Friday 3rd

Quite a short run for the first day of riding. All 14 bikes were refulled at the nearby filling station and we returned to the hotel car park for photographs and the traditional Indian ceremony which involves placing a lemon under the front tyre of each motorcycle so that when it moved forward, the lemon was squashed and this would bring good luck on our journey. The staff from the hotel saw us off and we joined the chaos on the Indian roads that is all except Graham Turner who's bike was missed in the fuelling session. We regrouped before we left Calicut and I thought this would be a good time to phone my daughter Lucie. It was 11.30 by now. Sorry Lucie and Scott I thought we were less then 5 and a half hours ahead of GMT. It was a good ride out to the country and the team seemed to be getting the hang of how things work. Progress could be described as a series of near misses. We have a support team of six and they convey our luggage and keep us supplied with water. The ladies other than Sam started off in a car but once we were were out of the urban area were able to ride pillion. We attracted some Police interest on our first run, one or two of us were flagged down but I think they were just inquisitive and wanted to know where we came from and the purpose of our journey; finding it hard to comprehend why English people should want to travel to India to ride old fashioned motorcycles. We arrived at the Green Gates Hotel at Kalpetta in the early afternoon. It's a dry hotel so the back up crew were dispatched to fetch a supply of Kingfisher. Fantastic roads as we came up the mountains, lots of hairpins and a few washed out surfaces to deal with. Our destination today is Ooty so I know we will see many tea platations as we climb steadily upwards.