To the Atlantic!

My word - has it really been that long? I've fallen out of the habit of sitting down to write, and as ever the longer you leave it the more difficult it is to pick it up further down the line. It's been about two weeks since my last entry, so apologies to you (assuming that there's still anyone left reading it at the moment). So where are we? I'm now in Royen, North-West of Bordeaux and quite a long way from Narbonne where I was heading towards when last we spoke. Narbonne was a pleasant enough town, though the ride to it from Agde was notable mainly for the fight against the wind which was blowing up a treat by then. The weather had turned quite quickly again and I found myself facing gale force winds, drizzle and a swiftly coldening (if that's not a word I'm officially making it up) general temperature. My initial plan was to head off the next day towards Carcassone, but a combination of the worsening weather and a strong desire to watch the Grand Prix heralded a new plan. A short ride up the road to a new campsite (cheaper, nicer and with better wifi) brought the new experience of pitching my tent in the morning, and then a swift jaunt into Narbonne proper to try and find somewhere to watch the F1. For the country that brought forth Alain Prost into the world, and have had numerous teams competing in the competition, the French pretty much ignore the races themselves - even in a town as large as Narbonne there was nowhere showing the race. That was that plan out the window. My next attempt was to return to the campsite (a 15km round trip) to try to stream the race, with equally poor results. As good as the BBC's coverage is, text commentary just isn't the same. As the weather still had not improved by the next morning, I jumped on a train again and set out towards Pau on the foothills of the Pyrenees. It turned out that I wasn't the only cyclist paying heed to the weather, as every bicycle compartment in the train was full to overflowing by the time we left the station! I spent the majority of the trip in the company of a German couple who had driven to Narbonne, left their car there and were heading in towards the mountains. To cycle back with the wind behind them. The gent (I can't for the life of me remember his name, so a stereotypical Hans will have to do) had retired earlier that year, at 55, and had already ridden the Alps as a "celebration". I would have thought Champagne more appropriate, but it takes all types! He regaled me with stories of being chased by dogs on the Santiago de la Compostela pilgrimage, and riding around Iceland amongst others which really reminded me how much there is to see out there. I jumped off the train just outside Pau and stopped off in a campsite called Les Okiras which was a pleasant surprise - very classy, but very reasonable as well with a well stocked bar and very proficient kitchen! My dinner that evening consisted of duck, duck, duck and duck - heaven. There was a lake right next to the campsite with a wakeboarding/kitesurfing training rig installed which comprised of what looked like electricity pylons linked up to each other in a circuit by ropes and handles being pulled round a course of jumps and obstacles. I know a few people who would have jumped at the chance, but watching was more than enough exercise for me! If I'm honest, I was dreading the next day as it was my first jaunt back into serious hills and mountains since Tuscany. The ride proved tough, as expected, but fuelled by bananas and Mars bars I made it through safely! The last part of the ride was through some lovely rustic French towns with a really soul-warming sun on my back. My stop for that night (and almost the next week as it turned out) was Camping Beau Rivage in Navarrenx, owned and run by Richard and Wendy Curtis, old friends of ours from Jersey who left some yeas ago to run (albeit a different one) a campsite in France. Although to my eyes they haven't changed a bit, in their eyes I had - several feet in fact! The last time they had laid eyes on me was probably twelve years previously, and they had no idea that I was even on teh road let alone near the in Navarrenx! Their daughter, Sophie, happened to be visiting home that weekend, so I joined her and some of her friends for a lovely home- cooked dinner and entertainment! As a little plug, Beau Rivage is amongst the nicest of all the campsites that I have visited on my trip - it's clean, quiet, shaded and very pretty with good facilities and very close to the charming walled town of Navarrenx. It's about 100k inland from Biarritz and if anyone is down in that area I honestly can't recommend it highly enough. Pro-tip - try to get down there for a Friday or Sunday night when Richard is cooking to try and raise his stress levels! I was treated to several meals out whilst I was there, plus a lovely and ery professionally cooked pizza, and the bottle of wine that I bought as a little thank you was forced straight back into my hands, despite my obviously hearty and lengthy protestations. Ufortuantely whilst I was there I managed to twinge my back (it's still not quite right even now) which delayed my departure, but eventually I bit the bullet and jumped back on the bike towards Biarritz and Bayonne. I think that's probably enough for now - it's not up to where I am, but it's already a long one, so I'll get the rest ready over the next couple of days and post it soon. Hope all are well, and see you all soon.

Squirrels and storms

I spent, as I ha d planned, another day and night in La Mas having a wonderful time doing nothing. I popped out for a short ride to pick up some shopping and stopped off for a slice of pizza from a bakery overlooking some a big patch of coastline being battered by some pretty high winds. Unfortunately my pitch was sheltered by the headlands, so I spent another night sweltering away! I broke camp for an early start the next morning and aimed inland towards a town called St. Martin de la Craux. I had left my camera in the campsite office the night before and rather predictably I had forgotten to pick it up when I checked out. I realised this about ten km into my mornings ride (after heading up and down a rather large hill) when I went to take a quick photo. Adding 20k onto my ride did not leave me in the best of moods, and after all that I even forgot to take the photo when I reached the same point again! The heat of the day soon asserted itself as I neared Martigues, so I stopped off for an hour to enjoy a late breakfast at a roadside break area before heading off again into the heat (mid 30's). Although still very hot, the humidity here is much lower than Italy so at least it feels a little cooler and isn't quite so draining when out on the road. That day's ride was great, including a huge straight stretch of road with barely another user and a huge tailwind behind me meaning that I averaged my speed out at around 35kph for a considerable time - not bad going when laden as heavily as I am! The campsite was a real find - only about 35 pitches, but family run and with a lovely swimming pool on the side. I pitched up in the shade and headed for the pool and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of small children running about screaming their heads off, something I have come to expect on most campsites recently. I spent a couple of days in Camping Le Craux, taking advantage of plethora of bars in the village and a handily located Super-U within walking distance to stock up in the necessities. After a couple of days spent primarily by the pool, and watching an army of ants devouring a piece of roast chicken near my tent I packed up my bits and headed off again, this time towards Lunel for a campsite called Bonne Ports. I had high hopes for the site, and passed up the opportunity to stop off at a couple of others in my haste to get there. This proved to be a serious mistake, as the campsite was awful. Expensive, crowded, noisy, bad (and expensive) wifi connection etc. etc. etc. They even managed to screw up making a pizza, deciding that instead of pepperoni on an Americana it should in fact be a bolognese sauce topped off with potatoes and half cooked. Not good. The only real positive to take from it was the local wildlife and I spent a lovely quart of an hour or so being shouted at by the resident squirrel whilst trying in vain (me, not him) to grab a couple of decent photo's... The scenery around here is great - vast tracts of sun-scorched wilderness surrounded by lush vineyards at the heart of the Languedoc wine region. The scores of singis offering wine tasting are a sore temptation, but unfortunately probably best avoided whilst travelling a velo! Early next morning we had a pretty serious thunderstorm, with some monumental rain meaning that my departure was delayed until late morning, but the break in the heat meant that I could forego my midday break and cycle strait through, which I duly did, taking in a little bit of Montpellier before arriving in Frontignan for the evening. If you take a look on the map around the area, you will see how the land lies - a spit of land jutting out from the coast, barely connected to mainland at either side. My campsite was in the middle of this spit of this beautiful outcrop, with the roaring sea on one side and a lagoon on the other - stunning. I had taken a look at a couple of other places during the day - the first was (far) too expensive whilst the second boasted no facilities other than a basic toilet block (by this time the temperature was creeping back up and I was gagging for a cold beer). The third was a camping village/resort of a type that I typically try to avoid, but seeing that my GPS battery was running very low it seemed prudent to at least take a look. Thank God I did! Although the basic tariff for high season started out at €50 a night, I w met by one of the owners who offered me a much more reasonable rate of €16 a night, for the placement, wifi and use of their rather lovely swimming pool. A bargain I think you'll agree! Sure enough, I made good use of the pool, the bar, the restaurant and the wifi. I had planned to stay for another night, but the weather reports going forward looked pretty dire so I headed out again towards Agde, between Frontignan and Narbonne which is where I find myself now! After a pretty tiring ride I fell upon the highly recommended Camping La Neptune gratefully. Last night brought forth a truly awesome thunderstorm - about half an hour of flashes of lightning in the distance before the storm moved overhead for about quarter of an hour accompanied by a deluge of heavy rain and bolts of lightning falling pretty close to where I lay in my tent, including one crash that seemed only metres away - feeling the earth shake, hearing the distinct crack of the fork rather than a distant rumble and with the air itself fizzing in the aftermath, then listening to the sounds of the storm receding off in to the distance! Really awe-inspiring stuff! Today is, as expected after a show like that, much cooler with almost complete cloud coverage. It's still low 20's, but with the scattered rain showers I'm pretty glad for my day off! Next in my sights is Narbonne, then heading across the bottom of the Pyrenees towards some old friends in Biarritz - I'll let you know how it goes, but that's ciao for now!

Back to life, back to insanity.

