Day 3 started quite leisurely with only slight hangovers all round. Steve and Cheesy's room was tidied and they were all packed up within 5 mins. Conversely Mark and Tim's room looked like a Sharknado had been through it.
Breakfast was a buffet with different breads available along with a bowl of mouldy fruit. Tommo did find the strangest cake ever but we all gave that a miss. Tim amazed everyone by having fruit, probably to make room for more steaks later.
Cheesy had 4 poos before leaving the hotel, so the power to weight ratio of his bike is now much improved.
On the road we had a four hour journey ahead of us so we changed the route to have a bit of motorway and then picked up the mountain roads again for some fun.
Mark got close to running out of fuel so we detoured to a town to fill up at which point Tim's bike died and the back wheel locked up. After some diagnostics we found that it was just the kill switch so we were soon on our way again.
After fueling up and having a break we worked our way towards France and stopped off for a bite to eat in a small town. The menu consisted of beef steak or salad and soup. For some reason that we can't explain we opted for soup. It basically consisted of a pile of kidney beans with some warm water dripped over it. We do fear for the state of the rooms tonight after several servings of the bean soup. The salad came with some egg which when Tim and Cheesy tucked in, it quickly descended into a game of hungry hippos.
The town had a population of 4 people and 50 dags which were all in the road so we thought we'd better hot tail it out of there before we got eaten.
After lunch we charged up a mountain which was switchback after switchback and we were knackered by the time we got to the top. Luckily there was a restaurant at the top so we stopped off for our first icecream of the day. The cafe was on the France Spain border so the cafe shop sold loads of fun stuff. Tim and Mark went weapon shopping and brought a balisong each just in case of a zombie outbreak in the mountains.
After some twisters we hit the motorways to do the final leg, most of them are toll roads which is fine unless your name is Cheesy. For some reason none of the booths will accept his tickets or money so he has to press the button and listen to someone explain something that we've no idea what they're saying as it's in Spanish or French or Japanese or something.
We soon got to Pau and soon got lost, the satnav took us the wrong way down two one-way streets, had us turning against no-turn signs and told us we were 0 meters away when we clearly weren't. It was ok though as upon entering Pau, the French heard the noise of the bikes and offered their unconditional surrender. Cheesy to the rescue though with the backup satnav which only took us through a pedestrian zone before landing at the hotel.
The nice lady in the hotel only spoke French so Mark had no idea what she was saying as she gave directions to the parking, Tim was all for leaving the bikes in a ditch rather than trying to find the parking lot as it was getting a tad warm. We ended up riding around pressing the clicker to see what opened and left the bikes there.
After freshening up we'd planned to meet up in a bar down the road but at 7pm they were all closing for some reason. We did find somewhere though and was quickly introduced to the French hospitality. Basically the ungrateful onion munchers charge twice as much, are miserable and don't give you any of the freebies we'd been used to.
We thought we'd see some sights of Pau before dinner so Steve got the map out which clearly showed the cathedral but opted to ask for directions anyway. This highly amused Tim as he'd refused to ask for directions earlier when we were lost or when looking for a petrol station, but when stood under the cathedral with neon lights pointing to the cathedral, while holding a map showing the cathedral, decided to engage with the natives.
It turns out that the cathedral is a building site so there wasn't much scope for a Kodak moment so we thought we'd sort our stomachs out. We found a busy restaurant showing the Brazil game in the middle of a nice square as the sun started to set. We found some nice seats where we couldn't see the TV and ordered some food... Welcome to French hospitality part 2.
Mark opted for the burger and cautious of the French undercooking everything ordered it well done, this wasn't allowed so she changed that and when he asked for it without cheese she scoffed and shook her head. Heaven forbid paying for food how you want it.
Three hours later when the food actually arrived it was so so and it was getting quite dark. It's ok though they'd fitted a set of flood lights overlooking the square on the surrounding buildings. Weirdest. Lighting. Ever. The lights flicked between 3 modes, green, sunbed and off, so you'd be eating away and the lights would go off for 30 seconds and you'd have to hope you didn't stab yourself with your fork. During one blackout, the lights came back on and Steves steak had somehow moved to Marks plate. Cheesy came up with a plan to troubleshoot the electrical system but we thought we'd best leave it.
After dinner Steve ordered a coffee. He got an expresso. This got sent back with the clear instructions for a grande coffee. He got an expresso. So he sent that back and the waitress had another paddy and stormed off to the kitchen. Steve didn't get another coffee.
You may have seen on Facebook that we've been uploading the odd photo and we were pleased that one of the pics of the bikes had been chosen to be the banner pic for the Warwickshire and West Midlands bikers page.
To finish off the night we went to a bar overlooking a tree and came to the conclusion that Pau should be renamed Poo. Cheesy even found this sign that they could use to welcome visitors to the city:
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