Hi gang.
All is good in the Alps, we are staying in Ritten, near Bolzano in Northern Italy for the next few days.
I’m having some connection issues with WordPress and can’t load today’s photos, which is a pain as it’s been quite a day and I really want to share it with you.
Hopefully WP will work for me tomorrow, or maybe it’s the hotel WiFi, either way please stick with me.
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Regular Blogonaughts may be wondering just what’s going on with some of the photos that I’ve slid into the last couple of posts.
Just to reassure, old Dookes hasn’t had a sudden rush of blood to the head and isn’t going round riding his motorbike with a camera in his left hand and his right on the throttle!
No it’s a bit more dull than that.
Ages ago I got hold of a nice little Sony video camera, with the idea of capturing some video of my mountain exploits. The original plan was to slot in the odd video on the blog, but to be honest it hasn’t happened for a couple of reasons; I find even my own ride videos a bit boring and I wasn’t over happy with the results without a load of editing…something I haven’t the inclination to do!
BUT, I’ve recently been playing around with the little camera and found that it takes semi-reasonable still photos, if a tad wide-angle. Best of all is that I can just press a button and the little thing happily snaps away at a pre-set interval, leaving me free to ride the road and download later.
Hopefully we will get some decent weather to see some real nice shots!
In the meantime, if you see a picture of the road that looks a bit leaning over….it’s because we were and you get to see it as it really is.
So welcome on board and please sit still.
Catch you soon Dookes
Last night when I telephoned Mrs Dookes, back at H.Q., I commented that the Vosges Mountains reminded me of my beloved Welsh mountains…bad move.
Looking out of the bedroom window, it’s wet.
Climbing to Col de Schlucht, in the mist.
From the hotel we climbed through gossamer cloaked pine forest to the summit at Col de Schlucht, 1139m/3737feet above sea level. A mere pimple in mainland Europe terms, but impressive by UK standards; Yr Wyddfa, Snowdon in English, is the highest mountain in Wales (and higher than any upstart English peak!) at 1085m. Hey I’ve ridden higher than Yr Wyddfa today, diolch yn fawr!
Nearing the Rhein and the border into Germany, the rain relented for a while.
It’s funny but for some reason, the River Rhein strikes some sort of resonance with me. Perhaps it’s because we are both perpetual travellers, or maybe because I remember drifting off to sleep in the Night Lorelei express as we passed through the Rhein gorge with the whistle of the steam loco up front echoing off the rocky cutting walls…
Anyway, we paused at Île de Rhine (French spelling) and I caught a couple of smaller boats rising in the lock.
You can just make out one of the larger bulkers waiting it’s turn upstream. The Rhein waterway is a busy place, lots of freighters ply these waters as well as passenger and pleasure vessels.
We then slipped quietly into Germany; well as quiet as you can be when sitting on a Harley with shotgun pipes!
Up ahead was the Schwarzwald, The Black Forest. I have begun to think of the place as “The Wet Forest” as every time I’ve ever been there previously it has rained, so today why change the habit of a lifetime? Yep, it rained, mostly!
The Black Forest, between the rain.
Ok, hands up, for about 15 miles it didn’t actually rain, much, and as a result Harls and I enjoyed our best part of the day. Lovely twisty stuff, with a fair bit of grip…if you ignore the resinous pine needles, fir cones and falling leaves. 
Actually it was fun, lovely Harley-Snarly fun, then it started raining again and we rolled into Switzerland….where it always rains!
I’m still making up my mind about Switzerland. They certainly can build railways, tunnels and bridges, but when it comes to roads they haven’t got a clue what to surface them with! We hit the Autobahn, it rained, then rained some more, then poured down, then it pretended to be a European version of a hurricane, then it opened the tap some more! I hope you get the idea; it was wet, very, very, very, WET! So wet, that the road surface was obscured by a mist of bouncing rain and vehicle spray; I knew it was bad when even the Swiss were slowing down. But the road…..oh Lordy, because those Swiss drivers in their big Mercs, BMW’s and Audi’s like a smooth road, I think that they surface it in marble…whatever it is, it doesn’t have any grip!
