group of good mates.  As the train pulled into Dover we said our goodbyes and headed out in the Kentish countryside, heading back for Otford and our two little girls.

The bluetooth headsets allowed Jules and I to chat uninterrupted all the way, and it was just so relaxing to not have to worry about children or schedules or anything.  We had a thoroughly relaxing weekend, and the opportunity to stretch the GS’s legs is never unappreciated either.  The locals were brilliantly friendly, our new mates were great and it was just a wonderful two days.  I’m hoping this sets the standard for a number of similar trips in future.