My Dad's been riding bikes since he was a kid (40+ years) but he's never had a bike trip to foreign climes, so we decided to head for Santander and go up through the Pyrenees and through France.

It all started so well, got up and headed down to catch the ferry in Plymouth, got over to Spain and ...............................................

20Km out of Santander some tosspot hit my dad off his bike at 120K and drove off.

Luckily for him, a Spanish trucker parked his truck across the road to stop the traffic and moved dad and the bike off the road.

To cut the long story short he went off to hospital and got looked after well, and he has suffered a broken wrist, hand and two fingers. I was left at the roadside with six Spanish police, who, by the way, were fantastic, to wait for the recovery truck.

Four hours later with a burnt head I was personally escorted by the police to the hospital where I caught up with dad.

He was then transported by taxi to Santander by a mad taxi driver who kept changing lanes and nicking his cigars and throwing the butts out the window hitting me (cabbies!). I had to keep up with them because I did not know where the hotel was. At one point I was clocking 120MPH to keep up (not fun).

Dad and I stayed in a hotel that night and then he  flew home the next afternoon while I had to stay and wait for the return ferry to Plymouth on Thursday morning.

Dad got discharged from Bath Hospital Friday morning after having an operation to insert a plate in his hand/wrist, and I got home Friday lunch time with a red peeling head.

Anyway pretty disastrous trip, and dad is a little gutted, but we're both glad to be back in the UK.  Not sure if he's going to have another go abroad, but we'll see.