Harls had a new set of Michelin tyres before we set off and I must say I’m more than impressed with the way that they have behaved. True, we had a couple of “moments.” One was on the Autobahn when the front end went very light as we slightly aquaplaned, it was only for a millisecond, but it felt like a mile passed by; the other was passing through a town when we went over a manhole cover that I had failed to spot and the back end kicked out…actually that was quite fun! So well done Michelin, those new tyres are great!
We floated through little Lichtenstein, it’s the first time I’ve ever passed through a country without putting my foot down on the ground and then reached Austria, where we are tonight, Gaschurn to be precise.
Still raining in Austria!
I like Austria, the petrol is cheap, the roads have grip, the beer is good and the flammekueche, delightfully tasty! In reality flammekueche really hails from Alsace, but it’s been adopted all over Southern Germany and Austria; I think that the Austrians do it particularly well. It’s sort of like a pizza, but with a thinner crisper base, topped with crème fraîche, thinly sliced onions and thin strips of bacon. It goes very well with a cold beer.
Best of all, although the Austrian’s speak German they really are a friendly bunch!
So there you have it, a day of 246 miles, which around 220 were spent impersonating a submarine.
On the plus side, all of my riding gear performed faultlessly; apart from round my neck not one bit of the Dookes form got wet or cold and neither did anything in my luggage. I guess it just shows that if you get the right kit then it pays you back.
Not looking for sponsorship, but hey that would be great and with the usual disclaimer…
Thank you to :
Richa, for the rain suit.
Gerbings for the heated gloves and jacket.
Sidi, boots.
Schuberth, helmet.
Harley Davidson, FXRG leather trousers and jacket.
GIVI, luggage.
Highway Hawk panniers
Trespass and Mountain Warehouse, base layers.
I’ve had happier, less tiring days on a motorbike, but you know I’ve not had many more satisfying looking back at the end of the day; I guess it’s that sense of survival!
I mustn’t forget to mention the star of the piece, my beloved Harls; as usual, she, like me, just got on with it, but she did it with a lot more class than me!
That’s it gang, I’m off to have “noch ein Beer!”
“I can live without the rain
That’s falling on my head.”
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Some days the miles seem to fly by, blink and that’s a hundred gone, other days it can seem like you are getting nowhere very slowly. Today had elements of both!
I said “au revoir” to Claudine and Jacques this morning and hit the road. I wanted to fill Harls with fuel and decided that a convenient supermarket on the outskirts of Bourges that I knew would be ideal. For some reason I thought that it would be fun to stick to “normal” roads and avoid the Péage, after all it was only 25 miles away….BIG mistake! That 25 miles took an hour, with road works, heavy traffic and speed limits.
I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t a very happy Dookes. When I started this trip, I resolved to chill and definitely cut down on the swearing…good job I haven’t got a swear box with me then, I was even going at it in Welsh!!!!
Then we got on the N151 and things got a whole lot better.
Normally I avoid “N” roads, or Route National to give them their proper title. These days they are often poor relations to the toll roads and suffer from toll-road-avoiding trucks beating them to pieces.
The 151 is different though.
Enjoying the N151.
Passing through small town France.
I love Bourgogne, it’s so “me” and like me it seems to burst into life in the autumn, I was an Autumn baby so maybe that’s got something to do with it! The list of wonderful Burgundy produce reads like an encyclopaedia of high quality foodstuff. There’s some of the most delightful (and expensive) wines in the whole of France, nuts by the tonne, grass reared beef, mustard, cheese, Marc de Bourgogne brandy and of course all kinds of game. Its reputation for fine gastronomy is well deserved. Unfortunately, today, we were only passing through, drat!
Then after Avallon we rode onto the A6, Autoroute de Soleil, or to coin Chris Rea, “this is the road to hell!” To be fair, it doesn’t go to hell, but it’s purgatory travelling along it! The A31 and A36 that follow are pretty “merde” as well. These were 150 hard, hard miles, just grit the old teeth and get on with it. No-one can hear you scream in space, or inside a motorcycle helmet.
