All I can say after doing 200 miles on a tandom is thank god for padded cycling shorts (an item of clothing I never thought I would actually wear). Reaching Dover was a bit of an anti climax, the weather had been fantastic up until then, but it suddenly got quite cold and dreary, Dover didn’t really look that appealing a place to spend the night. Going by bike does give you a great opportunity to look at the British coast line, in places its quite cute, in others even with the sun shining on it, its not quite the British Rivieria - but I guess that’s Torquay! Chris’ parents were pleased to see us at last, true to form we were running about 2 hours late, although we’d managed to complete this leg of the trip a day earlier than originally planned. The tandem was then bundled into the back of the car with not so much as a quick kiss goodbye, and off we walked to the Ferry port to begin the hard work.

Sorry for the delay in posting !? This is the first time we have stopped long enough to post since leaving Odcombe.

We are currently sat in a slightly dodgy internet cafe in Boulogne France, surrounded by geeky kids shooting and shouting at each other on networked games. (I’m going to have a go after this post!?)

As you have probably noticed, Michele is rapidly creating new posts, only slowed by these weird AZERTY keyboards, so much for touch typing.

Here are the summary Observations on England

Day 1
Odcombe - Ludwell

How scared were we !? and according to Nick, it showed ! But with a little inspiration found in church we were off. First stop Sherborne, well, we did forget to eat this morning, something to do with the nerves I think. Anyway I’ll not go into detail of the first day, I’ll leave that for Michele.

Day 2
Ludwell - Nether Wallop

We soon realised that doing 50 miles a day was not going to happen. But we felt that 30+ was more reasonable. So our target for day 2 was somewhere near Stoneybridge !
The A 30 was a nightmare to cycle along, so we headed off road up over Fovant badges, on a greenlane that I have ridden before on John’s (brother) Kawazaki XT350 many years ago. It was excellent to get away from the traffic, just the two of us and the tandem!!
Anyway after a shopping trip to Salisbury (I’ll come back to the Cathedral in later posts) we arrived in Nether Wallop. The B&B was very wierd, instead of built in wardrobes, it had built in shower, sink and toilet all behind pink sliding doors, the landlady was very proud, all a bit Royston Vasey really.

Oh yes, Miss Marple was filmed here.

Day 3
Nether Wallop - Bedhampton

Had lunch at Winchester Cathedral after we had done our BaBa (book a bed ahead). Thankfully we had left the A30 and were on some splendid B roads. We are going to head to the coast today to start following the South Coast Cycle Route, I know we should have worked this out before we left, oh well, we worked it out eventually.

Day 4
Bedhampton - Brighton

Now this was a long way, I haven’t worked it out but I know our little butts were sore by the end of the day !!
We managed to get into this fabulous hotel near the sea front. It had the most sumptious bed, yep, this is us roughing it ?!

Day 5
Brighton - Eastborne

We had realised the night before that we hd arrived in Brighton at the end of Pride weekend, this was made more apparent when I was the only bloke at breakfast ! And what an excellent breakfast, organic, local and with sone great variety. A little wonder around the laines, do a BaBa and then off to sleepy Eastborne. On route we managed to find the Eastborne ring road, as all roads lead to Odcombe none lead to Eastborne !!

Day 6
Eastborne - Rye

A day of contrasts. Lots of small and intersting beaches East of Eastborne and then Hastings. What a bizarre place, it was as if we had entered a different world, it actually felt quite threatening after the previous few days. My advice is to steer well clear and head for Rye.
This place is like a set for all those Sunday evening mystery programmes. You expect to see Chief Inspector Banaby or Miss Marple round every corner.
We stayed in the Windmill a fine establishment.

Day 7
Rye - Dover

See the ‘Goodbye to the Tandem’ post.

I thought it was about time there was an update! Better late than never - perhaps not!

Well we finally left on Thursday 4th August from Odcombe church on the tandom, it’s a bit of a sore point the tandom but luckily I have now recovered. Thank you to Dave, Nicki and boys for very patietnly waving us off both in Odcombe and Sherborne, I know there would’ve been a few more to join them had we actually left on the day we had planned to. Also a big thank you to our very own photographer Nicholas George White, who by the way was right in saying that we were scared and very apprehensive!

Once we finally got going we only managed 25 miles, but seeing as that did include the very steep hill up to Shaftesbury we weren’t too disappointed. We were recommended a pub at the top of the hill by a lady who had seen us peddling like mad along the A30 in her car (not enviably I may add!) and stopped to admire the tandom. The beer certainly went down well and the garden had a superb view.

By pure luck or fate we then booked into Cedar Lodge B&B, where we were given a very warm welcome, not only from the owner Lorraine, but one of her guests Linda Hart, who just happened to be a writer and Editor, who is also very keen on walking and history, so had just happened to have read the Telegraph article! Meeting Linda was fantastic for us, especially on our first day, as she gave us some great advice not just on writing but walking in France too.

Linda and Lorraine showed such enthusiasm, it really lifted our spirits on our first night at the begining of this very mad adventure.