The waiting was over, the planning complete and we were off. Two days late we set off from Consiton Road, not to cycle to Oxford as originally planned , but down the road to the train station. If cycling the bikes was difficult, getting them on and off a train was almost impossible. With hindsight we should have called for the ramp they have for people who use wheelchairs. Getting the bikes booked on to the train was pretty difficult as well. We have had unpleasant experiences with Virgin Trains in the past and so I was detremined to book them rather than turn up and hope the train manager was in a good mood. That proved harder than it should have done. According to the booking computer every train on Good Friday Morning was full ( they only have two spaces for bikes these days - don't get me started on efforts to get people to use trains more often). Now the booking man was confident it was a glitch and he offered to send a note to the platform manager to make sure he allowed us to put out bikes on without a ref no. I wasn't too keen on relying on one man to remember to send a note to another guy who may not even turn up for work - and so took the one train that "still had space" - the 0725. Ah getting up early - all good practice.
So we duly caught the 0725 and sat with them in the smallest of spaces (especially if you consider they have four panniers and a rack pack on them) to make sure they didn't fall over. Fully laden I am terrified of breaking a wheel or God forbid a fork. Off at Reading and a gentle 8 mile introductory ride to Pangbourne to stay with Simon, Camilla, Bella and George. We had a lovely day with them and a farewell meal (the common theme seems to be when we meet people and they see our fully laden bikes is one of incredulity mixed with comments of "fools","idiots" "rather you than me" mixed with a general acceptance that what we are doing will be an amazing adventure. We said farewell to the Kents nice and early the following day (a precautionary measure because you can't book bikes on trains to Portsmouth and just have to hope there is enough space or risk having to wait for a train where there is. As it turned out we arrived in Portsmouth about five hours early. Not a town to spend time in. We did manage to do some last minute shopping for our food for the boat and our first day in Spain, treated ourselves to a book each and spent as much time in Starbucks as we dared before outstaying our welcome. Even so we arrived at the port around a couple of hours early. Now ports aren't ever places you want to spend much time at but Portsmouth is even worse. It's like waiting in a factory parking lot, or in a disused knackers yard. But at least we met some interestung people - especially Shortie, a Welshman, living in Scotland who was about to cycle to the Algarve for charity, with so little kit it made me fell like one of those women you see flying to Majorca from Manchester or Liverpool airport. He had a road racer with a small rack on the back and a bag for clothes, a sleeping bag and not much else. Where ws he going to sleep? Doorways, park benches and anywhere else he could find. Time from Le Havre to the Algarve .. ? Around 14 days at about 120 miles a day. Apparently he had done it before and apart from the odd hiccup with the weather and a man with a shotgun hadn't had too much bother.
Chatting with Shortie was a great way to spend a couple of hours and made me feel that we weren't overstretching ourselves other than perhaps in the scale of what we hoped to achieve - and even there copmpared to other around the world cyclists our route looks pretty tame. Thank you Shortie for your good wishes and may you make it safely to the Algarve.
This is Shortie's bike - we met him while waiting for the ferry at Portsmouth - he was cycling to the Algarve for charity and his bike and what he is carrying puts us to shame - travelling light taken to the extreme.
Saying goodbye to England - the ferry leaves Portsmouth and we are blessed with a beautiful farewell sunset - we are now getting very excited. Two days time we will be in Spain and really on our way.
May the weather always be this kind to us! The Bay of Biscay is calm and the sun is out. The wind is a bit chilly and sadly no whales to see but other than that a perfect crossing.
