Detliev Friends Meet 6/8/15 – 11/8/15

I recieved an e-mail from my German friend who i met at the 25th birthday meet in Germany in 2014, and he invited me to visit him at his house in Bad Essen in germany with a few of his close friends. I felt very honoured to be invited and had no hesitation in accepting his invitation and straight away booked my eurotunnel crossing.

My first stopover was at a camp site in Holland called camping Valkenburg

3 Valkenburg, 5811 AX, Castenray. This was a lovely little log cabin which is secluded

It was a nice 35 degree sunny day and went down to the water and had a swim

This was my breakfast which i had to cook inside the cabin due to it pouring with rain. Eggs sausages and beans.

I arrived at Detkiev’s at around two o’clock and rode the bike to his back yard were he welcomed me with a nice cold beer. i sipped the beer and hada smoke then after that i unpacked the bike and set up the tent. I put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and relaxed with more beer while the rest of Detliev’s friends arrived.

The hospitality that Detliev showed was out of this world with our every need catered for and with good company great food and lots of beer and coffee friendships were build. Later that afternoon we all took a stroll down to the Mittelland kanal which the most of us swam across me included, which was very refreshing as the tempreture was 38 degrees.

We all chatted till late in the night and then when we woke up breakfast was all ready for us

After breakfast Detliev took us for a rideout in the countryside on our way to a helicopter museum as he knew that i lave helicopters, we arrived at the museum and to my surprise there was a puma and allouette helicpters there both of wich i had flown as a flight engineer in the South African Airforce and was great to be up close to them again.

After the museum we had a look around and found this very old building and parked up the bikes for a photo shoot,                        here is me with Sabina and Gerka, I had met Frank and Sabina when we had Super Tenere 25th birthday meet in germany and it was great to see them again. Greka was from Belgium and this was the first time I had met him and he was a great guy and invited me to stay over at his house on the way back. An offer i could not ignore and looked forward to as he has such an interesting life and like Detliev has travelled extensively.

On the way back we stopped at the bikers pub for something to eat and then headed our way back to Detliev’s house.

That night Detliev pulled out all the stops and presented us with a dinner fit for kings, we all ate well with desert and all the trimmings

Detliev with his dog giving him treats in the back of his car.

The weekend had passed and we all packed up and said our goodbyes and headed off in our own directions, i had booked back at the campsite and decided instead of cooking my own dinner i would go into town and have a burger and fries.

The next morning i packed up and took a off the beaten track route to Gerke’s house and arrived there just after five in the afternoon. Gerke welcomed me with a beer, and the barbacue was already alight as i had been in touch with him to let him know what time i would roughly arrive. We shook hands and and he welcomed me to his house saying whats mine is yours, i was a bit taken aback with all this hospitality but this is whats great about travelling is that you get to meet and spend time with amazing people and to hear there stories and to be accepted as a friend on face value. Gerke put the meat on and i asked him who else is coming as there was enough meat to feed a small army, and he replied just the two of us. I was speaking afrikaans and he was speaking flemish which are very similar so we managed to understand most of everything that was said if not we switched over to english.

we Chatted the whole night drinking and eating till 1;30 in the morning when we hit the bed. We spoke about everything and was very surprised that he had actually riden in the Dakar rally a couple of times. He told me about the Slovakia meet that was happening the 12 of September and would i be interested in going with him. The meet is a Tenere meet of three countries (slovakia, Poland and czech republic, and each year each country takes a turn to host it. I have been wanting to attend one of these meets for awhile now, but never had the opportunity to go but now there was no way i was going to pass this up. We arranged that i would ride to his house then load the two bikes into the van and drive to his friend in the Czech and then from there the three of us would ride to the meet which was about a 3 hour ride.

I woke up at 6 in the morning and Gerke was already awake and dressed ready for work, we had a couple of cups of coffee and off he went to work, soon after i hit the road back to Calais to catch the train back to the UK.

I travelled the windy road route and rode on a few gravel roads just to mak the ride a bit more interesting although i did have road tyres on and fully loaded it was fun.

On the train the bike is strapped down just incase the train suddenly brakes and the bike goes flying which has happened before so lesson learnt.