Finally after Besançon we turned off and began to pass through small towns and villages as we climbed towards the Vosges. Along the way we had crossed the line where water drains towards the Mediterranean Sea rather than the Atlantic and had bridged the river Saône; I always feel sorry for the poor Saône, it’s a mighty river in its own right, but normally it’s just dismissed as a tributary of the Rhône.
Seeing the Vosges Mountains rise up around us, it occurred to me that France is big, really big. Not in the space sense as The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy once said:
“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
Well, when you live in Cornwall, a county about 70 miles long and only around 40 miles at its widest and where the Sea is only ever 20 minutes away tops, France might just as well be Outer Space!
Then we hit the mountains and the smile returned!
Smile time, mountain roads!
“Wheels spinnin’ round my brain, driving you insane.”
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Today’s mileage 329; Trip 691 from Roscoff..
…..and gone forever.
Sometimes, when I’m out on the road I catch a brief fleeting glimpse of something that grabs my attention. Often I just keep on going, but keep the image in my mind to investigate at a future opportunity.
With the interests that I have this stuff frequently falls into the category that Mrs Dookes calls “Rusty Junk!” To me it’s industrial archeology.
Near the small town of Segré, a few miles North of Angers, the D775 road negotiates a roundabout. Perched on a low hill to the East is the rusting head-gear of an old mine. I’ve seen it loads of times, but yesterday I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go investigate.
From what I’ve been able to discover, this is the last remnant of a once thriving slate mining industry. It’s unusual in that in the rest of the world slate is usually quarried, not mined. It must have been very good quality to have gone to such trouble to dig it out from underground.
Although the site was fenced off, with a few very fierce and loose guard-dogs, I did manage to grab some photos. I just love the beautiful desolation of the place!
How many faces can you see?
Rusty, yes.
Junk or beauty?
Blowin’ in the wind.
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Well, my beloved “Harls” and I are back on the Continental roads again!
Today we’ve just reeled off 360 miles, (600 kilometres sounds more impressive though!) since rolling off our overnight ferry at Roscoff in Brittany.
For those who like checking our progress on the map, we travelled via Rennes, Angers and Bourgueil to our overnight stop with my old friends Jacques and Claudine, just East of Vierzon.
I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty knackered tonight, that’s “tired out” for those of you not used to my colloquial English! I absolutely adore every second that I ride Harls, but I’d forgotten just how much effort she demands, compared to cruising on the big blue Ultra Limited.
Harls is safely tucked away in Jacques’ barn for the night and here I am sitting on the terrace, sipping a glass of rather splendid local red wine, watching the sun drop in the western sky as a warm breeze rustles the Autumn tinted leaves; tinnitus is screaming in my ears, my wrist aches from holding the throttle open (oh yes, I do mean open!) my backside is. . . tender, but I’m happy, very very happy. 
The old team is back doing what we do best, having fun on the open road.
Now a little observation; I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three types of French Dual carriageway/autoroute:
Dull.
Dangerous.
Delightful.
Today we sampled all three, I’m not going to dwell on the bad bits, but those wonderful French road builders have been stealthily rebuilding the D775 between Rennes and Angers and it’s a beaut! Lovely sweeping curves, enough gradient to make it interesting and smooth as can be!
Somewhere along the road we slipped from Brittany into the Loire valley. It’s strange, but for however many years it is that I’ve been travelling in this part of France I’ve never been able to spot exactly when the transition takes place. It’s like…”Yes, this is nice familiar Brittany.” Then a bit later, “Oh, this must be the Loire Valley!” I really have tried to spot the dividing point, but no, not managed it yet.
I always find the River Loire a bit difficult to define. Yes, it’s France’s longest river and it’s also one of the great rivers of Europe, but it’s a lazy old thing meandering around like a big question mark from the Massif Central to the Atlantic.
The whole concept of the “Loire Valley” is a bit baffling, as for most of the time the landscape to me resembles a prairie with a river running through it and it’s not just the Loire that’s included, its tributaries such as the Cher, Indre and Vienne get lumped in as well!
