It’s official, the adventure is underway. We picked up our rental bikes this morning at Road Trip. 

 

 

The sun came out briefly as we loaded up but we ran into problems when our Sena radios refused to communicate. We wasted too much time trying to reset them and by the time we got on the road a cold rain had begun.

 

 

It was our first time driving on the left side of the road which really had me alert. While we both had GPS units with our route in it they were sending us on different tracks. Traffic was heavy and the rain just kept coming quite hard at times. 

I expected some roundabouts but had no idea there would be hundreds over the course of the day. Traffic lights, stop signs, were rare.  Without our radios it was frustrating going but I got them working when we took a break at a rest stop and things improved  

The scenery was probably hampered by the weather. I found little of interest in southern England.

 

 

The small bit of Wales we clipped in the afternoon was nice. We climbed a mountain pass then wound toward the coast to reach the ferry to Belfast from Liverpool. 

 

There was a bit of excitement when the GPS directed us to the commercial port instead of the ferry and we had to make a fast backtrack into the city but we arrived at the dock with time to spare .

 

 

 

Once aboard the bikes were secured, unpacked, and we found our cabin.

 

We changed out of our wet gear and bought our way in to the executive lounge for some quiet. It was fine until the ship got underway. Once moving things shut down and we passed the noises night with intermittent sleep  

 

-—Wayne Busch, AmericaRidesMaps.com