Route Map and Elevation Profile
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Olhāo to Dover via Gatwick
This blog is dedicated to the memory of Ken Kell, my partner Prue's father, who passed away aged 91 on May 7th while I was cycling in Portugal, and whose funeral took place today. It is with very deep regret that I was not back home during this sad time for Prue and her family.
Friday, May 16th, 2014
After a quick early morning breakfast, we departed our apartment in Olhāo, and headed for Faro airport. We arrived in such good time for out EasyJet flight to Gatwick, that there was plenty of time for a coffee!I didn't realise that the lattes were really "supersized" - it's no accident they are called a "galāo" (which I assume has something to do with the imperial gallon).
A two and a half hour flight and train ride later, we were on Red Hill station near London waiting for our first connection between Gatwick railway station and Dover. All seemed to be going too well at Gatwick, and we had missed the first train because the queue for a ticket was longer than the waiting time for the train. Never mind.
A short train trip brought us to Tonbridge station for another connection, and time to inspect the hundreds of commuter bikes (?) parked at the station. Could this be England's answer to Amsterdam?
Another hour train trip and we were in Dover by 4:45pm, having arrived at Gatwick from Faro at midday - not too bad really.
We walked the one kilometer from the station to the hotel, which was OK for some (luggage with wheels), but not for others (heavy luggage with straps). That's Dover castle in the background imposing itself on Dover town. And the sun was shining!
Here it is again, this time imposing itself on our 1960's Soviet style hotel. Well, that's what it looked like on the outside. On the inside it looked like a 1960's style English seaside hotel.
The view from my hotel room was also less than inpsiring, but at ￡40 per night it was considerably cheaper than the hotel in Olhāo with a similar view.
But at least Celeste, my bike, had arrived intact. In fact, it only took about half an hout to re-assemble, and I was very grateful to Steve from Bike Adventures for not repacking it into a smaller box when he had the opportunity.
We had dinner in the local Eight Bells pub and had a good night's sleep.
Postscript
Today was your father Ken's funeral. When I left Australia he had just suffered a stroke. Although neither of us discussed whether I should stay, or go, I know we were both asking ourselves that question. It's a difficult one, but apart from everything else, I think we thought Ken would pull through. He didn't, and so the decision was whether to return home for today's funeral. History will record that I did not, but I think you understand, and I hope you will forgive me for that.
I was thinking of you today, and of Ken of course. I knew at each point in time what was happening back there, and I was imagining how everyone was dealing with it. From what you say, Ken had a good farewell. I may not have been there in body, but I was there in spirit.
I know how much Ken meant to you, even though he had his imperfections.
I love you.
Rob
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.
Day 2 - Wimereux to Abbeville (103km, 820m)
Sunday, May 18th, 2014
Route Map and Garmin Ride Statistics
The view from my hotel window at 7:00am promised another day of sunshine, although in the distance there was a sea mist or fog over some of the house. If you ignore the construction site in the foreground, the view wasn't too bad.
By 8:45am when most of us set off, it was warm enough to discard the arm warmers and gilette tops that some of us had worn the previous day to stay warm for a while longer.
First stop was Samer at 24km, and in the delightful town square at 10:00am people were either preparing to go to church, or doing something else to enjoy the fantastic weather.
We chose a nearby coffer shop to have our first rest break of the day - this time coffee and a relax.
We had already done 30km of rolling hills with the occasional very steep incline, followed by a long and gradual descent. At one point we had two powered hang gliders follow us along the road (no picture, unfortunately). Here's Les, Peter and Trevor leaving me behind as I stop to take a photo for the blog (blame them for the lack of pictures on some sections of today's ride!).
At 48km we came to Montreuil, the recommended lunch stop for the day. Apparently, there weren't too many options after here, and that proved to be good advice. Trevor and I had lunch in a restaurant by the main square, and I was probably not sensible in choosing two courses - pate with onion and toast, followed bu tagliatelle with salmon. It was delicious, but perhaps one course too many for this time of the ride (OK, you know how much I enjoy French food).
This is the view from near we we ate back along the road from where we entered the square. Other rider chose various restaurants in this square or an earlier one in the same town.
There are Plain trees and forests all over France, and this avenue typifies much of today's riding. There were so few cars that we could virtually ride wherever we wanted (well, not all of the time).
Entering one very large forest, we came across a river and a mill. I have no idea whether this is 100 or 500 years old, but it was idyllic and a nearby restaurant attracted a large group of motorcyclists out for a Sunday afternoon ride.