From Florence to Rome to Dublin to Cork to Rome to Marseille. It's be an interesting couple of weeks! I'll start off in Florence, where I left off last time. After the Pitti and the Bargello there was only really one feasible next stop - the Uffizi Gallery. It's one of the most incredible collections of art that the World has ever seen, containing pieces from Ancient Greece, Rome, early religious pieces, Renaissance, Old Masters and much more - Caravaggio, Van Dyke, Titian, Holbein, Raphael, Michaelangelo &c. &c. The list goes on and on. The queue for entrance when I arrived was approximately six hours long - such are the prices to pay for being cultural in the height of the tourist season. Thankfully the price for skipping the queue was only an extra three Euros on top of the entrance fee! I had thankfully heeded advice and called ahead to reserve my ticket, and after 20 minutes of rushing round like an idiot and joining a few of the wrong lines I thankfully found the right one, quickly acquired my ticket and went straight on in. Reservations over the phone are an absolute must for those of you who want to visit it. I was absolutely astounded that more people didn't take advantage of this, but it's their loss! I spent far too much time in the gallery, about five hours in total but it was fantastic and a real eye-opener and well worth the time. Afterwards I made a quick visit to an exhibition held by a shoe-shop of all places! They had supplied many of the shoes for Marilyn Monroe back in the day, and now, 50 years after her death, were holding an exhibition - my Godfather had lent several of his pieces to them, so I felt a little familial obligation to pop in on his behalf! After heading back to the campsite and spending another evening trying to ignore the Olympic water-polo (it was exceptionally boring) I packed up my bits in readiness for the morning and when that arrived I loaded up my bike and headed back in to Florence to grab a train to Forano, just outside Rome, to see France in readiness for heading back to Ireland for Christian and Leonie's wedding. I spent a couple of days stuffing my face with local Italian goodness before jumping on a train and a plane to Roma Da Vinci airport and jetting back off to see my family. The re-union was great, and reminded me how much I've missed my family in my short time away. We spent a couple of days with Leonie's family feeling the warmth of their ever-present hospitality before my Dad and I hired a car to drive around the west coast of Ireland taking in Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher, a truly stunning pass through the mountains, the Ring of Kerry, Tra Li, Galway, Kenmare and much more. Ireland really is a beautiful place and it's easy to see why they call it the Emerald Isle. As the locals said, if they had the weather to match it would be the nicest place in the World! The wedding itself was epic, with everything that was planned (and there was a heck of a lot of it) going perfectly. Huge congratulations again to everyone involved, and especially the (very) happy couple. After the wedding (and a much needed day of recovery) I jumped on a bus down to Cork and flew back out to Rome. When I was greeted by Franco I was told of the weather that had been brewing in my absence - a heatwave that the locals had nick-named "Lucifer". According to Franco (an Italian native who lives in Jersey) he had never seen anything like it - temperatures hitting 40-45c in central Italy, and not much better on the coast. All Rome needed was Nero with a fiddle... With this sort of weather I knew that there was no way in hell of carrying on travelling down and with great reluctance and a tinge of disappointment I jumped on a train and headed up north. After a lovely 24 hours of travelling including bedding down in a train station with about a hundred other travellers for a couple of hours between 1.30am to 5.00am I arrived, tired and tetchy in Marseille. I grabbed a bite to eat early on and headed off for a lovely little 40km ride out of the city to my first campsite back in France, Camping La Mas near Sainte-Croix on the Cote Bleu, which is where I am now! After that ride I know that I made the right decision. Although the weather was a full 10c lower than the weather I would've encountered in Italy and the humidity significantly less, it was still incredibly taxing. The water in my bottles was fit for making tea by the time I had finished, and I had to stop for an hour and a half's siesta in the early afternoon as it was too hot to even read in the bus shelter by the side of the road. I'm planning on staying here for another night - doing a little shopping and a little swimming in the gloriously blue mediterranean sea, as well as planning for the next few days and heading off again. I'll let you know in due course where I get to! Ciao once again for now.

To Toscana

As the title suggests I am now in Tuscany, just outside of my new favourite city - Firenze (that's Florence to any non-Italians out there). This is another truly beautiful part of Europe, and definitely another place that I will visit again in the future. This segment starts where the last left off - on Lake Maggiore in the North of Italy. I spent a couple of days on the lake soaking up the sun and the atmosphere - I arrived there on a Sunday, so the beach next to the campsite was predictably full of Italian families taking advantage of the weather and being as unrestrained as only Italian families can be. After being told that the campsite didn't accept credit-cards (as an aside, it seems that pretty much nowhere except big shops in Italy accept payment by card - small wonder why their tax collectors are so inefficient...) I went in search of a Bancomat which resulted in a lovely little tour of the area and surrounding towns (the first was out of order, the second had been demolished, along with the bank it had been attached to, the third had run out of money so it was only the fourth on my list that was of any help, hence the slightly exaggerated tour of the surrounding area!). I left Maggiore after a couple of days with a slightly heavy heart - it was truly stunning, and being so close to the lakes was just great, but the next part of my trip was one that I'd been looking forward to since the planning started in Jersey - Tuscany. I had done a little research on the possibility of cycling down through Northern Italy, but this was a no-go. It's not just the Appenines stretching across the middle of Italy that caused issues, but the fact that there appear to be no campsites between the lakes and Tuscany! Rough-camping is very much against the law in Italy and I didn't really fancy a fair few days worth of travelling with no facilities at the end of the day, so I hopped on a train (well, technically four (five if you include the one I was thrown off)) down to La Spezia. Arriving at about seven in the evening I had looked forward to a couple of k's ride to the campsite for the evening - unfortunately I had worked this out from a different train station to the one that I had alighted from, so I had a good hour-long ride minimum before I could settle down for the night. Once again my GPS provided me with a couple of little traps that I hadn't considered, sending me half-way up a hill full of little steps before I came to the path that it was sending me which was straight up a load more incredibly steep steps - a total no-go which resulted in me having to work out my own route up to the campsite, swinging round the hill in almost the opposite direction - not fun. Arriving at the campsite at around nine o'clock wasn't ideal, but the fact that it led directly down into the Med was a real fillip - being an islander and not having seen the sea for two months, this was a big deal. I therefore set up my tent (after being fed a lovely cold beer by a Swiss chap that I never saw again) and donned my swimming shorts and headed down for a late-night swim off the rocks in the warm salty water of the Mediterranean. Heaven. Unfortunately the rest of the night wasn't quite as much fun - no wind, stifling heat, a full moon and enough mosquitoes to put vampires out of business culminated in a grand total of 0 hours sleep and a night spent counting the hours slip by. Not fun. I had planned on spending a couple of days here (just outside La Spezia) to try and plan the route down through Tuscany but the hellish night, high tariff and lack of WIFi quickly put pay to this notion. Instead I loaded up the bike as quickly as possible and headed off to Viareggio. The ride was great - a big slug of downhill as I left La Spezia and the Apennines followed by a long straight road following the beach for mile after mile in the hot sun. I stopped off at a rather strange establishment - a motley collection of chairs, swings, hammocks and the likes all arranged underneath a load of leafy trees providing as much shade as could be wanted. Their only fare was freshly made fruit juices so I settled down for a lovely banana, peach, strawberry and orange juice which provided enough energy to finish the trip to Viareggio. Once there I realised that in my rush to leave La Spezia I had left my battery with the office to charge overnight. Rather than backtrack for a few days (and spend another night of no sleep) I called them and they agreed to pop the battery in the post down to where I was. It really was no hardship to wait for it however, as Viareggio was lovely. I spent a day in the town shopping for a few bits and pieces that I needed (mosquito repellent, t-shirts to replace mine that were falling apart etc.) and took advantage of a couple of days off by visiting a very accomplished Italian barber for a trim! I also met a lovely German couple, Leonard and Miriam) camped in the tent next to me - we got on like a house on fire and spent a long night cooking a barbecue (very slowly as it happened), listening to music and generally just chilling and beering until three o'clock in the morning! After my battery arrived I headed off to Pisa - the ride was pretty short, but very pleasant and arriving at the campsite in the early afternoon gave me plenty of time to cycle the 12k to Pisa and spend the afternoon in the city. After visiting their stunning cathedral and, of course, climbing the tower of Pisa, I headed back to the campsite to prepare for the next ride. Unsurprisingly these preparations included a lovely big pizza, lots of white wine, several beers, a group of French students and a Polish couple motorbiking through Europe. Leaving early the next morning I got as far as the front gate before realising that I was missing my GPS, resulting in me unpacking ALL of my gear outside the main entrance to the campsite which went down well... Thankfully it was only hiding in one of my shoes, so after hastily repacking I jumped on the bike and aimed in the general direction of Florence. The ride was pretty hard truth be told, but rewarding. After a stonkingly hot day (36c) and climbing to several hundred metres above sea level I arrived at Camping International Firenze. After setting up camp and showering I settled down to an evening in the cafe/restaurant for a few beers. Bliss. I spent the evening in the company of a lovely Kiwi girl chatting for hours and trying not to fall into a coma whilst watching the Olympic water-polo (they didn't even have horses - what a con). Today was spent in my new favourite city of Florence, spending my morning in the Museo del Bargello, crossing the Ponto Vecchio, lunchtime in a lovely little cafe overlooking the Palazzo Pitti and then my afternoon soaking up the Medici and Renaissance culture. After all the slagging off of my GPS that I've done, I think that I'd better come to its defence a little - it is a great piece of kit and although it tests my patience sometimes, it is a life-saver at others, especially on days like today when visiting a new unknown city and flitting from landmark to landmark. Tomorrow will be spent in the Uffizi, one of the best galleries that the World has to offer, and then it's off to Rome in preparation for heading off to Ireland for my Brother's wedding! So that brings me to where I am now. I'll see some of you in Ireland in a week or so, but until then, ciao!

