15 Bikes 16 People.... The Laguna WWII R.A.T Run
We left Maidstone on the 2nd October to a roar of Triumph triples, headed for Normandy.
15 bikes, 16 people stormed the Normandy beaches, visited the German cemetery at Le Cambe, the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach, St Mary Eglise where an English paratrooper got caught on a church steeple and the harbour built by Churchill at Arromanches. We even got time to visit St Michaels Mount. Apart from one nights sleep lost to 7 of us while one snored blissfully (you know who you are) at a volume even my earplugs could not keep out. The event went according to plan, almost with military precision. On the last day we visited Pegasus Bridge and got split into two groups.
The chaps that followed me ended up in a car park at Caan and lost 40 minutes of valuable time trying to get out of Caan to find the motorway leading us back to the ferry, nearly missing the last boat back to blighty. All of us reaching the port on fumes, petrol lights ablaze, not
daring to calculate distance travelled/time taken in fear of a Gendarme overhearing. I shall always remember riding my trusty Tiger on to the boat and the doors being shut behind me. We had made it all 16 of us returning home.
Sadly the brave souls of 1945 where not so lucky.
Thanks to all who came on the trip.
Paul
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