Tuesday 30th June. Finished work at 5pm then set off to cycle to Greece!
Sally’s plan was that we would cycle from her front door in Bolehill to her sister’s front door in Spetses, Greece.
Our first stop was after 1 mile at The Feather Star pub (in The Red Lion, Wirksworth). 30+ friends and family had come to cheer us off. We really appreciated it. It was a great send off.
Sally’s choice of route had us immediately climbing steeply for 2 miles up to Alport Heights. This will be the biggest hill for the next 600 miles (we have a gentle start through the Fens then Holland and the Rhein Valley).
It started raining hard all the way to Derby. Warm and refreshing. Maybe this will be the hardest rain for the next 600 miles? That would be good.
Our first night was with my dad at our family home in Derby. The plan had been to camp in the garden but we chose to dry out wet clothing and camp on the living room floor.
Next morning we waved goodbye to my dad and cycled through Derby on quiet cycle lanes to join the Derwent river path. This goes past where I work at Sperry Rail and everyone came out to see us off. Lovely. More departure cheers as I left my team to manage without me for the next four months.
We now had 150 miles to do over the next three days to get to Sally’s brother’s house in Norfolk.
The route planning software, cycle.travel, seems to be doing a great job finding the amazing UK national cycling network. Quiet roads linked by occasional tracks, sometimes sending us down unlikely looking turns to cut off sections of busy main road. I hadn’t realised we had such a good network of cycling routes in Britain.
Oakham was notable for lack of vegetables. “Not much call for salad” I was told at the third mini-market. The Coop sign looked hopeful until we realised it was a funeral parlour. Perhaps more profitable than trying to sell veg. Are these things related?
The campsite I’d found on the map turned out not to exist. On closer inspection we found it marked as being in the middle of Rutland Water. We found another on the south side of the reservoir by the sailing club. We couldn’t work out what “members only in tents” meant but did master the honesty box.
Next day we had a strong tailwind across The Fens in Cambridgeshire and sailed along the straight roads on dykes and by drainage canals.
Peterborough was a maze of cycle paths but the route planning and the Garmin steered us confidently.
Sally made a delicious chicken in mushroom sauce on the Trangia stove at the campsite outside March that evening.
We hope to give more updates on camp-stove cuisine as we become more proficient. We are using the stove several times a day for tea stops, breaking the day up nicely, and we often get into conversation with passers by including an 80-something ex-time-trial cyclist and a guy who had been thwarted in his attempt to cycle from the bottom of Italy to the top of Norway.
Sally’s brother Mark, rode out to meet us for the final ten miles through Thetford Forest to his and Justine’s place in Shropham where we are taking a day off. We’ve caught up on washing and mending, ditched some excessive packing and I’m going to read more of my book while Sally watches the tennis. Very chilled.
Tomorrow is a 70 miler to catch the ferry at Harwich.
Twenty four hours later. We are sitting on the pier at Harwich ready to get on to the ferry to Holland after our longest day so far.
Who knew that so much was grown in East Anglia? We’ve spent the day cycling through huge fields of crops.
Sally has been scoring well on I Spy Animals. Many varieties of sheep and horses, circling kites, hares jumping through the fields, a small muntjac watching us from the side of the road, and most amusingly a family of swans. Mum and cygnets relaxing on the bank while dad demonstrated low level bombing runs along the river, wings and feet beating the surface as he flew. “Just watch me and I’ll show you how it’s done, kids”.
We’ve just finished our fish and chips. Our ferry sails at 23.00.
But it’s just sailed past us on the pier. Time to cycle to the ferry port!
Our first leg is done. Farewell UK. Europe tomorrow!
Stats
Wirksworth to Derby 16 miles. Camped in living room.
Derby to Rutland Water 57 miles. Campsite.
Rutland Water to March 45 miles. Campsite.
March to Shropham 53 miles. Mark and Justine’s. 2 nights.
Shropham to Harwich 78 miles. Cabin on ferry
Total so far 249 miles (Sally says she’s done 250 – how did that happen?)
Total journey approx 2700 miles
If you like statistics you can look for Sally Twogood and Bobby Gilbert on Strava.com and find a wealth of them.
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