Borculo International Rally and Germany Holiday Trip

Well we were off to the International Rally in Holland meeting up with the rest of the Centre 4 at the DFDS Ferry Terminal in North Shields, after a few hours we board and get showered and changed. It was time for a drink and some grub, more drink and then time for bed. It wasn’t a very smooth crossing but not too bad either, at 8 o’clock we woke with the intercom “Morning Ladies and Gentlemen it’s now 8 o’clock, we will be arriving at Ijmuiden at 12 o’ clock (What?). This is due to engine problems, sorry for the delay. The Coffee still stayed at £5.00 a pot, I didn’t see any discounts.

We contacted Will and told him about the problem as he was meeting us at the terminal to lead us into Borculo for the Dutch Rally, Ok he said I’ll go to Amsterdam for 3 hours, I don’t know what you can do in 3hrs at Amsterdam, well I can!! But that’s not for us to say.

We get off the ferry, say a quick ‘Hello’ and depart for Borculo, the route is pretty straight forward although we must have had at least 30 bikes. We only stopped twice and that was just for a ‘Fuel and Pee’ Break.

When we got to the site Will had marked out an area for all the C4 tents which we quickly erected, sorted ourselves out and then we were off to the pub for more booze and food, although 50 Euro Entrance Fee seemed a little steep, the food was very good and there was plenty of it also the entertainment wasn’t bad.

Two days later a small group of us which included, Malcolm & Denise Chance, Barry Doyle & Lorraine Biggins, Bob Aaron, Barrie Price and friend Jan from Centre 13, and Manuela & myself, lifted and headed to Germany. 
Manuela wished to visit her folks so we went to Dortmund with the rest of the group, when we arrived we were all made very welcome, Coffee and Cakes as is tradition, we had our fill then said ‘Goodbye’.

We then moved on to an arranged campsite, and although we were only going to stay for one night it was too good to leave, so we stayed for another, there was a pub at the entrance which we used for having our evening meal and Belly Laugh. Bob is by his own ambition not a camping person, but credit where it’s due he tried it for 2 nights which he decided was 3 nights too much so he spent the rest of his holidays in Hotels, Gaststatten, B&B’s etc., but he was only a short distance away at any one time. 

Next stop was Cochem on the Moselle (‘Fantastic’). Manuela and myself have stayed there several times before, it’s a great place if you have never been, put it on your bucket list, we all had some great laughs there, I think most pubs were losing business because of the noise, some Germans laughed at us because we were laughing so much, if only they could understand, maybe they could?

Well it’s time to lift again and head down south to Fussen, which lies right on the border of Austria, we even went in and out of Austria because we took the wrong exit on the motorway. Unfortunately it rained from the day we left to head down South with a stop off in Ulm overnight at a B&B to recharge our batteries, it was that wet in Bavaria that Barrie slept in the drying room for 2 nights on our arranged campsite in Fussen.

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Now, it seems I forgot to mention that we had a guest rider amongst us, a lady named Jan from Centre 13 Road Runners, what a credit she is to them, her Virago 535 kept up the pace and even though the weather was terrible she never once moaned about the situation. To be honest for the first week she couldn’t understand a word we said, but true to Geordie Ways we tried our best to learn her some Geordie words etc., it can only be said that it was a privilege to have ridden with Jan and she’s only had a full licence for 12 months. Once we left Fussen, that was after a night out on the lash, another must see place, we travelled 510 miles to Arnhem only stopping for food and fuel, those 535’s have little fuel tanks don’t they? Bob, Barry & Lorraine went ahead and stopped off for a night in Bonn. 

Malcolm & Denise, Barrie, Jan, Manuela and myself pushed on to Arnhem and spent 1 ½ hours looking for camp sites, we eventually found one we liked and got bedded down for the night. We had a great time there, Bob stayed in the town of Oesterbeck due to the nearby pub/B&B at the end of the street burning down that night. We had a visit from Bob the next day and we arranged to meet with him to have a farewell dinner, later Manuela suggested that we hire some push bikes, ride them into Oesterbeck and meet up with Bob, unfortunately he had already left to meet a friend in Haarlem, so we just had a ride on our bicycles, what a laugh. That night we went to Barry & Lorraine’s Campsite to watch the football and have our farewell dinner. We had a great night then rode the bikes to our site and prepped for our ride home.

Barrie and Jan were going to a rally in Wales so their ferry was leaving from the Hook of Holland, he was a little concerned that he may not get his ferry ( I’ m sure he would have!). So Manuela and I lead the way to the Hook, we arrived and had lunch said our ‘Goodbyes’ and headed to Ijmuiden, bad times for Manuela and I as we had an ‘Off’, although we were only bruised and 60 miles from the ferry terminal we managed to get there all be it feeling like we had been filled in. We met up with Barry & Lorraine and bordered for North Shields, we had a great time for the 2 + weeks, not a cross word between us and I would like to say it was a privilege to have spent the time with such excellent people, after all in the words of Keith Iddons : ‘It’s the people that make the club’. And I must say these people must be some of the best. I would love to do it again sometime in the future, if anybody fancies coming.
Ray & Manuela Pascoe