I’m not complaining though. The Loire valley is a veritable treasure trove of some of the best things France has to offer. It’s largely temperate climate and fertile soils have brought great wealth for centuries, it’s a big wine growing region and as a result there are over a thousand stately châteaux of all shapes and sizes.
Today I wanted to look in on one of the most famous, Château de Chenonceau. This place has been intriguing me from a distance for years, so I had to go check it out.
Oh dear, what a disappointment.
Now I’m sure that if I could swallow my pride and elevated view that I am a traveller and not a tourist, when actually I’m really a leather clad motorcycle riding tourist, then I might get along fine with the thousands of folk swarming between the car parks and the Château…but just one glance at the sandal wearing, short-clad hoards and I did a graceful U-turn and carried on East! Jacques roared with laughter when I told him.
Thanks to Ra-Smit for the use of the photo and yes, the Château really does partly sit out on a bridge over the river!
So back to the “terroir” of the Loire valley…the soils are largely sandy and calcareous and that generally means one thing….wine! Famous appellations such as Touraine, Saumur and Bourgueil, are known the world over; indeed some say that Saumur sparkling wines are better than Champagne.
It’s not just grapes that they grow here, the area produces thousands of tonnes of arable crops. All over the place you can see grain elevators, known as “Prairie Skyscrapers” in Canada and the USA. 
The grain harvest is long over now, but the farmers are still busy; currently it’s maize that is being cut. Next will be the sunflowers, with the start of Autumn their bright yellow petals have withered and fallen. Where once their happy little faces looked up and followed the sun, now they hang their heads sorrowfully looking for their lost petals and contemplating the turning of the season. In French the sunflower is called “tournesol” – “turns to the sun,” I like that!
“Yes, I’m back in black.”
Catch you soon
Dookes
It’s been a frustrating summer this year, not just because since the middle of July the weather in Cornwall has been pants, but I’ve been sort of stuck in the land of Dookes H.Q..
Mrs Dookes has been pursuing new and exciting business openings; well she’s excited by it all, I just keep out-of-the-way! For my part it didn’t seem right to clear off on two wheels and leave her with the hassle of running the H.Q. as well as developing her career and managing other stress levels.
So yeah, I’ve been a good Dookes and stayed at home doing the supportive husband bit, but now it’s getting time to ride! Or as Mrs D says,
“Please clear off on two wheels as you are getting to be a major pain in the backside!”
Here’s the plan gang….
Italy is calling again. I’ve said before that I’ve sort of fallen in love with the place; it’s just so….crazy, in a totally bonkers lovely sort of way! It also has some wonderful mountain roads that I still need to ride! The food is great and the language musical, something I’m still working on but getting there slowly….the language that is, I’m totally there with the food!
Now regular Blogonaughts might have spotted that I said “Mountain Roads” and after last year I vowed not to take ‘Baby Blue’ into the high country anytime soon. I’m a man of my word, so on this trip I’m delighted to be riding ‘Harls,’ my beloved Softail Centenary model.
There’s cool and there’s my Harls – Supercool!
Taking ‘Harls’ is a bit of a step back in time, but not in a bad way; it’s also an opportunity to get back to a more stripped back, lightweight, way of touring and I’m really excited about it. True, she’s more basic in the comfort department than the big tourer, but makes up for that with her lighter handling and bags of character, plus she’s a real head turner too!
The plan will start as many of my trips do, with the sea crossing to France from Plymouth. We’ll cut across France towards the Vosges Mountains, where I’ve not been before and do a bit of exploring there, before looping through the Black Forest in Germany; then Switzerland and Austria before the Italian Alps and Dolomites. That should keep us out of mischief for a while anyway! I’m going to try to avoid too many Autoroutes if I possibly can, apart from when I need to cover some serious miles; the idea is to take it easy.
As usual, I’ll be sharing our experiences on this blog and a really hope that you will be able to ride along with us.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go and start to get ‘Harls’ ready….I think that she’s quite looking forward to the trip too! We set sail on Wednesday.
“White lines on the highway rolling out into the night
Got no bag to slow us down
We’re travelling light, travelling light tonight.”