Mountains and Lakes - Switzerland and Italy

By my reckoning, I've now been on the road for two and a half months. Time to make some awards: Best for food - the French. Unsurprising really, but there's nothing like a French croissant or baguette no matter how hard the rest of Europe try, and the quality of the food is just so high from markets or restaurant. Biggest surprise was Belgium - a lovely country with lovely people and I'll definitely head back again. Best roads: Switzerland. They win by a margin. I met a family a couple of nights ago who described driving over the border to Italy as driving into one big pothole. The Germans came a somewhat distant second and unsurprisingly the Italian roads thus far are the worst. For cycle lanes, I think that the Dutch have it by an edge from the Germans. They both have wide networks, but the when the cycle path is wider than the road in parts, you know that the Dutch have their priorities right! Scenery comes down to a three-way battle between some glorious parts of the Rhine and the Black Forest in Germany, the Italian/Swiss lakes that I'm traversing at the moment and Lake Geneva. I think that Switzerland just nicks it due to the view from Montreux out into the lake surrounded by the start of the Alps. Oolderhuuske in the Netherlands definitely deserves a special mention and also wins in the Best Value category, with Lake Lugano coming out as worst (not that it wasn't lovely, it's just that CHF40 a night combined with Swiss prices for everything else is not easy on the wallet). That was last night, which brings me neatly onto now! As I write I'm sitting just off Lake Maggiore. The coast is about 100m away and it is seriously hot. I left off last time in Geneva and headed out the next morning towards Lausanne, fittingly the home of the International Olympic Committee, though I doubt many will be staffing their offices now! The campsite was nothing special when considering the price but it was clean and within a short walk of the Lake (Geneva still). An early start the next morning took me off towards Montreux, a town about the size of St. Helier though slightly more affluent! The morning's ride was seriously tough, including a chunk of pushing the bike uphill when heading through the foothills of the mountains that surround the region. Although this was a huge effort and had me almost wiped out by lunch-time the afternoons ride was absolutely joyful! After a couple of hours drifting up and down the side of roads clinging to the hills and a short stint under a tree to avoid the heat of the day the first big chunk of the afternoon was spent racing down long winding roads through vineyards towards the level of the lake and the second chunk winding along the waterfronts of the towns crowding the coast. It was great when a fifteen foot tall bronze Freddie Mercury hove into view, and I stopped off for the obligatory photographs and to soak up the wonderful atmosphere and weather. Montreux is a great town for music and there are live jazz bands and individual musicians dotted around all over the place. The campsite was a welcome surprise at a very reasonable CHF18 a night (about £11). I said at the start of my trip that if I particularly liked anywhere then the freedom of my plans would give me the chance to indulge and the weather, scenery, atmosphere and everything else persuaded me to stay for a few days to take it all in. After that it was down to Italy. A short (four hours, standing with my bike) hop over the Alps dropped me off into Milan and I swiftly jumped on another to head back up towards the Italian lakes starting with Lake Como. After stepping out into the sweltering humidity and heat of the region my priority was to find a campsite - the ones I had scouted out were 15k away and through some pretty tough looking hills. With it getting on in the evening Christian (that's my brother by the way) came to my rescue with some research on campsites a little closer to me! At about half-pas eight I pulled in to a very basic campsite, though with the welcome addition of a swimming pool and a good restaurant. After a short dip I partook of my first pizza in Italy for some years and was thrilled that a hefty calzone, half litre of beer, large carafe of wine and a snifter of grappa came to less than the cost of a store-bought lunch a couple of days before! The swim and part of the evening were spent in the Company of Andy and Anne, a couple of CTC members with two of their daughters in tow who followed a similar route to me though sightly faster as they had on this occasion eschewed the bikes and jumped into the car!! Friday's ride was a relatively short one 45k) to try to adjust to the condition of the roads, temperature and humidity and of course the temperament of Italian drivers. In the latter regard I've been pleasantly surprised - although they drive undoubtedly quickly and a few times closer than I'd like, they are for the most part aware and understanding of cyclists. The amount of cyclists on the road during the weekends might give some explanation as to why this is the case, and a large proportion of the drivers must be cyclists themselves. For the second time in two days I crossed the Swiss/Italian border as I hurtled on to Lake Lugano (60kph is seriously fast when you're load with as much gear as I have!). Lugano was, as I've said, both seriously stunning and seriously expensive. A bad wifi connection (charged for) and a camp party with assuredly the World's worst DJ (playing New York, New York halfway through a rousing set whilst trying to sing along but not knowing the actual words really kills the atmosphere - I could tell from a tent thirty feet away...) left a bitter taste in the mouth, thou assuaged somewhat by the experience the next morning of watching the sun rise from behind the mountains from the confines of my tent. I'd done most of my packing before the sun was fully up which is a must here as the temperature in the tent goes from comfortably warm to hotter than a beach on Mars in a matter of minutes. I still don't think this is gong to inure me to early starts however. Today's ride (for that was this morning) was probably the best day's riding I've ever had. Starting off following the lake around for half the morning followed by climbing the foothills through typically Italian towns in the strong sunlight, then drifting down through Varese and towards Lake Maggiore I extended my ride somewhat, following the river at the foot of the lake for a few miles before crossing and heading back up towards the campsite. This is another truly beautiful part of the world, and the people here (albeit many of them tourists) are lovely. I've been offered use of a cooler for my beers today by one neighbouring tent and been fed a large slice of watermelon by the other! There are so many little comedies that I see when I'm riding, too numerous to mention - stints of off-roading when I decide that I know the route better than the GPS, children trying to row a boat across the river Neckar, an old man teaching himself windsurfing with extremely limited success or just watching the ducks, swans, herring-gulls, pigeons, starlings and other sea birds fight out the hierarchy whilst being fed bread. I know that I've got a few of these on camera which I'll share as soon as I can but the are hundreds that remain only in memory, but I'm glad they're there at least! The sun has just gone down, the temperature has dropped from it's earlier high and the theme tune to Top Gun is drifting through the breeze from a nearby camper van. I'm off to cook my dinner and I think I'll call that a night!

Planes, trains and automobiles (without the planes or automobiles)

The area around the black forest is stunning, and definitely somewhere that I will visit agin. There is a beautiful peaceful tranquility. Riding only 100 metres from busy roads is still totally quiet, all of the noise cancelled out by the thick wall of trees and greenery. I left off last time near Karlsruhe, and stayed there for another night due to the (increasingly wet) weather. The campsite itself was pretty basic, and bearing in mind the weather there weren't too many people around. My decision to delay heading off towards Stuttgart was justified by the next day's ride - 100k on the dot, through some serious hills as I moved away from the Rhine. The ride was great, with loads of beautiful countryside, and some great downhill tracts in stunning sunlight. Stuttgart itself was fascinating - the city is of some serious size - 6,000,000 people around the metropolitan area - and it's probably the biggest city I've cycled through thus far. The city is surrounded by some very high hills which proved a somewhat challenging start to the next day and signalled the start of the serious hills that have featured much more over the last week. I spent a nice quiet night in the city, sleep didn't come too difficult that evening! Finding the campsite that night was something of a challenge - I've had an experience before where the campsite that I planned to stay in simply wasn't there (thanks again Google!) and was a little worried that I'd have to carry on for a significant distance or try and find a hotel, but thankfully I loaded the GPS coordinates from the tinterweb and found the site without too much of a problem. The next day was a pretty tough ride even though I only covered about 45k thanks to some seriously tough hills and detours after arguing with my GPS about not wanting to ride on busy main roads! The ensuing couple of days were a real treat as I arrived in Tubingen on the River Neckar. The campsite, very reasonable, very pretty, with a lovely little restaurant and the best chips I've ever tasted was about 4k away from the aforementioned University town. The first night was spent savouring a few beers and getting acquainted with the local speciality of schweine-schnitzel and chatting with a couple of married Dutch head-teachers touring during the school hols. A young Dutch couple had introduced themselves, and I spent a good deal of time in their company over the next couple of days. In the morning I headed towards the local beer garden in Tubingen, encountering the music department of the Uni on the way with their choir blasting out traditional German classical music through an open window. I rewarded my walk with a lovely weissbier and bier-pretzel before taking a walk around the town. Stopping off in the cathedral I continued on the musical theme and sat listening to a very good organist practicing his music, though quite of a type that I'd never heard before - melancholy and almost bitter, but extremely well executed none-the-less. After a hearty lunch at the beer garden (pretty much a whole pig with dumplings) followed by a deserved ice-cream from a nearby cafe I wandered back to the campsite. I ran into Tim (one half of the lovely Dutch couple) on the way back and suggested a few beers for the evening so we wandered back in later and enjoyed a few more beers in a now well packed beer garden, encountering a barman from Exeter on the way! The area was so nice that I stayed for another day giving me the chance to catch up on some much needed washing and maintenance and after another evening with my neighbours (this time cards and pork-steaks with the obligatory weissbier) I set off again. The next day's ride was hard but rewarding. Long climbs through beautiful scenery and sharp descents followed each other rapidly and a stunning few km's through a forest capped the day off nicely. The campsite wasn't much, but cheap, clean and with friendly staff. It was only an overnight stay, but it served me well. The next day I had a short hop across to Rottweil where I jumped on a train for the day and crossed into Switzerland. Looking back at some of the scenery on the way I'm pretty glad that I did, otherwise I would probably still be on one of the various mountains now! I had intended to head for Zurich and cycle through to Geneva, but on the Spur(r) (geddit?) of the moment decided to head for Geneva to meet up with Jean-Luc, an old friend of mine residing in the city. After looking at some of the mountains I would have had to have crossed I think it was again the right decision! The scenery was incredible (including a schloss overhanging the cliff next to a waterfall!) and gave me a real feel for Switzerland. Geneva is a city of less than 200,000 people but feels much larger when trying to negotiate it on a heavily laden touring bike. After spending a frustrating hour heading out of the city proper (the lights stay red for AGES) I ignored my GPS and followed a cycle route right on Lake Geneva to my campsite. As I had expected it is expensive, but lovely. Right on the lake and with excellent facilities. I had planned to stay for only one night, but thanks to Jean-Luc and his penchant for inducing hangovers I booked in for another night. I spent today (for this is when I'm writing the blog) on a "plage" that included no sand, but a beautiful panorama of the lake. Breakfast this morning was a couple of croissant shared with the incredibly tame ducks who were pecking at my shoes, lunch as well of the rest of the day spent looking out over the lake with the temperature in the mid 30's, and dinner was (is) in the restaurant attendant to the site and with one table (mine) overlooking the lake! My next plan is to tour Lake Geneva for a bit and head to Montreaux, the home for a long time of Freddie Mercury. For those of you who know me well, this will be something of a pilgrimage and I'm looking forward to it greatly. After that, probably a bit of Italy and then Croatia, but apparently there's the little matter of a wedding to interrupt my trip. So again, that's me for now. I leave you as I'm sitting with a glorious view over Lake Geneva drinking a bottle of lovely Swiss red wine on a warm summer evening whilst working on my Best Man's speech. Until next time all...

