Bergerac to Vienna in one 'Hit'

Bergerac to Vienna in one 'hit'

With travel partner Bjorn ahead of me by at least a few days, it seemed like a good idea to press on by burning my way across the far west part of Europe. The other driver for me heading off out on a very long-ride, was that I needed to pick up a transit visa from the Turkmenistan embassy in Vienna. After they'd told me on the phone that they weren't open after midday Friday, I did a quick check on Michelin's online router and my Garmin GPS to spit out some time/distance guesstimates. They were telling me 1600 Kilometres in around 18 hours. It was do'able. If I could make it, then wouldn't have to wait till Monday and the consulate weekly office hours run-around to start up again. Yup, sounds good ... Wednesday 3pm the decision was made. The intention would be to ride all day, and if not too knackered through the night too. Having done many 12-hour plus nightshift's previously during my working life, the thought didn't phase me too unduly. I wonder though looking back at it now, if I knew what the coming night was going to bring, if I would have still started out with such grand plans.

A 5.am start Thursday morning saw darkness herald the beginning of the ride. Setting out, the small French lanes were negotiated with some care, to ensure that sleep and general doziness was left back at my friends place where I'd been staying. Once I started to migrate onto the main roads towards Bergerac, the first hint of light crept across the scene. That first bit in the dark had been a good chance to check out the head-light adjustment, which previously showed the beam pointing skywards. Seeing as none of the other early road-users were flashing their annoyance at me, I assumed my dipped beam wasn't blinding them. So it looked like I'd got that somewhere handy after all ...

As is usual the chill of the early morning was initially kept at bay by body core-temperature reserve stolen from a warm bed. This soon dropped away, and an hour later I was considering putting extra layers on. Being the travel-hardened endurance biker that I was, I sniffed at such wimpish thoughts. I rode on with a shiver ...

My recollection of that day was of moderately cool weather, with the odd heavy looking cloud threatening away off in the distance. I think it was when I crossed over into Switzerland briefly that a big nasty looking band of cloud darkly laden with incipient rain appeared to be forming, exactly where I didn't want to see it. Right in front of me! But hey, luck was on my side and found that the mountains which were attracting all that black stuff, gradually moved to my left with the road veering off in the other direction. It looked like I was going to get away without another soaking, as per the ride down to France a few days back. A decidedly helpful thought, with darkness now approaching. I didn't fancy any rain during my first night-ride ...

It's something of a blur thinking back now. And if I want to be honest, would need to get the map of Europe out to tell you the exact route I actually took. But what had happened sometime over the course of the day, is that my internal default navigation system had kicked-in. What this entails, is that so long as I was headed in the general direction of where I wanted to go, was happy to follow the front wheel with some contentment. Finding that an occassional glance at a map during refuelling stops, and along with pulling the GPS out to a bigger scale, to show the whereabouts of the bigger cities on route were in relation to a little black arrow on the screen which was me, was good enough to keep me rolling on through ....

After going through the day, the failing light indicated the coming change to the night-shift. That meant it was time switch the brain over into full auto-pilot, where the more I was able to resist the urge to do anything resembling cohesive thought, the better. Past experience shows that putting the brain cells that detect the passing of time, are best put into 'sleep' mode till me n' Dakar landed in Vienna. I don't recall where it was precisely. It was dark, and the thought kind of hit me ... It's night and you've gotta keep going now no matter what. It'd be pretty pointless pulling in to a road-side inn to sleep, as it was gone midnight, so felt I was commited to get as far as I can. Knowing the only thing to do if a wall of tiredness hit me somewhere along the way, was a road-side kip. To literally stop wherever I am, lay down in the gutter and cat-nap. Recognising the difference between normal tiredness and something more serious, is the long-distance travellers life-saver. Grab a few zedzzzz there and then, or what soon follows is a real risk of wipe-out. The possibility of smearing myself up some foreign autoroute. I give myself a mental bollokin. 'You can get that thought right out of your head mate!' I think I actually said the words. There would be no falling asleep on the bike during this ride!

Now it's strange what goes through your mind, when you're riding through the night. Truth be told it's a kind of flatline of thought, with few if any peaks of active rationale. Mostly it seemed to me I was turning over really simple things like ... Ooh look, I'm doing 50 mph. That's about 80 Km/hr. Guess if I can do 50 and a bit mph, that'd be 85 Km/hr. And as an example if a passing distance sign shows as 85 Km to a particular town, even I can work out I'll get there in an hour if I'm travelling at 85 Km/hr. I can't do it now, but I actually did some fairly complex calculations, so the actual speed at any given moment could be converted to how many hours it was to Vienna, or the next town on route. I'd better explain though, in saying Vienna here while writing, that as final destination was just too far off to focus on during the early hours of pitch darkness. The way it was handled was to break the journey into chunks, using things like big towns or border crossings as milestones. Somewhere to mentally pat myself on the back, for getting there without turning myself into another road accident statistic for whichever country I was in. The GPS could do all of this working out for me, but thought it'd be fun (though I don't think that fun's really the right word). Well let's put it this way ... And you can try it yourself, the next time you want to get from Bergerac to Vienna. As dull and feeble as it sounds, it's just a simple bit brain exersise, which can be infinitetly entertaining to get you through a long and tedious night of drive/riding. The 'time till destination calculating' game knows no bounds, as it's possible to get right down to increments of ½ mph or less, and is continously changing. But the 'hook' is that the ETA should constantly be reducing. I think I must've kept that one going for hours. Or at least till another thought came creeping insidiously from the back to the front of my vaguely conscious mind. 'I'm tired'. Is something you are always aware of, during a long night-time sesh' of just about anything excepting perhaps a nightout on the town when you're hot-to-trot. The word takes on a tangible shape sometime between 1 & 3 a.m. D'ya know I can actually tell you what this thought looks like too. It looks like this. T-I-R-E-D. But sometimes was a kind of a bit more elongated. Especially as the night wore on. In that case it became a sort of ... T-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-R-E-D. What I didn't want to see was a T-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-r-e-d-d-d-d-d ..... A tapering-off word. Cos we know where that would lead don't we! Yes .... that's right. The 'S' word. A word that you can't even think of, let alone visualise in case it 'gets' you! Bit like 'Whassisname' that Voldamort fella, that you can't mention in the Harry Potter stories ... Doh! I'm not supposed to say Voldamort. Doh ... Doh!!!