Catch you soon,
Dookes
I am sitting watching long grass waving in the brisk, yet warm, South-Westerly breeze. In the sunshine the shimmering meadow looks for all the world like a rippling sea of green and the gentle swishing of the wind through standing stalks could be the music of distant waves.
It’s at times like this that I often get a tad philosophical about life, reflective if you like, as my mind wanders through idle nothingness.
One of the things that bugs me about getting older is the number of my friends that disappear off this mortal coil at a shockingly frequent pace. Often it occurs without much notice, blink and they are gone; no I’m not talking about motorcycle accidents either, it’s just the age thing!
I consider myself lucky to have known and count as friends a bunch of really amazing people.
Fortunately there are tangible things around that often remind me of my lost pals and never fail to raise a smile or lift my heart.
There’s the old big brass whistle that stands by our fireplace, it once graced my steam engine, a gift from dear David who passed away a couple of years back.
Then a couple of months ago I was walking through the grounds of Launceston (that’s pronounced “Lawn-ston”) Castle in East Cornwall, when I came across this splendid horse chestnut tree, Aesculus hippocastanum.
This species is often considered as a native British tree, as it is found throughout the U.K., but it actually originates from the Balkans in South East Europe.
As you can see the tree was in full flower and that made me smile. I stood admiring the display and my mind wandered back across the years to Roger, an old and sadly missed friend.
Roger lived in the New Forest, an area of Central Southern England that is now a National Park, but was once the hunting ground of Kings dating back to before the Norman Conquest in 1066AD.
Roger was a true man of the forest; his chalet stood in a spot that nestled in a clearing deep in the heart of the green silence. His few acres were approached by a gravel track that ended at his front door. He kept a few chickens and his beloved Jersey house cow named Wendy. Apart from his animals and indeed all the creatures and plants of the forest, Roger’s main passion was for vintage agricultural tractors.
I used to spend hours with Roger and his son, sometimes working his land with whichever piece of vintage machinery took our fancy that day; or maybe on an expedition to track down some rare spare parts to repair one of his or indeed my collection. Often though we would just walk deeper into the forest and sit watching deer, foxes or badgers until the sun dipped and the air grew cool.
Roger’s favourite tree was the Horse Chestnut. He loved it’s deep mahogany brown fruits, known as conkers in the UK and beloved of small boys for “conker fights” in Autumn time; best of all though Roger adored the display of white and pink flowers that stand proud on the trees in early summer, he called them “Candles.”
So there I stood watching the “Candles” waving in the breeze and thinking of my dear old chum.
The great thing that Roger taught me is that a true Countryman plants trees not for himself for now, but for future generations. I resolved to return in the autumn, gather some “Conkers” and plant them, then watch new trees grow.
He would have liked that, would Roger.
Catch you soon,
Dookes.
They hold up each corner of a car or truck.
They’re round, generally black and often unloved.
They are one of the most technical elements of any motor vehicle yet are frequently ignored…..unless of course you ride a motorcycle; I’m talking about tyres.
So why do us bike riders care so much more about our rubber?
Well, in essence it’s because we rely on our tyres so much more to help us stay alive!
A tyre has to do many things in it’s working life; it has to transmit the power from the engine to the road when accelerating and then be the gripping medium to slow the vehicle under braking. It’s grooves throw water away from the contact area in wet conditions to prevent aqua planing and when you go round a corner it’s your tyres that stop you sliding off the road.
On a motorcycle the tyre has of course to work when in contact with the road at other than the perpendicular, that means when it’s leaning through a corner. If you look at a motorcycle tyre you will notice how it’s profile is very different to that of a car or truck version; in cross-section it’s rounded with curved walls, whilst a tyre on a car has generally straight-ish sides.
Harls Skinny Front Wheel, with new Michelin Commander tyre.
Put a group of motorcycle riders together and pretty soon the conversation will turn to the topic of tyres and then become apparent that there are many different views and opinions on “the black stuff.” Fortunately the tyre manufacturers have noticed this too, so the range and choice available to bike owners is quite large, if not a tad confusing! In general, the sports bike rider is best served of all with tyres for every possible scenario catered for; there are hard compounds, soft compounds, dual hard/soft, wet tyres, road legal slick types and goodness knows how many other offerings!