Riding the Rhine

When I left off last time I was just outside Bonn, popping in and out of the city to try and sort a couple of bits out - no real problems, and it was lovely to have a couple of days rest on a lovely part of the river, and lovely it is. As I've said before, the Rhine is a beautiful part of Germany. It's very green, and often very tranquil. There are very good cycle paths going the whole way down, both next to the river and more inland if you want to cut a bit off the distance between A and B. Needless to say, having no real time constraints, I've been mainly following the meandering path of the river down-country (or up-hill as I near the Alps). Thus far I have been mainly lucky with the weather - the latter parts of Holland ushered in some beautiful sunshine, which has followed me most of the way down the river, however the last couple of days have been slightly less kind. I have a new addition to the bike - I stopped off at a bike shop to replace a coupe of broke spokes and decided to invest in a mirror. It's not particularly elegant or stylish, but it's a real help when riding on roads, something I am once again doing more of. As I've mentioned to a few people, I had the misfortune to see the after-effects of rather a nasty accident - if you don't want the particulars, skip over the next paragraph, but at least take this message with you - when cycling, ALWAYS wear a helmet. I was just past Remagen in the early afternoon right on the river - there is a high wall on the land-side of the path due to the changing levels of the Rhine over the seasons and on the other a couple of feet of brush before the river itself. As I was passing the scene, I noticed a bit of commotion and a couple of old chaps looking down the side of the path. I stopped to see if I could help, I carry a basic first-aid kit at the top of my pannier in case of minor emergencies, but I quickly realised that this wouldn't be much good. In the bushes were two men giving CPR to a third, one working on his chest and the other providing artificial respiration. I offered my services, but there was clearly little I could do - both of these men knew what they were doing vis-a-vis CPR, so I ran up the road to direct the Ambulance which had been summoned some minutes earlier. Once it arrived the Paramedics were extraordinarily efficient, taking control of the situation immediately, taking over the CPR and starting defibrillation. Unfortunately there was nothing that could be done. I spoke briefly with the paramedic who reckoned that the man had suffered a heart attack or similar whilst riding. The quick CPR provided by the two members of public and the quick response of the Ambulance would likely have saved his life, but the fact that he had crashed without a helmet, resulting in severe head trauma had wiped out any chance of survival. At the time it was a pretty horrific event as you can probably imagine, but if I can take any positives at all from it it is to encourage everyone that I know to take serious care when cycling and to ALWAYS wear a helmet, without exception (when cycling that is). YOU CAN START READING AGAIN. After the accident I spent the night in a lovely campsite, right on the Rhine near a place called Boppard. My pitch was almost on the river, beautifully sheltered but unfortunately shared with a couple of thousand mosquitoes. I am still sporting multiple wounds from them. I haven't tended to eat out too much on this trip, surprising maybe to those of you that know me well, but it's not all that easy. First is the price, which when you compare it to another night on a campsite seems a high price to pay, then there's the timing. A large meal at lunch-time is a no-go, as cycling on a full stomach is a recipe for disaster. In the evening, more often than not I am simply too tired to want to go through the rigmarole of sitting down and being fussed over. That evening however, my hunger overtook me, especially when I noticed the local speciality - a kilo and a half of ribs, served with bread and a pretence of a salad (sweetcorn, beans, sauerkraut and a chilli - mmmm). It went down exceptionally well, and a large part served as the next day's lunch as well - happy days! After Boppard I headed towards Mainz and spent a night surrounded by English voices! Besides me there was a Geordie (Alex - GeordieOnABike.com) the writer of a blog I have read a few times previously, an English couple on a motorbike on their way home and at least two other English (speaking at least) couples in the campsite overnight! The following days ride was a killer - headwinds all day and a long chunk of riding. I was heading towards Mannheim and the ride took me up and down hills, through winding roads (when all you want to do is go straight on), through a few very large industrial sites (including one owned by BASF that seemed about the same size as Jersey) and then through Mannheim itself. I don't know if I just saw a bad side of the city, but it was easily the least pleasant I've been to yet - impersonal, complicated traffic systems, dirty and noisy. Not what you want in a holiday destination. The campsite however, extremely close to the city as it happens, was charming. There is a large headland separated from the city, and composed entirely of woodland, with the campsite making up the very tip. I spent a very enjoyable evening in the company of a German lady who was into the last couple of days of a three-week tour, and then a couple of lovely lazy days sitting by the river (or in my tent thanks to the sodding rain) relaxing and waiting for a delivery from Jersey. The package arrived yesterday evening, so this morning I set off towards Karlsruhe. The ride today was fabulous - the scenery was great, changing from farms to small towns to river-side paths frequently and, although the wind was in my face most of the day, it wasn't too strong and my legs felt great for their rest. I had my first taste of the Black Forest - ignoring my GPS which wanted me to take a main road was an easy call on this occasion, and I spent a fantastic hour and a half cycling through the cool shade, watching streams and joggers flow past with an equal rapidity. As for now I'm sitting in a campsite just outside the city. I've just arrived, my tent is up and I'm looking judiciously at the restaurant, though it's more likely that my stove will be called into action again tonight. The next main target is Switzerland, but I'm told there might be some little hills in the way. I'm trying to work out a reasonable path at the moment, and will be off first thing tomorrow. Speak soon.

Roermond to the Rhine

If there is one massive downside about German campsites, it is that none of them seem to have Wi-Fi, so apologies for the delay but I'm now back online (even if the "n" button has fallen out of my keyboard). As such, please also accept my apologies for the length - I've been adding bits and pieces for more than a week now, and it's a long 'un. As the first paragraph suggests, I'm now in Germany and am following the warm weather down the Rhine - it's tranquil, hot and beautiful, but more on that later... When I left off I was heading down from Ledeacker towards Liege for the start of the Tour de France. I aimed for the Limburg region where I planned to stay overnight before setting up camp in Liege the following day. The day passed quickly, in mediocre weather (including roughing out a rain-storm chowing down on cherries at the side of the road. I arrived at my stop for the night witht the day passing into evening and took stock. The campsite was, to put it lightly, stunning. Marina Oolderhuuske near Roermond in Limburg is, as the name suggests, a large Marina facility that has a campsite on the side. As such there was a good restaurant, a nice bar, seclusion (it was on an islet accessible only by the Marina's own ferry or (as I found out) a VERY long winding side-road. It was picturesque, the staff were polite, friendly and helpful and the other patrons were also, to a large degree, lovely. Above all however, it was tremendously good value - at €10 a night it's amongst the cheapest of the sites I've stayed at, but undoubtedly the nicest thus far. Among the people that I met were the lovely Hanes and Nadine, a young German couple who teach wake-boarding at the Marina, commuting in each weekend from their home in Germany - their camper is easily the best that I've seen, a very stylish 1976 silver American trailer (I'm not sure of the specifics, but you know what I mean - I hope), kept immaculately polished and neat as you would expect from any self-respecting German couple! The Tour de France part didn't quite go as easily as planned - I had been e-mailing campsites around, but received no positive replies. After calling another half-dozen the morning I was due to set off I had absolutely no luck, so resolved to stay in Oolderhuuske and train down to Liege with my bike as necessary. The trial run on Friday (the Tour started on Saturday) didn't go too well thanks to a wildcat strike by the Belgium railways being called on the morning I was travelling there. With me departing from Holland there were no signs to show that anything was amiss, however the queue for the information desk in Maastricht Station told me everything. A very brief query later, a short bite to eat in the city and I was off back to Roermond. The next day, the start of the Tour, was thankfully more successful. No strikes, no delays, just incredibly packed trains. There were a huge amount of people turned away from stations along the way, as there was just no chance that they could fit anyone in, and as everyone was heading to the same destination, nobody was decamping to make room. Being a Jerseyman I am quite used to running into other Jersey whilst away - this trip has been no exception. For those of you who know him, I bumped into Ken Rondel on the train from Maastricht to Liege. In the same carriage. It was only due to the fact that I had struck up conversation with a couple of his colleagues from EFG as I'd heard a British voice that I ran into him. Of all the carriages on all the trains on all the routes into Liege I run into four of what must have been a tiny number of Jerseymen in the country! You couldn't make it up. The TT stage in Liege was fantastic - the city was wholly geared towards it, huge swathes of streets were shut off for the 6km course, and barriers were up everywhere to keep Joe Public out of the way of the teams who were about their serious business all day. After ogling as many team buses as possible and loading up my camera with photo's I started watching the stage itself in a great position near the start, listening to the crowd count-down, then watching riders, flanked by Police motorcycle and a team car/motorbike (and camera car depending on the import of the rider) speed off down the ramp and pedalling furiously into the distance. Congratulations to Brad Wiggins for his fantastic second place which sets him up well for this year's challenge. (Editors note - unfortunately as at the time of writing I haven't had an internet connection, so am completely in the dark as to who stands where!) I had arrived back in Roermond on the train at 5.52pm after the racing and ridden from the station to the ferry by 6.03pm - a ride that had previously taken me close to 30 minutes - only to see the ferry captain wandering off towards his car. This meant one of two things were happening - either a two hour cycle ride back through Roermond and all the way around the area to get back, or flag down a passing boat and hope for the best (that or swim, but I wasn't leaving my bike and gear there unattended all night). Guess which I chose. After trying to flag down a number of boats, a chap (Marius) in an 8ft rib saved the day. A lack of mutual language didn't slow us down as I threw my gear in beside him, clambered into the back, pulled my bike on top of me and looked worriedly at the water clearance, which ran at about 4mm above to 5cm below the waterline! The river was successfully forded however, and my adventurous day completed! I had been planning, from camping around Liege, to catch the second stage of 198km on the Sunday, however the timings involved really didn't work out. The ferry stops running at 6 pm as mentioned before, and I would not have gotten back to Roermond until it was almost dark, and a two-hour ride in darkness on foreign roads still doesn't appeal to me much. I was still hugely tired out by the previous day, so determined to stay at Oolderhuuske. I spent a free day reading, writing, eating and sunbathing, so it wasn't all bad. On to Germany! I set off from Oolderhuuske on a humid but cloudy Monday morning and crossed into Germany late-morning. The difference wasn't hugely noticeable until I reached Monchengladbach, a very industrial city. Riding through the factories and chemical processing facilities on the outskirts of the town provided a stark contrast to the calm and agricultural Low Countries. My target for the day was the Rhine, which was achieved in early evening. After a quick bite to eat, a chat with my neighbours (a Dutchman who has spent a large proportion of the last 20 years on the road) I fell into a long and comfortable repose. As to now, I'm following the Rhine down - it's a stunning river, but with a lot of action on it. There are always barges and Ferries ploughing through the water, and pleasure craft, canoes and row-boats flitting up and down, and it provides a constantly changing scenery which is very refreshing. My second night in Germany was spent at a very pleasant campsite near Dusseldorf, where I met an Aussie couple also on the road, sharing a tandem tourer! Evan and Sue were lovely - we shared ideas, information on kit and compared notes for a large part of the evening, and some of the advice has been pretty useful. They were meeting a couple of friends of theirs that evening to head down to Switzerland together. Last night was spent in a another campsite on the Rhine (I'm desperately trying to find sites on the river as it's so stunning) - Campingplatz Burger after a day travelling back up to Dusseldorf on Sue's advice to buy a 3G card (not as yet working), then following the river down through Leverkusen and Cologne. The campsite was lovely, plenty of shade (which I managed to miss when pitching my tent, a decent shop on the side and nice people. There was only one problem however, that of many children. With parents ensconced firmly in the bar, their noise carried on into the wee hours of the morning, before resuming at an alarmingly early hour. After catching up on a bit of my blog, and a bit of my reading, I had a nice early night in anticipation of today. In the morning my neighbour, an American come Frenchman come German called PJ shared his morning cup of coffee and his company with me, a great start to the day. As for today, I've travelled down through Bonn. I spent a couple of hours around lunchtime in the city to try and get my 3G sorted (not quite, but hopefully any minute now!), and then headed down to my campsite for the evening on the river. Tomorrow is a day off to try and sort out a few things (washing clothes, bike maintenance and heading back to Bonn if the 3G isn't resolved), and then it's back on the road thereafter. The weather can be summed up in two words. "Hot" and "Humid". It was 32c when I woke up this morning (outside of the tent that it, probably close to boiling point inside). It's been threatening to rain for almost a couple of weeks, but doesn't seem to really want to break. Hopefully soon - all this water's getting expensive. That's me for now - hopefully this will be posted tomorrow afternoon (or today in modern money). That's me for now - until next time.

