Day 8

Sleeping location: Cabin on the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland
Distance (km today/total): 157 / 778
Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 7400
Speed of tailwind (kph): 65
Day in three words: Goodbye perfidious Albion
So here we go, the real adventure starts now that I’m leaving the UK. To be honest I’ll be glad to get away from all the negativity and maliciousness that seems to have been the country’s base setting for the past three and a half years.  That said, I will miss the beer, and made sure to have one last pint of ale on the run into Harwich.  

 Today was a long long day, but Brexit Britain seemed to be happy to get rid of another member of the liberal metropolitan elite (unemployed, homeless, reads the Guardian) and supplied us with a 65kph tailwind for basically the whole way.  Picked up Toni on the way through London, she’ll be with me until Basel in a week’s time.  By “picked up” I mean “met with”, I didn’t just enlist a stranger to cycle 1000km through Middle Europe.  Route was flat and pretty boring, although Colchester was surprisingly nice and we went to a good pub in Chelmsford (generous portions of cheesy chips = a win for the touring cyclist).  

 It was a bit sad to say goodbye to Rebecca again after a brief reunion, but we have a few days together in Bari at the end of the month that I’m already looking forward to.  On the plus side, the other woman in my life (Maggie) is feeling good even with the extra panniers and camping gear - more weight, but it’s much more evenly distributed.  There is now loads of spare space and I’m terrified that I have forgotten something bulky and important like a sleeping bag.  Moment of truth tomorrow with the first night’s camping.  

 Bye bye Britain, then.  Be a dear and sort your shit out whilst I’m away, deep down I do love you and want you to succeed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 38

Sleeping location: By a babbling brook at 1600m, a few km east of the 7 Rila Lakes Lift, Bulgaria Distance (km today/total): 63 / 3792 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1600 / 31400 The main chunk of the climb up here: 800m in 12km Day in three words: Rila high up* *Pun works best in a Yorkshire accent Firstly, an important update on the egg situation from yesterday. It turned out 6 (SIX) of them had broken, so breakfast was scaled down to bread and cheese as I was in no mood for eggs by now. I broke camp in a leisurely fashion again, perhaps too leisurely as it was 10.30 by the time I finally set off. On the way back to the road I had a really funny incident with a herd of goats/sheep and their shepherd*. He was trying to get them to follow him but when they saw me coming along the track they all froze. He kept whistling and I kept trying to hide but they refused to move for a few minutes. Eventually I decided to move forward in the hope that it would “push” them towards him, b...
Read more

Day 152

Sleeping location: Yogofe Hotel, Kombolcha, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 68 / 11064 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1300 / 79800 Restorative cakes eaten: 4 Day in three words: DON’T TRUST DIRT I woke up at 6am needing the toilet, and by this point the cries of the birds and some nearby fishermen made getting back to sleep impossible. We were both very tired and (in my case anyway) a mite hungover. Also, our Ethiopian SIM cards had both been cut off at midnight and we had no internet any more. After getting ourselves together with lots of coffee and some food we set off straight onto the steep rocky track back to the main road, which was a good start to proceedings. After a few km on the main road we turned off to take advantage of a komoot-recommended shortcut which cut out a lot of distance and climb. It was on an “asphalt road”, but was actually on a stony track, but the gradients and surface didn't look too bad so we decided to give it a go. This went ok until 5...
Read more

Day 369 / 134

Date: 16 April 2023 Sleeping location: Sorgvry* House of Guests, Barrydale, South Africa Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 80  / 23137 / 8300 Estimated climb ( m  t oday/total/ tot a l   Part  2):  600  / 2211 00 / 103100 Stress levels: high Day in three words: Big ring day It was another calm, cool, clear day, but forecast to hot up later so we took breakfast (the usual mix of hot things and continental things, but Alex wasn’t the best of chefs: 5/10 with a mark deducted for more minor racism) early and tried to get away quickly. The landscape and riding was fairly similar all day, gently rolling road, big and empty, through big and empty scrubland. There were rocky peaks in the distance and small ones here and there, plus occasional herds of impala/springbok in the distance, one of which ran sort of alongside us for a few hundred metres. With no headwind, major hills or bad road surface some fast riding was both possible and fun so I kept Maggie in ...
Read more