Wicklow to London – Monday July 9th

In a way today was the start of the trip, even though I don’t fly out to Kenya for another two and a half weeks. Simba had to be dropped off at James Cargo near Heathrow Airport so that they could crate and fly him out to Africa to be there, hopefully, in advance of my arrival.

I left home without much fuss or fanfare as I would be back by the end of the day. Driving down the M11 to Rosslare I thought about the couple of months ahead and simply savoured the nice flat road which I knew would soon be something that I would pine for when riding some of the more remote roads in Africa.

It was a beautiful sunny morning as I pulled in to Rosslare Harbour. Ireland has been in the middle of a heatwave and even at 7am the temperature was close to twenty degrees. Hundreds of cars queued to board the Stena ferry to Fishguard and it was lovely to see the excited faces of children heading off on their summer holidays, probably through the U.K. to campsites in France. It brought me back to when we used to bring Kerrie and her soulmate, Suzanne, away to Eurocamps many years ago. As always, motorbikes get preference boarding ferries and Simba was soon tied down.

The ship pulled out on schedule at 8am and Simba theoretically waved au revoir to Irish shores for some time. The crossing was smooth and uneventful and I spent some time chatting with a couple of bikers who had just spent a week touring the south of Ireland.

The 400km ride across South Wales and England was painfully slow due to a major road accident close to Cardiff and took almost six hours instead of an expected four. I called ahead to say that I was running late and Darryl from James Cargo stayed back to accept, check and log in Simba.

All done and dusted, I called an Uber to bring me the ten minute journey around to Heathrow Terminal 2 for the short flight back to Ireland.

It was a long day and about midnight by the time I got home. Nothing for it now but to spend the next couple of weeks packing and making sure that everything is ready for for my own departure in a couple of weeks….