Holland with Hills

As the title suggests, I've now started experiencing my first hills in Holland - not quite the mini-mountains that the North of France was offering me, but a shock to the system none-the-less. When cycling on the straight and narrow for so long, you very quickly settle into a familiar, almost hypnotic type of cycling - the mind clears and simply takes in what is around you, but getting back amongst hills really makes you concentrate on what you\re doing and how you expend your energy. I haven't been eating too well recently - more snacking than full meals, and that has made for a relatively difficult day's riding today, but before that, let's recap. I left Amsterdam a couple of days ago now - I had intended my last night to be quiet and relaxing with a couple of beers in front of the Football. How wrong I was. The only seat available was next to what looked like a cross between Vincent Van Gogh and a couple of thousand volts (for the hair). He was Christian, a Northern Irishman (though definitely supporting the Republic, in Football at least), cycling through Europe with a friend (though he was due to fly back the next evening) and we hit it off like a charm, spending the rest of the evening in the pub putting the World to right. Upon leaving the pub, it transpired that he was staying in the same campsite as me, and early wake-up call in the morning or not, a night-cap of proper Irish whisky was not to be sniffed at. This turned into a couple of nightcaps, then a few more morning caps as we whiled away the wee hours. Chris spent a considerable amount of time trying to catch a photograph of a rabbit - there was one continually perching on the porch next to us, though he disappeared every time Chris went near his camera to his endless frustration. Upon heading back to my tent (about 5 metres from his porch) I wandered onto a path thick with rabbits sitting there staring at me, and not moving unless I got within about a foot of them - picture perfect, but no camera!! The next morning's ride was less fun. For those of you that don't know, hangovers in tents are not fun. The sun hits early, and boils whatever happens to be under canvas mercilessly. This added to the fact that (a) you're in a sleeping bag; and (b) sleeping heavily - the result cannot be described as comfortable when you wake up, dripping in sweat, in 35 degree heat, dehydrated and with a pounding headache. Yup - that was me. At least it was a good prompt to get up and out ASAP. Riding out of Amsterdam was much easier than heading in, as there wasn't a great deal of wind and the route to my next site was pretty straight. I arrived early evening at Prinsen Campsite outside Oudijk and bedded down to what transpired to be a free night of camping (there was a note on reception saying that nobody was home, but to pitch up anyway and that they'd settle the bill when they were back - they never were, despite my asking around) interspersed, of course, with the trifling matter of the England game. After a few celebratory beers, and introducing one of the local patrons to the writings of Charles Bukowski, a comfortable night was spent listening to the sheep see who could bleat the loudest in the field next door. So now to Arnhem, which is where I am presently, after the day's riding described above. This is a beautiful and simple part of the country, which is becoming more Germanic the further I head East (unsurprisingly). I arrived last night and, with no footy to watch, settled in to an evening of reading, writing blog, catching up on e-mail, washing clothes, showering, cooking dinner, cleaning up, checking bank statements etc. etc. etc. Nice and relaxing. The next day was spent, a great deal of it at least, in Arnhem itself. There isn't a whole lot of the Old Town left (Arnhem's has been inhabited for several thousand years, but successive wars and regeneration projects have left little of this history on show) and the original bridge over the river (the one too far) was destroyed by American bombers in WWII, but the city is still very pretty (plus a new bridge along the lines of the old one). I spent a lovely day doing very little except sightseeing and drinking tea. After Arnhem I headed off South. After being thoroughly rained on I came across De Breyenburg campsite in Ledeacker, which has functioned as home for the last few nights. Unfortunately my chargeable battery pack (which has functioned to keep all of my electronics in working order) was stolen overnight, so I've had to order a new one online. After a few evenings of watching the Quarter-Finals (plus one deadly night including no football whatsoever), my battery has now arrived and I will be heading off again tomorrow down towards Liege.