Now I have a bit of a “thing” about tyres too, particularly those for my Harley Davidson motorcycles.
As standard the tyres that are fitted as original equipment to Harley Davidson’s are made by Dunlop. Indeed, until recently, these tyres were all that was “approved” by Harley Davidson to be fitted to their machines. All good “Union-Produced-Made-in-the-USA” stuff. I acknowledge that motor companies spend many millions on research and development, but that these tyres have earned the nickname “Dunlop Ditch Finders” amongst a lot of end users tells quite a lot about their performance!
It’s in that word “performance” that the issue lies and where the inflexible approach by Harley Davidson is, in my mind, working against them. I’m sure that from their base in Milwaukee the Harley Research and Development Girls and Boys look out at the Mid-West Plains or the sun-baked highways of Arizona and California and truly believe that the good old Dunlop D4xx family are really a “one-size-fits-all” answer. Only they are most definitely not.
On the Grössglockner, sunny but cold.
The tyres are made of a hard rubber compound, rock hard in fact. True they last forever, some folk get well over 15,000 miles out of a set, but it’s a trade-off as the tyres don’t really “work” at the average temperatures we enjoy here in Northern Europe and probably a fair slice of the USA as well! Yes I know that there are folk in the USA who swear by the stock Dunlop, mainly because they last forever, but hear me out…
Riding in Provence a couple of years ago with “Baby” my big tourer, the air temperature was around 40°Celsius and only then did I feel that the D402’s were gripping the road well; though that could have been because the asphalt was melting! Earlier in that trip I had been riding through the Black Forest in Germany, temperatures were around 10°C and it was raining, grip was scarily minimal, especially cornering, when the back-end of the bike twitched as the tyre frequently lost grip through the bends. Not nice!
40ºC it’s hot, very hot.
So what’s the answer?
Well a quick look on a couple of on-line Harley forums threw up two interesting schools of thought.
a) High mileage is good, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t grip the road well.
b) Must grip the road in all conditions, especially the wet, but mileage doesn’t matter as much.
Broadly: a) = North America b)=Northern Europe!
For me it’s a case of find a tyre that does work in cooler wetter climates…but to be honest, for a Harley the choice is very limited. Aside from the stock offerings for my big tourer, I’m looking at tyres made by Avon, Metzler and Michelin.
There is another type of Dunlop, GT502, which H-D fit to some their Custom Vehicle Operations machines and from personal experience on Harls, these are a fantastic tyre; grippy in wet and dry, with a lovely rolling action, but with the trade-off of relatively short mileage….but they don’t make them for the bigger bike!
I’ve used Avon’s on my Softail previously and have been very pleased with them. Metzler are a new manufacturer to me, originally based in Germany, but now owned by Pirelli of Milan…so many decisions! In recent times H-D have begun to approve some tyres made by Michelin, but as yet I haven’t received any reliable feedback on these.
Spot what’s missing!
OK here’s the plan.
Softail Harls needed a new set of boots this summer, she had a set of the Dunlop GT502’s put on a couple of years ago and I wanted stick with them, but unfortunately they seem to be currently unavailable at the moment; bummer! So taking a leap of faith I’ve gone for the Michelin “Commander,” lets see how we get on. Initial feedback is that I like them, I’ve only done around 220 miles on the new rubber so far, but I can report that they heat up nicely, grip well and best of all feel great in the wet; so big smiles all round….if you excuse the pun!
New Michelin Commander on the rear of Harls.
I’ll report further when I’ve done a more meaningful mileage.
Then I’ve got to figure out which tyre to fit on Baby Blue….!
Just to close…
A couple of years ago Mrs Dookes overheard one of her colleagues talking on the telephone to a tyre supplier when their car needed a new set of rubber, it went like this…
“I need some new tyres for my car please. What size? Well, er ‘medium’ I suppose, oh and black ones too.”