Rain

What's the worst thing that can happen during a motorbike ride which takes you through the night? No ... stop trying to think up ludicorous scenarios to lumber me with, such as a bad dose of the the 'trots', and not able find any toilets (that might yet come). No, the worst thing that can happen during a night of riding across Europe, is that it rains. Not just a quick shower, but a full-on downpour that turns into a persistant prolonged night of rain. Having already told of the efficiency of which the new waterproofs did the biz' and kept me dry inside, they thankfully continued their job without fuss, once the heavens finally opened. Though it did little to mollify the misery of riding in rain, with the ever present possibility of going flying up the autobhan, due to some unseen road hazard. It began somewhere shortly after entering Germany and continued right through the remaining night and on into first light ... and beyond. In fact it didn't stop until half an hour out from me landing in Vienna. It seemed to be a never ending weather system that stretched halfway across the Central European sub-continent. Or another of my games to get me thro', was to imagine it was just one big black cloud that exactly matched my speed and bend of whichever road I found myself on. It was abso-bloody-lutely relentless, and was eating into my already well depleted reserves of concentration. I was cold, but kidded myself it wasn't freezing, and that it would keep me more alert. At one point stopped off in an all night road-house for a coffee that tasted like it looked. 'Nasty brown sludge'. The caffeine worked for ten minutes, then the flat-line drifted back, after rejoining the road. I couldn't tell you where it was, but one tiredness 'wall' dragged me into the next servo', where I just sat outside in a patio chair in the rain, and shut my eyes for 5 minutes of blessed relief. There later came a 2^nd episode of debilitatiting tiredness that was doing it's best to glue my eyelids together. Another cup of (expensive) nasty brown sludge, just to sit dripping in a small roadside cafe. While wagon drivers of unknown nationality, buzzed their conversation over similarly unappetising syrupy beverages. Again I closed my eyes briefly, knowing I couldn't sleep. I opened them a moment later. Somebody was playing games with me, as the clock had moved forward 20 minutes.

Strasbourg was a kind of halfway-point, which went by in a kind of haze. Other Euro cities I've never had chance to visit, came and went on the illuminated screen. The glowing map of central Europe blurred by rainwater slowly moved across my vision with my little black arrow pointing it's way around numerous ring-road systems. Here I was riding through countries I'd never before visited. And now only existed on the other side of my visor, in a sort of dream-world made up of water and blackness with spots of lights here and there. It's all somewhat disordered now, with vague memories such as a car passing me at what I estimated to be more than twice my speed. Must've been the autobhan in Germany ...

Vienna eventually appeared on the GPS. I let out a feeble yet audible Yippeeeeeee! I was going to make it. Wait ... Quick mileage/time check ... How fast am I going? Yup ... do-able in three hours. Should be there by 9.30 heaps of time. Wait ... Where exactly is the bloody embassy? I had the address written down, but recall trying to locate it on googlemaps and couldn't find it. Sh*t! Gonna have to do the ride-around, ask-around. The drizzle eased and when I was on what looked like a main road into the city, suddenly realised I was riding on a dry-road. Would you believe it? Big smiles inside my helmet though, as I meant I can get the waterproofs off and look like a motorcyclist instead of a black Michelin man. Hurtling into what appeared to be the middle of the city things were already fairly busy with cars, buses and people; doing what cars, buses and people do in busy cities. Look busy! As is normal, nowhere to park and ask for directions with ease. But doing my best anyway, get nowhere fast. Nobody's heard of Austenstrasse (that's not what it's called, but frankly I can't be bothered to look it up again. But it sounds near enough to my ears, so just take it from me, it began with an 'A' and ended strasse). Then I get a brain-wave. Why not call the embassy up on my moby. Shouldn't cost too much, so long as I don't ask them to read back the 'shipping report' to me. So tapping in the number and hitting the little green button on the moby, manage to get straight through. And bingo! I get directions. My description made it sound as if I'd hit the centre, so their replies had me walking towards a church-spire I could see a few roads down. Nope! Not this way, as a quick check with uniformed local chappie sent me in the reverse direction. Another positional check in a nearby hotel reception, and this time get really accurate directions. With street-map. Now we're cooking! Half an hour later and I'm ringing on the embassy door-bell. And with only thirty minutes before they close too. In I breeze and nice chappy there is happy for me to pay the Euro's to them directly, in order to save walking along to the bank to pay it into their account. I even get a receipt that shows me up to be a cynic, for thinking that it's gonna be buying his first beer of the weekend a couple of hours from now ...

I walked out of the consulate with a spring in my step. Some 32 hours after setting off, I had a pair of passports with visa stamps for Turkmenistan safely stashed in my travel-papers pouch. The five minute stroll back to the bike, gave me a chance to decide on my next move. Seeing as Vienna's hosting the Euro-cup, it was probably a safe bet all but the most expensive or crapiest accomadation's been taken. A trio of bleary-eyed supporters begarbed in blue, each with a scarf around their necks wandered by. They looked at me with something akin to ecstasy and were singing something in their own language, that I guessed would be just as unintelligable even if sung in English. Time to leave Vienna ...