We got to Mark's house at around 5am. The bus was to leave at 5:15am so Mark's wife made us all a coffee...a lot of banter even though it was 5am. We all got acquainted as not all of us had met before. Some went out in the week while others went out on the weekends. Me, Dave Watt, Mark Bancroft, John Mainwaring, Alan Overson, Chris Lord, Dave Lea, Janet Bertham, Emyr Gronow, Paul Rutt.
We got our gear on the bus and off we went. Most tried to get some sleep......although Chris managed to keep the rest of us awake! We stopped at the services and got some food and continued on the long journey from North Wales to Stanstead (not sure how long it took between 5~7 hrs..... and don't say 6.)
At the airport there was a lot of banter about each other's luggage and bike bags! I was fretting over the weight of my bike bag as we were flying Ryan air........some excessive excess luggage charges! I think the bike bag cost £30 to take over not bad? We all got through OK with no extra costs. Oh and managed to have chain oil in the Bike Bag without having to remove it....Bonus.
We had a little wait at the airport which we used to get to know each other a little better and had a few drinks...... it was 10am. We got to the gate ready to be the last on the plane, the plane was delayed about an hour which was a little tedious but it could only get worse........got on the plane and had another hour plus to wait, not ideal having had a few pints which made my bladder rather regular! At least we got to see inside the cock pit.....I was, dare I say it, excited, as it has been about 25 years since I had been to have a look, and I'd had a couple of pints. We got things rolling and had a good flight to Biarritz, France.
Biarritz Airport. The weather was fine, we were all a bit anxious about getting our luggage sorted and hopefully intact! some of the guys hid Dave's bike box and let him fret a little whilst watching the carousel.........B*sta**s. This was a sign of things to come.
We sent our illustrious leader Alan over to meet the Marmot tours guide, Nathan. We all introduced ourselves and got our gear in to the two vans which would be our support vehicles for the week. Me, Emyr, Dave (Lee) and Jan were in one van with Nathan and the others on the other van with Alan. The weather had been bad over the past week but we looked to be blessed.
We arrived at the Hotel in Henday and got our gear unpacked and the bikes built. The bike boxes/ bags were to be put in the back of one of the vans for the rest of the week, with understandably no access....digging one out would be a nightmare.
The other participants had arrived over the day and some had arrived the day before. We all had the brief outside the restaurant building of the hotel...........VC Melyd side table soon filled with empty beer bottles.......we were on holiday. After a lot of heckling and banter the brief was complete we collected our Jersey and information pack which had maps for each day. It was now around 7pm ish and we were ready to get some carboloading done! The food was great, a buffet which I made the most of before realising that we were having a three course meal and that was the starter.........ah well, I only weighed 59kg at the time. Was letting loose on all the sacrifice over the past few months, beer wet down well too!
Kit ready, earlyish start tomorrow, it has been a long day. Having stuffed myself so much at dinner, I struggled to get to sleep......this was going to be a common theme.........
