16.10.2022 Finally: off to Spain!

On my journey from Orange to Empuriabrava, I got to know the petrol crisis on the French side. I wanted to fill up again at a BP service station. In France, by the way, there is no service at the petrol stations any more. You have to fiddle with your credit card right at the pump, read/interpret various displays and submenus in French and then you get the free payment to fill up. Once you get used to it, it works quite well. At this BP, however, the first thing they said was that no matter how much you filled up, you would first get a credit card charge of 120 euros, which would then be paid back sometime in the next few days. 

Then you put your card in the slot and are told that there is no petrol. There was no petrol at any of the pumps! I was very careful, though, and always fill up when the tank of my GS is still half full. That saved me here. So I drove on to the next service station in 42 km, a Total, and it still had fuel. There was quite a traffic jam, but at least I could fill up. By the way, Total and all petrol stations on the

motorway are of selected quality. The toilets are spotlessly clean, the service is top notch, the selection of food and souvenirs is large. The motorway tolls are also hefty, but I'd rather pay for an excellent road and the best service stations than to have to drive through a construction site every 5 minutes, as I do

in Germany, where hardly any work is being done. The motorways in France are great. No traffic jams, no road works, best road surface, 130 km/h maximum, totally relaxed driving. 

There I met another nice biker, this time he was from Holland. The guy had already been on the road for 24 hours, without a break, day and night, and he still wanted to get to Spain. He had also fallen victim to the rain the day before, but more heavily than the Argentinian and myself. The Dutchman had come into a downpour that had flooded the motorway, with water up to the footrests of his bike. "Then I got off the motorway, that was a bit too much for me. But otherwise I actually ride everything and always." - "Did you have problems getting fuel on your tour?" - "Yes, I would never have got this far if I hadn't had 10 litres of reserve petrol in both panniers and in the top case!" 

Wow. 30 litres of petrol in the luggage, that's a lot. I was apparently very lucky.