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Living here in Cornwall, at the extreme South West of the UK, I am frequently reminded just how lucky I am to be a resident in one of the most beautiful parts of our country. Actually I go a bit further, just living in our country is pretty OK too..despite Brexit and a host of other things!
You see the thing about Cornwall is that it’s a land of moods and a matter of choosing what you fancy today. If you want rugged cliffs and stunning coastal vistas, then head for the North Coast. High Tors and rolling moorland are on Bodmin Moor, whilst more pastoral scenery nestles on the banks of the River Tamar and the Roseland Peninsular. Not forgetting the sun-kissed miles of golden sand and some of the best surfing in the world at Gwithian and Praa Sands….we’ve got most needs covered!
The other thing that we’ve got in abundance is history, it’s everywhere and again there’s something for everyone’s interest, from the Stone-Age to Twentieth Century stuff via the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution.
So when the opportunity comes up to mix a couple of these points of interest together and throw in a bit of motorcycling, Dookes is always available…! So last Monday I started up Harls and hit the road.
Over on the North Coast, about 20 miles from Dookes H.Q. stands the bastion of Tintagel Castle. Perched on a high cliff-top above the wild Atlantic waves these mysterious and evocative ruins are, legend says, the birthplace of the mythical King Arthur.
Tintagel Castle
The reality is a bit different, in that the remains of the castle we see today were built in the 13th Century by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who was brother to King Henry III. On the headland where this medieval castle was constructed evidence exists to show that the area had been inhabited for many hundreds of years previously. The problem is that no-one really knows what was happening here!
You see, apart from the 13th Century castle, the only other remains have been dated from what were once euphemistically referred to as “The Dark Ages.”
At this point I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from various archaeological friends…these days, apparently, we must say “Early Middle Ages!” All I know is that it was a bloomin’ long time ago, between the 5th to the 10th Centuries to be precise!
One of the reasons that this period gained it’s “Dark” moniker is that following the decline of the Western Roman Empire very little literature or cultural output occurred and few relics have been found, especially in North West Europe; that’ll be here then!
Since the 1930’s Tintagel has been subject of a number of archaeological investigations into its unknown “bits,” that’s the stuff not including Richard’s castle. The view as to what was going on has varied from; Monastery, Trading Port and has now shifted to “possibly a Royal Palace,” delete as applicable and the mood takes you!
This summer staff and volunteers from the Cornwall Archaeology Unit have been undertaking a “Dig” to try to piece together some of the jigsaw. They were building on work that had been started last year, following a new geophysical survey of the headland that had given some interesting pointers where to start digging.
To say what they have found is impressive sort of depends on your viewpoint, but certainly there’s been a lot of hard work put in to uncover another tantalising glimpse into the past. Hence why I popped into to see for myself.
The excavation site lies on the very Southern edge of Tintagel headland, in a sheltered spot under the lee of higher inland cliffs. The view our 6th Century ancestors had can’t have changed very much and must have been as impressive as today.
The dig team have unearthed substantial remains of walls, giving an interesting perspective of what must have been a most impressive structure. What exactly it was, remains to be unearthed, if you’ll excuse the pun, but being positioned on a sloping cliff-side I’m not at all surprised that it’s walls were substantially built!
Amongst the stones they have also found a veritable treasure trove of pottery shards, oyster shells, animal bones, charcoal, fragments of glass and possibly the remains of a metal blade.
Is this a 1600 year old blade?
The media have been quick to enthuse that this “suggests” that “early Cornish Kings” once lived and dined lavishly at this place… only it doesn’t – and that came from one of the archaeologists! 
What it really does is add more weight to Tintagel being an important trading point; precious local metals out; wine, oil and spices in.
5th Century Pottery shards from the Mediterranean.
It was fascinating to talk to some of the team and watch them at work. There’s clearly a lot more to be discovered and here’s hoping that they will be back next year to keep digging. I spent a happy couple of hours on site and left with a head more full of questions than answers, but archaeology is like that.
Then it was time to fire up Harls and head home… and take a lot longer route than the 20 mile hop to get to Tintagel!
Catch you soon.
Dookes
Hogrider Dookes 