Belgium to the Netherlands

Well it's been a little time since last I posted, so a quick update for you all. I'm currently sitting in a campsite just South of Amsterdam, and have been here for a few days now. It's nice and close to the city itself, about half an hour by Tram, but it's far enough away from the city to avoid any of the problems associated with it, with shops and a decent bar close-by it's proving to be a good base to foray into the city from. Amsterdam itself is a beautiful old city, and great for just getting utterly lost in. There are a myriad of street entertainers, bars, coffee-shops, museums, galleries, shops, restaurants and anything else that you could want. But first, let's track back a bit. I left off my last piece in just outside Gent after a ride through Kortrecht, in one of my favourite campsites to date - it was clean, spacious, had a good selection of beers and afforded me a spot well away from the sights and sounds of any of those pesky camper-vans! My next ride was to be aimed up towards Antwerp, so I picked out a decent looking campsite from Google's suggestions, whacked the address into my GPS and headed up. After a solid 70k which included a nerve-wracking stint straight through the streets of Antwerp I turned up at the campsite, which unfortunately didn't exist. It also didn't look like it had ever existed. Thank you for that one Google. A quick check with the aforementioned GPS showed that the nearest campsite was in Holland, so without a second thought I acceded to the demands of my GPS and struck off North. I think I should pay a bit more attention to my Garmin (GPS/Cycle Computer) as I still don't think that it likes me very much - this time it decided to send me on a route consisting mostly of sand. At least it likes variety... After a good half a mile of alternating between trying not to fall off whilst riding and pushing after having fallen off due to the soft sand I crossed the border (apparently - the only way I knew I was in Holland was by the masses of Orange decorating every house in the vicinity) into country three - the Netherlands. My first experience of a Dutch campsite wasn't too great - the name should have given it away ("Super Fun Time Family Happy Camp" or some similar drivel). It appears that the Dutch version of camping is quite dissimilar to our own - they prefer the permanent non-mobile mobile-home, with attendant awnings, tents &c. to ensure that they have all home-comforts to hand. They also have more of a core-season than the French, meaning that they routinely have reduced facilities (WiFi, restaurant, shop etc.) when it's not July/August. At least I managed to get into the campsite in time for the football, watching the Dutch play in Holland was something that I had been looking forward to for a while. What I hadn't quite envisaged was that the Dutch would be so staggeringly bad during the tournament, meaning that every time that I've watched Dutch matches has been a little disappointing, the first of their matches agains the Danish was no exception. After getting out of that campsite as soon as was humanly possible, I headed off again towards Dordrecht to find a pitch for the night. This was not to prove my most illustrious day's ride. After reaching the first campsite after about 80k I found that, as with the last campsite in Belgium, it didn't quite exist. Instead it appeared to have been replaced by another Nuclear Power Station. Bummer. After heading back the way I cam for about another 20k I reached another campsite - this time it existed, but it wasn't much of a bonus - kids running round screaming ignored by parents, row upon row of holiday home and dozens of empty beer cans littered the area near the reception, so I hightailed it out of there and found a new place to stay. Another 20k later, and it wasn't much of an improvement - €17 a night to stay in what was the European equivalent of Butlins. I was advised that there was a slightly more basic campsite a couple of km down the road, so rather than risking the evening singing a Dutch version of "It's a long way to Tipperary" I heeded said advice and headed to the FOURTH campsite of the day, which turned out to be a farmer's field. Facilities were again somewhat lacking. Another day's ride (only two campsites this time - equally bad though) brought me up to a site called Het Lingebos. A couple of days here (including a mad 20k hunt to try and find a bar with the football on only to have to ask someone to open theirs a couple of hours early) recharged my batteries enough to head up to Amsterdam. Arriving at the campsite after a five hour ride I pitched the tent and immediately set out to the city - Holland were on again. The city was heaving, and very VERY orange. After a quick wander around I found a good bar to settle into, and watch the Dutch throw away their best chance of getting somewhere in the tournament. The city kind of turned off quickly thereafter - that feeling of National disappointment, albeit much more natural when supporting the Three Lions rather than the Orange Army, permeated the quickly emptying city. The next day was the boring basics, washing, cleaning, drying clothes, shopping etc., before another day in the city, employed mainly in eating, drinking, watching street entertainers, a touch of shopping (including the ridiculously expensive American Book Store - yes, my Kindle has gone again), before managing to find probably the only bar in Amsterdam that retained the services of a Swedish barmaid to watch the game in. At least the banter was good!! Yesterday I headed back into the city to catch some of the culture - to whit the Van Gogh Museum. Featuring many of his most famous works as well as pieces by Toulouse-Latrec, Gaugain amongst many others, it was something else. I checked my watch after having thought I'd spent about half an hour there only to find that I'd been there for more than three hours! Nipping into a cafe on the way back home I spent a great hour sipping tea (the Earl Grey ranks pretty high on the list of friends that I'm missing!) whilst watching three guys play round after round of speed chess at a very high level at the table next to me. The final Holland match pitted them against Portugal - after heading back to the campsite by the early evening I nipped into a local bar to catch the game. The feast of Orange that greeted me really said something about the Dutch support - even though their team, rated as potential tournament winners at the outset, were now unlikely to even qualify they still turned out in numbers to support them. Albeit not a great result, it was a great atmosphere nonetheless. So that just about brings me up-to-date. I've got one more night in this campsite, then I'm heading back down towards Belgium, possibly slipping into Germany on the way down. As it is, I'm about to have my lunch and am debating whether to head back into the city for one last look, or to get the rest of my washing done! Due to the fact that I'm nursing a considerably large blister on my big toe, it might well be the latter...

Blogging from Belgium

Another day at that campsite was a pretty welcome relief - it was spent mainly doing nothing - reading is quickly turning out to be my biggest expenditure after campsites! I stoked up on supplies and readied to head off the next morning. Unfortunately the next morning presented itself as very wet and very windy. Neither of these are hugely pleasant riding conditions, and together in such proportions managed to delay my departure for another day. Great. The next day, though not much better where the wind was concerned was at least dry so I saddled up and headed out, towards the Belgian border. My last night in France was spent in a thoroughly lovely little campsite near Saint Omer. Upon arrival I presented my Visa to be greeted with a blank stare and a slow shake of the head and was informed that the campsite doesn't take cards. Oh joy. After a brief discussion with the management I worked out that the nearest cash machine was another 7k away, so a round trip of 14k after a fairly sapping 70k ride earlier that day. Thankfully I was offered a lift to it by an English chap who happened to have arrived at the bar at around the same time as myself - what would've been close to an hours ride was accomplished in a matter of minutes - my legs were grateful! It turns out that the campsite was a regular haunt for a few different families, and I was quickly introduced to a couple of them, along with the hostess, Bernadette. We spent a great evening together, and loud bouts of laughter were never far away - as evidenced by the various bar tabs at the end of the night! One of the guys that I met (Ian) is also a pretty keen cyclist himself, so we exchanged details and will hopefully meet up for the start of this year's Tour de France in Liege. The next stage of the ride had (for me) only one possible destination - Ypres, Belgium. For those of you who don't know, Ypres was the centre for some of the bloodiest conflict of The Great War - there were three major battles along the Ypres-salient, including the devastating Battle of Passchendaele and the town of Ypres itself was almost totally destroyed. The day's ride started out very pleasantly - after a short stint I stopped off for a bite to eat and was reacquainted with Ian that I had met last night who warned me of the joys of the climb to come into the town of Cassell. He wasn't far wrong! After a "healthy" climb up to the town I was given a taster of what was to come - cobbles. On a hard-tail (i.e. no suspension) touring bike with plenty of weight on the back, these are not a great deal of fun. My GPS then decided to latch on to every surrounding hill in the vicinity and acquaint me intimately with them. After what turned out to be a very taxing ride for such a short one (only c. 50k) I gratefully arrived at Camping Ypra, and after a brief dinner (pate, cheese, tomatoes, beer) I feel gratefully into my tent, looking forward to the next day. Ypres turned out to be a fantastic day off. The town was rebuilt, at some considerable expense to the German exchequer, to the exact specification as it had been pre-war, and is absolutely lovely. One of the town's main features is the Menin Gate - a memorial to the fallen of the Commonwealth forces of WW1 that have no known grave. There are well over 50,000 names engraved thereon, and again I don't think that I have the words to describe the feeling of just being there. After a lovely day in the city I attended their Last Post memorial service, held every day as it has been held every day since 1928 to honour the fallen. After another night at Camping Ypra I headed out NE to a campsite called Panorama - the highlight of which was the panoramic views of the valley it overlooked, including a scenic view of the local nuclear power station... Today's ride was one of the most enjoyable yet - aided somewhat by a strong tailwind that followed me all day. I'm currently just east of Gent, and will be heading up to/through Antwerp tomorrow. A few quick words on Belgium for you - thus far it seems like an absolutely lovely country. The towns and cities are very neat and clean, the prices are very reasonable (after paying €3 or more on average for a 33cl pression, €2.50 for just over a pint is a welcome relief), the people are exceedingly polite and speak almost flawless English, the roads are in good condition and the cycle paths are everywhere and the beer is varied and plentiful - after only a few days here I feel that I really have a lot of affection for it already and hope that the ensuing few days reinforces the image. As much as I'm enjoying Belgium however I want to head straight up to the Netherlands for a few weeks before returning to Belgium for the start of the TdF at the end of the month. That's the general plan anyway, and I think that that's me for now - speak soon. P.s. - MASSIVE congratulations to Allam and Lorna (Zia and Lannigan respectively) on announcing their engagement - super happy for them both!!

Another day, another campsite...

I left off in Dieppe a few days ago now, so here's my next little entry for you all. The day after arriving in Dieppe was a day off in the city for a spot of well deserved (if I say so myself) relaxation. The city is much older than I had thought, and there are obvious parts of the old town still around the place. There's a strange sight in Dieppe - almost every French flag (of which there are plenty) has a Canadian flag next to it to signify the sacrifice which that particular country made during the attempted landing there - after having read up on it a little more, I can fully understand why. Lunch was served at the Cafe de Paris overlooking the marina and consisted of a rather lovely Moules a la Rocquefort and a (maybe in fact several) glass(es) of cider. The evening was spent planning out the next day's route, and enjoying a sandwich made with the nicest bread that I've had yet in France, which is saying something in itself. I had planned a route of about 60k the next day, having pinpointed a target on the GPS (a small town near Saint Quentin en Tourmont) of about 50k away. Unfortunately the route that it took was even longer than it has been recently, and what should have been a nice relaxing ride turned out to be 90k. Ouch. My mood was not improved much with the discovery that the campsite that I was intending to stay at was "all-singing-all-dancing" and included a heated swimming-pool with flumes, bar, restaurant etc. etc. etc. This may sound good, unfortunately (a) the time I arrived meant that I wouldn't be using any of it; and (b) all of the extras meant that the bill came to a lovely €20 per night. Although this doesn't seem a huge amount, when travelling on a budget it really makes a mark on the wallet, especially when paying for so many facilities that you simply aren't using. The day's riding itself was also a little disheartening - long uphills combined with short downhills for most of the ride, and the last 10k, although pretty flat was also straight into a pretty hefty headwind, meaning that my progress was still pretty slow. The one plus-side to the day was finding a large Carrefour slap-bang in the middle of my route, meaning that I could stock up on my supplies without breaking the bank too badly! After a rainy night I packed up my still-wet tent and headed out on the road in a fairly bleak mood, which was swiftly lifted with a fantastic ride today. Still feeling a little tired from the 135k, and having done much more than I had envisaged yesterday I planned a 40k route (and double checked it to make sure that it wasn't too much more than that - something I'll be doing before every ride now!!) towards a town called Neuf-Chatel Harbelot (or Harbelot Neuf-Chatel, I can't quite remember which). The day's travel was just great - clear roads with good tarmac (good tarmac makes ALL the difference), beautiful scenery, nice long bike paths and a glorious tailwind for long tracts. The area that I'm in at the moment is real First World War territory (I passed through St. Valery sur Somme yesterday) and on a whim I decided to stop off at a War Cemetery near Etaples. I really don't have the words to describe any part of it, and the photographs will have to wait for a while, but it was stunning, breathtaking, serene, terrible, awe-inspiring, full of sorrow and full of peace all at once. I hadn't realised it until I was there, but I'd stumbled upon the largest war cemetery in France, with more than 12,000 graves neatly laid out and beautifully kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I had planned to stop and have a quick look, but I ended up spending well over an hour walking up and down the rows of perfectly tended gravestones reading the names and inscriptions thereon. It was truly humbling, and very emotional. So where can I go after that? Back to life I suppose. The campsite that I'm in this evening is lovely - there are families all around me, with small children running riot (even at quarter past ten in the evening) - in fact one of them's just ridden a unicycle past me which was a bit bizarre and the family in the mobile-home in front of me have just broken into song! I'm well and truly fed after a huge amount of pate, cheese and fruit, with the obligatory few Kronenbourg's thrown into the equation, and am just about to settle down for the night. In contrast to last night's campsite, this one is just my cup of tea - down to earth and more than reasonable at €7.50 a night. So I think I'll sign off now - I'm not sure yet if I'm going to head off tomorrow or spend another night here - I have a feeling that the campsites around here are going to be filling up with English tourists celebrating the Queen's jubilee by getting out of the country, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. So that's all for now - if you've got any questions, let me know as it's always great to hear from you guys. Ciao for now.

