Afternoon, Constable

We awoke to dryer weather and quite a pleasant temperature outside. A quick check of the weather forecast suggested that there was every chance it would get warmer still so beneath our biker garb we dressed with that in mind. Packing had been done the night before so we merely had to enjoy breakfast, get ourselves ready, strap out panniers to the bikes and have a pleasant chat with our hosts, saying thank you for a lovely stay :-)

Setting off along Crete Road West this time gave us another fantastic view looking out over the larger of our two model train sets of the week - the Eurotunnel Terminus - this time watching the unloading of one of the truck carrying trains.

It was all pretty fascinating to watch going on below us but there were miles to cover so we descended down a series of steep narrow lanes to eventually find a roundabout and sliproad taking us onto the M20. The motorway was fairly quiet and we soon settled into our rhythm of 50sumfink miles per hour. Spotting a very posh large truck approaching from behind, its grill all lit up with a fancy array of led lamps, I made horn blowing gesture with my left arm (think good 'ol US truck horn style) and the driver responded by giving us a friendly "HAWWWNK-HAWWWWWWNK!!!" as they passed.

Exiting just past Maidstone, the road took us up through Chatham to join the A289 and bimble noisily through the Medway Tunnel just for kicks before trying to find an AutoShenanigans related diversion in the form of a new bypass road built along a chalk escarpment...you know...because what could possibly go wrong?! Well since John posted his recent video things have gone wrong so we tried to find somewhere to see the crumbling away already new road for a picture. In the event the best we could manage was in a dusty corner of an industrial estate a few hundred yards away but we tried (extra top)

After topping up with petrol we headed around to the cafe that was closed the previous Sunday. Ms.Arell's Africa Twin was making a grumbling noise from it's front brakes so I slowly circled around the carpark on it for her so she could observe them in action as I applied them sharply. They felt okay and nothing stood out as obvious, so we sat down to eat some fabulous baguettes, washed down with a large cup of tea, a view of the Dartford Bridge on one side (thankfully out of earshot) and a manmade but very peaceful lake on the other. 

Suitably refreshed, the M25 was found and we crawled through heavy traffic onto the anticlockwise carriageway, swooping beneath the dirty old river through the Dartford Tunnel, continuing for not many miles before peeling off into Essex on the A12 dual carriageway that took us further still into Suffolk. For several of those miles Ms.Bestie kept mentioning an angry black cloud in the distance that appeared to be bursting it's tanks over everything in its path. Well, it appears were lucky enough not to get rained on but we did have to ride for 20 minutes or so along the concrete carriageway that had not long ago received a dowsing and it wasn't very confidence inspiring for either of us at speed so we wound back our throttles a touch until the surface improved.

Just after Ipswich, we left the racetrack to follow some quieter country roads, leading to rest stop no.2 at Flatford Mill. The 'flat ford' was once just that and a famous artist attempted to capture a Hay Wain making it's way across it in 1861. Trying to line up our own photos with features of the original proved difficult, but the blip shows my best attempt. As Bestie discovered afterwards researching online, Constable was very familiar with the area in the scene, but actually assembled his painting from several sketches some 60-70 miles away in Hampstead, London. Gals version is on her blip * here *

We enjoyed an ice-cream next the the navigable River Stour and nosied at the Lock opposite the mill (extra middle & bottom) before heading back to the car park. Back on the A12, we motored on to Saxmundham, grabbing some goodies for a healthy tea, and carrying on not much further to our beautiful accomodation near Leiston Abbey, via a naughty shortcut along a closed narrow lane (we put the barriers back honest).

Tea was lovely and sleep came swiftly.