On the other side of the road was an old house with a couple of castle turrets - again, we have no idea of their history.
Just after the mill and the castle we entered a very large forest. It seemed to be criss-crossed my a mesh of small roads that were perfect for cyclists, and which only carried a few cars. We put our heads down, and bums up, and made very fast progress through about 10 to 15km of straight country roads - perfect cycling!
We were four cyclists during this part of the day - Trevor, Peter, Les and me. This is Les who is doing 1,000 mile charity ride from his home in Eastbourne to Barcelona. This means he'll be cycling (alone) for four or five days after we leave him in Carcasonne at the end of our ride.
You can help Les with his fund raising at:
All donations go to support St Wilfrid's Hospice.
At about 72km we all needed to top up our drinks, and out energy, so we stopped in this little cafe/bar for an orange juice, iced tea or ice cream.
Energy and liquid renewed, we pedaled on with the terrain getting appreciably easier. At the 90km mark, and with 10 km to go, we set the "beer alert", meaning that if we found a good place to stop for a beer, then we would. Then, as if to plan, at 95km we came across this bar in the square of a small town.
It's fair to say that we haven't yet found anyone who isn't understanding, accepting and hospitable towards we foreigners with little or no french. A short time later, the rest of Team Tony arrived, along with our new Australian "mate" Graeme, and our old Irish mate David.
A beer at the hotel was easy, but dinner not so easy. We believe we are a little way out of the city of Abbeville, so restaurant options weren't great. However, what's wrong with a (French) pepper steak washed down with a bottle of (French) Burgundy!
And so to a very well earned bed - early for a change. But never before writing the day's blog.
Goodnight!
Day 3 - Abbeville to Gisors (115km, 860m)
Monday, May 19th, 2014
Route Map and Garmin Ride Statistics
Unfortunately, in the process of collecting bikes from the hotel's hidden garage, checking luggage and getting on the road I realised I didn't have any pictures of Abbeville. You'll just have to imagine a large French provincial town with a central cathedral, a square and a canal!
About 20km into the ride, having completed the first climb of the day, we were up on a plateau of canola (?) fields and wind farms.
And quite often, piles of the typical French hay bale, or roll.
We were also in the Somme, or at least the southern edge of the Somme, and this church in the town of Aumatra had a poster presumably referencing the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Many of the building in this area would have been constructed well before that war.
Including this Mairie, or town hall. But you also see houses on this scale, and I always check whether they are for sale. Usually not, but there are numerous smaller houses for sale, probably reasonably priced. What strikes you is the neatness of just about every one of them.
We stopped for coffe after 40km in the first town to have a place selling coffee - Liomer. As usual, the proprietors were friendly an understanding of our (very) poor French.
This picture of Aumale, one of our lunch options, is also typical, except for a relatively recent freeway in the foreground.
We stopped in Aumale after 50km, mainly to chat to Steve and some of the other riders, rather than to eat. However, the stop dragged on, and some of us bought a drink to keep ourselves hydrated. It wasn't yet midday, and so we decided to continue another 40km for a proper lunch.
All over France there are churches, every village of any size having at least one of them. And all over France is evidence of the upcoming EU elections, often plastered on the wall of the local church.
It was another perfect day, and the hills seemed to roll on forever.
Tony and Trevor also thought so!
At 90km of a 116km day, we finally stopped to eat, and I had my first (lunch time) baguette with ham and cheese. It was delicious! While this fountain appeared not to function, one of our riders discovered later that there was a tap - what a neat trick to play on the unsuspecting.
With not to far to ride, we came up our last hill of the day - a short, but steep little bugger which led to the London to Paris bike route. We stayed on this excellent road for the last 10km into Gisors. This is camper Fran followed by camper Simon in the distance.
At the hotel we discovered that the Bike Adventures van was "on course" trying to get a few of our fellow riders back on course - David, David and Gary had taken a wrong turn very early and were 20km west of where they should have been. So we relaxed, had a beer (or two) and waited for out luggage to arrive.
At 7:00pm, ten of us met at the hotel and went in search of dinner.
The ten soon became nine, then eleven, then twelve. The woman at the restaurant did a wonderful job of controlling twelve hungry (and thirsty) cyclists who couldn't make up their individual or collective minds. The food was great - too bad they had run out of beer (and oysters). At least the red wine was great, and so was the company.
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