Blogoriffic.

So where was I? Ah yes - Tourigny-sur-vire. What a lovely place - I can heartily recommend it to anyone heading around that area. I had a lovely chilled day off, not doing much at all, other than a touch of shopping, reorganising my panniers, heading out to the local(ish) Carrefour to see if they had a particular computer part (they didn't), writing a couple of emails and generally dossing about. Lovely. Unfortunately the weather broke that night - it had been so good that I had decided to leave my bike outside the tent. Big mistake. I woke up in the morning to thunder and lightning with, of course, the associated downpour pounding onto my tent, and bike beside it. Bugger. The ride that day wasn't too strenuous - it warmed up pretty quickly and I was able to stow my waterproofs into the panniers and head off in earnest towards a town called Luc-sur-Mer (that's beside the sea that is). The highlight of the day was lunch - I've learnt to stop trusting my GPS for large tracts of the time now, as it has the habit of sending me on pretty convoluted routes - I had decided to ignore it until about 12.30 when it suggested a more sensible route to my destination, and so slipped off the D road I was following, and straight through a stunning little village surrounding a small lake, replete with swans, ducks and carp (that obviously all needed feeding), so I settled down for my piedmontaise salad and smoked ham sandwich - bliss. Passing a field a couple of hours later, a pannier decided to unloose itself, so I stopped to fiddle with it for a bit only to look up a couple of minutes later at an entire herd of cows who had wandered over to the part of the fence nearest me to stare enquisitively at what I was doing. The destination itself wasn't up to much, the campsite was clean and quiet(ish) but few Brits, and no people of my own age. I headed down to the beach for a spot of reading, but called it a night shortly thereafter and prepared for a big ride the next day - and what a ride it was. I shipped out at quarter past nine in the morning (I'm getting quicker at striking the tent now!) and headed out onto the open road - field after field in the morning, progressing to more towns and small villages as I approached the Seine. I stopped for lunch at a picnic area (the French have plenty of these where I am) and joined a thoroughly miserable looking French couple in silence for a bit. Finally the smell of me after 70km on the road drove them away. Crossing the Seine was fun - a tiny RoRo ferry provided the simplest solution, and was deposited into a thoroughly disgusting industrial area sponsored, it seemed, by ExxonMobil Petrochemicals. Cycling for several kilometres without breathing is, it turns out, remarkably difficult. I won't go into the details of the ride, other than the fact that if I'm honest with myself, it was too long. Ten and half hours on the road covering over 135km really took it out of me, and towards the end seeing the next hill rear up in front of me at the bottom of a nice downhill patch was a touch depressing, and getting into a campsite at half past seven in the evening doesn't leave a lot of time for relaxing. We live and learn - I'll stick to more sensible routes in future. I was planning on staying there another night, but the campsite turned out to be a bit dismal - it's still in the processed of being remodelled after being transferred from being a municipal campsite into a private one, so the next day I headed off to Dieppe. After a relatively late start (10.20) I hit the road and headed uphill for what seemed like an eternity. Being on a campsite next to the beach has some serious drawbacks when heading back inland!! Lessons learnt on today's ride - never pass up an opportunity, especially for the loo. Thankfully I managed to find a garage before I was forced to adopt yet another French tradition...! The ride brought a lot of hills today, some of them seriously steep, as well as one interesting route through an off-road mountain bike track - methinks I'll send the photo's to Garmin when they're uploaded to ask what they were thinking off, bearing in mind that I wouldn't have attempted that one going downhill (I was going UP by the way) on a mountain bike in full body armour, let alone a touring bike replete with panniers... I was pretty drained, mainly to do with yesterday's ride, but also because of a lack of a decent breakfast - most campsites offer a service whereby you can order bread & croissant for the next morning - this one didn't, so I left on an empty stomach and didn't pass an open shop for a fair few hours. Not great. This, added to the length of the ride yesterday led me to make quite a few stops to try and recover some energy. After ignoring my GPS for quite a while I ended up in today's campsite (CAmping Le Marqueval) just outside of Dieppe at around half past four this afternoon and am now sitting outside their bar listening to horrendously bad French pop music with a fresh pression sitting on the table. Tomorrow's a break day (I'm experimenting with a three-on one-off policy at the moment) so I'm going to try to grab some of the historic sites in the city, notably the landing beaches for the high-priced Canadian raid in '42. So that's me up to date again - I'm still enjoying myself thoroughly, and even if I am dog-tired I'm still looking forward to tomorrow.

On the road again (pt. 2)

This is the second entry of my main trip, part one is below (apologies for any confusion, and the lack of line breaks - that's my iPad's fault not mine!). If you want to read part one first, scroll down accordinglly!! When I left off I was sitting at a campsite just outside Bague-Picon after my first day back in the saddle. I packed up early(ish) the next morning, oh alright - I left at half-ten - not quite early, but better than eleven. I had half an idea of where I wanted to get to, and so duly punched the route into my GPS and headed towards St. Martin de Brehal, just north of Granville. To my amazement, I actually managed the whole thing and as such completed my longest ride to date - 77km all in! The weather was great, not quite as hot as Wednesday, but just about right. En route I overtook and was subsequently overtaken (and repeat ad infinitum - almost) a couple of French chaps on racing bikes. A few miles outside Avranches they had stopped by the side of the road and flagged me down to share a drink with me. Despite them not speaking a word of English and my French still being limited at best, I still managed to convey the scope of my journey to them, and also to learn that they (in their late sixties or early seventies at my best guess) were embarked on their own Tour de France, all the way around the edge, in 30 days. They were in a team of three, two riders and one chase car, changing the driver every day. For those of you that say that you're too old or out of shape, there's hope for you yet!! The campsite itself was nothing special, but a cycle along the front showed the place off very well. Unfortunately their bar and pizza restaurant were only open for July and August, so amenities were a little hard to come by. I settled for a half bottle of Chote du Rhone and a steak at a nearby restaurant! Today's ride was markedly shorter - only 62km, but the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Hang on, I think I might be lying there. Yep - turns out the weather's fantastic. According to my cycling computer it hit 34 degrees this afternoon whilst I was stopped for lunch, and has only dropped a few degrees since then and now (ten past five). As it is, I'm sitting inside typing this as I think that my face might not quite appreciate it tomorrow if I don't... I popped in to a little charcuterie earlier today and picked up a chicken leg (lunch) and some ham and pate (dinner) for today's nourishment, accompanied by a couple of Mars bars (French Mars bars are FAR better than English ones) and a chocolate eclair whilst overlooking a beautiful parish church. Today's ride was great, though very hard work due to the heat. I'm definitely rethinking when I'm going to be cycling in future, and will make sure that in the heat of the day I'm sitting in the share for some lunch and a nap. As it was today I was stopping every thirty minutes and have gone through more than four litres of water. Arriving a little later will not be a problem to avoid the heat of the day, especially as sunset yesterday was around ten o'clock!! The campsite here, Les Chapellos (I think - I'll confirm that later) in Tourigny-sur-vie, is absolutely stunning. There's a couple of English campers around and I was treated to my first cuppa of the trip - a welcome sight I can tell you! There's a swimming pool, so I'm now clean, and a bar, so I'm shortly to be signing off! As it's so hot and this site is so beautiful (next to a huge couple of lakes) I'm going to stay here to recharge for another day and head off up towards Bayeaux on Sunday. Just as an aside, I've got a mobile for whilst I'm away - if anyone wants to get hold of me, message me on Facebook and I'll drop you the number. That's me for now...

On the road again (pt. 1)

A few days blogs are coming close together I'm afraid - this is part one, part two is above!! Methinks I should've started this a little earlier! Quite a bit has happened since my last update, including heading back to Jersey, setting off to Vegas, surviving Vegas (somehow) and arriving back in Jersey, before once again leaving for the continent. Not all of this was done by bicycle. I left off last time in La Tarbadiere, as previously mentioned somewhere towards the arse-end of nowhere. I set out on a dreary morning and aimed towards St. Nazaire (for any of you interested, the location (unsurprisingly) of the St. Nazaire raids during the Second World War to destroy the submarine pens. My GPS had decided that it was a cool 70km, which I thought was achievable for a good day's riding, unfortunately once I'd travelled 60 of the 70 it mentioned that I had another 80 to go. Once again my adventure was foiled by my GPS calculating distance as the crow flies - I hadn't realised that (a) I couldn't cross a convenient bridge as it is only open to cars &c. and that it thus necessitated a monumental diversion inland. As such I ended up in a campsite called (insert name of campsite here, because I'll be buggered if I can remember it's name) which was an interesting experience. The weather turned pretty dreary as soon as I had erected my tent which put a dampener on things in more ways that one, as did the fact that as soon as I went off bar-hunting I managed to turn my ankle pretty badly. Thankfully the bar, when I found it, had a plentiful supply of ice. I had decided to stay two nights at this campsite so I could have a rest day, and this decision was reinforced by the pain in my ankle. The campsite itself wasn't much to talk about, though I did learn a couple of lessons - mainly, if a campsite's description maintains that it is "family orientated", there will be a lot of kids (i.e. for any other Adam's out there, avoid like the plague). Kids Karaoke does NOT liven up a good bar, especially when they don't seem to have moved away from 70's/80's pop. My time in France pretty much being up I headed inland to Nantes and caught the train back to St. Malo where I was, as ever, enthusiastically greeted by the Hery family before heading back to Jersey at stupid o'clock the next morning. What happens next will stay between the few survivors of my brother's stag party. All I will say is that Vegas is (a) fun; and (b) not very cheap. So where am I now? Well, I arrived in France this morning (23rd) and set off North. I'm currently sitting outside of a (closed, though for the life of me I can't begin to comprehend why) bar at a campsite called La Vieux Chain (sp?). My day was spent cycling in the absolutely beautiful sunshine through a procession of ever prettier little towns and villages. The campsite itself is gorgeous - my view as I'm typing this is of their lake and masses of very well kept green pitches. It's quarter to eight and the sun is still high in the sky. If I had a beer in my hand, life would be nigh on perfect... All journey's begin with one tentative step. Mine has been a pretty long one, including a week of practice, but I'm finally off, doing what I want to do, and am loving it. I could not be happier that I finally took that step.

