Day 1 - Dover to Wimereux via Calais (45km, 430m)

Saturday, May 17th, 2014

Route Map and Garmin Ride Statistics

The first day of the ride started with an early "English" breakfast in a local Illi chain - basically bacon and eggs with a cup of tea.

When we returned to the hotel, the luggage being loaded into the van outside the County Hotel in Dover.

We took a walk to the nearby coast side where you can sea the ferry terminal from where we would soon depart. This part of Dover seems to be completely cut-off by the road that takes trucks (and cars and bikes) to and from the ferries.

Back at the hotel and dressed for riding, we had our first briefing of the tour - essentially, follow the leader onto the boat, cross the Channel, follow the leader off the boat, and then you're on your own for the 40km afternoon ride.

Here we are at the entry to the ferry terminal.

Waiting in the "bike queue" for an hour to get onto the ferry.

The view from our well chosen seats at the front of the cabin as another boat comes into to dock. Tony D reckoned this was the calmest he had ever seen the English Channel! Unfortunately he didn't have English navigational charts downloaded onto his iphone to prove it.

And coming into Calais you could see the effect that so many ferries had on the relatively shallow water at the entrance to the port.

We were called back to our bikes, and for "OH & S reasons" waited while the entire load of trucks and camper vans filled the hold with diesel and petrol fumes before we were allowed to disembark.

The next hour involved negotiating our way out of Calais and onto the open road. About 10 km later we were in the rolling hills of France which were lush and idyllic, just as I remembered from previous cycling tours through this most loveable country.

I lost contact with the peloton because I stopped to take the previous pictures, and Trevor managed to get past me because I forgot to turn the page on my instructions (again) and ended up a kilometer off route. When I caught him, he was at the top of a hill with his camera out.

Smiling! Or is that laughing?

Together, we then caught the peloton in a cafe about the same time we were thinking "time for  beer". How convenient...

Only 10 km further on and we were in Wimereux, a very delightful seaside town with a main street full of shops and restaurants, and our hotel.

And a beach side promenade full of locals and tourists enjoying an early Spring sunny Saturday afternoon/evening.

And the expansive beach, a couple of horses! Ah, France - I love it so much!

We had a few drinks, including mojitos for some of us, and went back to the hotel for dinner. It was getting late, but still light. The eight of us tried our best to confuse the waitress, but she maintained control and we all enjoyed our first (of many) delicious French meals, with wine, of course.