Missing: Presume fed.

So it's Friday 27th April, about 4.30 in the afternoon and I'm on a campsite in a place called La Tarbardiere, right in the arse-end of nowhere! What a few days it's been. The weather's picked up hugely, and the wind has dropped off substantially. Over the last two days I've ridden over 130km, and am feeling great for it. I left Le Clos Clotture on Wednesday morning and headed out to a place called La Fosse Rouge near Chateau d'Olonne - the wind made it a bit difficult, but getting there was well worth it. It's right on the coast, and even thought the majority of the town was closed I did manage to find an open bar and an open restaurant. In the bar I ran into my first friendly face on the trip - a Scottish builder, originally from Dundee, though by the way he was washing back the Pernod I surmised that he had been down in France for quite a few years! He recommended a restaurant called Anguille Beach, strangely just off Anguille beach where I spent a happy couple of hours demolishing a tasty steak and (half) bottle of vin rouge. Wednesday was spent in transit from Chateau d'Olonne, through the Olonne area towards Notres Dames de Monts - it was quite easily the best day's riding that I've ever had. The weather was perfect, the sun was on my back, the wind behind me (and not of my doing before you at the back start piping up again) and the scenery amazing. I travelled through the old town of Olonne, past the new(ish) waterfront, then through a beautiful forest and the views just kept coming and coming. It really was fantastic. Last night was spent at Camping Le Dornieres. It's their low-season at the moment, so it's pretty quiet - just a few families in mobile homes, and certainly nobody else stupid enough to be camping. It's blissfully tranquil, even if the company leaves something to be desired. As an answer to someone's question on the blog, I have a general idea of the direction that I'm headed - at the moment it's simply Northish towards St. Malo, as I have my brother's stag do at the start of May. Each night I'm getting out my Allan Rogers book of campsites, working out what's open and in the general area of where I'm going, link it up to my satnav to see how far it is and heading for it the next day. It's a simple enough plan and, as yet, seems to be working well. As regard food, I'm typically either grabbing a croissant and a coffee for breakfast or having the leftovers of yesterday's bread with some jam, grabbing a couple of baguettes and nipping into a charcuterie for some cold meats for my lunch and having a salad with cold meats for dinner. It's quite healthy, but makes no mention of the myriad of ice-creams, crepes & sugary snacks thrown into the equation!! So that's it for now - unfortunately the battery life for my iPad isn't exactly ideal and it tends to eat the battery on my solar panel fairly quickly (which is kind of important for recharging the SatNav!) so I'll be off. Next post will probably be back in Jersey.

Mieux vaut tard que jamais...

Better late than never. Well, finally I'm on my way. For exceptionally boring reasons that you all probably know (and if you don't, I'm not going to go into them now), my departure from Jersey was delayed for a couple of weeks. Nothing to do with the two week hangover from my leaving party, honest. So where am I? Here is currently a little campsite in a place called Angles in the Vendee region of France. I started out on Sunday, and headed over to some French friends of my family (the Hery's) in Saint Servan. Their hospitality was, as ever, fantastic and it was great to see Jean, their eldest son (a midshipman/lawyer in the French navy) back to vote in the Presidential elections. I stayed over at theirs on Sunday night, after being fed and watered (disclaimer: might not have technically been water) for almost every waking meeting of my somewhat fleeting visit. I jumped on the train from St. Malo at some ridiculous hour in the morning, exacerbated by the fact that France is an hour ahead, meaning it was EVEN EARLIER. A couple of weeks of nice long lie-in's cruelly faded into history. The train down to La Rochelle (where I started) was fairly uneventful, aside from the woman in Rennes without a soul (she walked straight into an automatic which only opened when a dog wandered past which promptly started growling at her (ref: The Simpsons - Bart sells his soul)). That was good. The other thing that I managed was not to time-stamp my ticket correctly. I spoke to the conductor before heading down who told me not to worry and that he'd remember my face (must've been something to do with the shorts that I was wearing in the midst of a torrential downpour of rain). I didn't see him, and when I enquired if this would cause a problem at Rennes, was promptly offered a refund on my ticket which was nice. As an aside to anyone that cycles, French trains are great for cyclists. There's a really simple system for hanging the bikes on the wall above a load of fold-away seats, and nobody bats an eyelid. They're clean, friendly and (certainly compared to trains in the UK), cheap. They're also on-time. The trains that I got, LOR (possibly - they weren't TGV at any rate) cost €50 down to La Rochelle. A great advantage for anyone planning a cycling holiday. My first night abroad was interesting to say the least. Bearing in mind that (a) I arrived in La Rochelle at about half four in the afternoon; (b) it was still raining; and (c) the wind was close to being a hurricane, I decided to check into a hostel for the night. An interesting experience, especially bearing in mind that I was sharing said hostel with an entire school full of French schoolchildren. At least the bar was empty. So on to today, my first day on the road. It was an interesting start - just outside La Rochelle I managed to mis-read my GPS and almost tried to join an Auto-Route. Interesting. Almost immediately thereafter, as soon as I found the correct (non-multi lane) road, the heavens opened and soaked me to the skin. But it didn't last long - within half an hour I was dry again, and blasting down the open roads in beautiful French sunshine, admiring the beautiful French scenery. Breakfast consisted of a pain au chocolate and a coffee on a bench outside the boulangerie of a pretty little town that I have entirely forgotten the name of, and lunch was a baguette on a wall in Champagne La Marais (only remembered purely by the fact that it had Champagne in the name). The ride that I had thought would be about 30-35km for a nice gentle start to the trip clocked out at being 58km, due to the fact that my GPS measures distance as the crow flies, and that my bike doesn't handle water particularly well which resulted me avoiding the large tract of sea that travelling as the crow flies would have entailed. My GPS also decided that I wanted to cycle down an unpaved road to shave about 4 metres off the distance that the road right next to it would have been. I have since had words with my GPS, mentioning that unpaved roads are not fun when you don't have any suspension and are sitting on a leather seat. It has promised not to do it again. We'll see. I arrived at Camping le Clouture in Angles at about 3.30 this afternoon, set up my tent and had a nice little read (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Trilogy of Five (I thought that I'd start off with another travelling book)) in the glorious sun. It's beautiful here, and typically French. They have a bouncy castle. And two Emu (Emi?). I had an ice-cream. It's only my first day out on the road, and there's so much to say, though I know that it would bore the pants off the vast majority of you. Suffice to say, thus far I'm having an amazing time, and can't wait for tomorrow. As for tonight, I'm resting my sore arse (fnarr-fnarr), am about to order my first pression of the afternoon and settle down to watch Barcelona vs. Chelsea. Bring on tomorrow.

Progress.

Albeit slowly, things are starting to come together. That most important item for cycling, the bicycle, has now been ordered. After much umming and ahhing I have decided to go through Big Maggies and purchase a Van Nicholas Pioneer Rohloff. This is a fully titanium touring bicycle, weighing in at an impressive 11.5kg’s. It’s in the process of being made and should be down in a couple more weeks.

When it comes to camping, it’s considered quite important to take a tent with you. To this end I have also put an order in for a tent – a Hilleberg Nallo GT 2 – it’s a serious bit of kit, lightweight but durable and it packs down into a nice compact size – it should be down with me in a few days.

A couple of other things that I have invested in – firstly a cycle computer/GPS – I went for a top-of-the-range Garmin Edge 800 with Europe City Navigator maps – this should see me safely working my way through Europe without getting (too) lost. Secondly, I am now the proud owner of a Power Monkey solar charger. This is a solar panel connected to a lithium ion battery that should let me charge my electronic bits & pieces with relative ease.

I’m looking around for good deals at the moment for other bits and pieces, and am finding out that even when buying online it really does pay off to ask for discounts – the difference between the price of goods when you take off the VAT (20%) and then apply a discount 15% on top is really something and means that staying within my budget is actually a realistic possibility!

The main items left to buy now are mostly camping supplies – sleeping bag, multi-fuel stove, camping-kitchen set and sleeping mat. On the bike side of things, it’s just the panniers, pedals and maybe a new seat.

Training has also started – I have invested in a Turbo Trainer so that I can hook my bike up and train at home when it’s dark/wet outside. Cycling whilst watching the football is, admittedly, an interesting experience! I’m also venturing back out on the roads. It’s pretty cold, but feels great to be back on tarmac in anticipation of the trip.

So that’s where I stand at the moment – things are moving forward and about time bearing in mind that it’s only a couple of months until I’m off. I’ll post more when I have more to tell you, as well as some pictures of the bike as and when it’s landed in Jersey.

Adam