Margaret and Tony's 2019 bike ride to Normandy
German underground military hospital and ammunition stores. 75,000 square feet. Built with labourers brought in from Europe who suffered greatly. It was a sobering start to our second day of cycling this beautiful island.
Dug out of solid rock. One tunnel of many.
Tower to fend off Napoleon’s forces.
5000 years old. The burial site. Not M.
The size of Guernsey. Miles that is…as the crow flies from one coast to the other. Cycled all the way across to the west coast. 40 minutes. 8 km…as the bike rolls. Beautiful farm land and rugged coast with remnants of coastal defences both Napoleonic and from German occupation during WWII.
Bumblebees everywhere. Everywhere. No mosquitoes. No midges. Happy days.
Fixing the first flat tire I’ve ever had on this bike. The inner tube had done over 6,000km, which isn’t bad. The valve just blew out of the tube.
Fort Saumarez lookout tower. Nazi army built it on top of a Victorian Martello tower.
Everywhere!
Football sustenance.
Watching England v Scotland in the Women’s World Cup.
Canada plays tomorrow!!
We’re in Guernsey, staying at a nice inn just outside St. Peters Port. A goodly number of photos of Lily James gazing wistfully into the middle distance adorn walls in the town. Clearly the movie has been good for the local economy (and probably did Lily’s personal finances no harm).
It was a large day (as Bill would say), starting with an exciting 3 hour ferry ride from Poole. Strong winds and 9ft waves off the quarter made for a bumpy ride. Lots of people saw their breakfast twice. The ferry people were doing a good trade in sick bags, with people hanging over the rear leeside. Fortunately I felt fine, but M had to stay outside and stand at the rear keeping a steady gaze on the waves and not the folks, ever increasing in number as the voyage continued, turning green beside her. She was very happy that she hadn’t eaten breakfast.
The weather was warm and sunny when we arrived. Nice walk out to a little beach this afternoon.
The three chalk stacks you can just see in the background are called Old Harry Rocks.
Will he keep that breakfast down?
The Tardis as a boy. (Post boxes in Guernsey are blue, not red.)
Nice beach.
Sentient sand worms.
We’re in Poole. True to forecast, it poured with rain all morning and we got soaked. Hills are handy when you’re wet and chilled. Slogging up a hill will warm you up nicely. Fortunately the rain stopped over lunch, but then came down again in torrents as we were coming into Poole. So glad we had a nice shower and comfy bed to look forward to, instead of a wet tent, which people keener than us would be doing.
Brief respite from the rain
Rye or barley or possibly wheat. (At least we know it’s not turnips.)
Grumpy cyclist eating a Mars bar instead of a pint and pub lunch because we couldn’t find a pub.
But then a miracle happened… Outside a nice village pub.
Today’s route
At the bottom we are the blue line on the left
We cycled a goodly chunk of the Wiltshire Cycleway today, ending up at the St George Inn at Mere. We biked along tiny roads, off-road tracks, past a castle, a fort, sundry semi-ruins dating from 1438, and through the grounds of two country estates, complete with large houses. Most of the time we hardly saw anyone, and often could go half an hour without seeing a car. How could this be in a country so densely populated as England? Cycling takes you to a different world – one away from cars, urban living and, to a large extent, people. It gives you a small flavour of what life must have been like in earlier times.
On our way
Busy Wiltshire Road
And another
Longleat – started as a small cottage, but the husband found he enjoyed DIY. House elf out front.
Over 19 billion served – since 1677
Bradford-upon-Avon
Today’s route
Tomorrow’s weather forecast. Damp.
Torrential rain forecast for the end of the week, which means it must be the start of our bike trip. We’re off tomorrow to ride 60km or so to Mere, on our way to the south coast of England where we’ll catch a ferry to the Channel Islands.
On the positive side, we and our bikes made it across the pond in good order. The bikes are reassembled and reconfigured for left-hand side of the road.
We’ve also been doing some diligent carb loading in local pubs for the last few days. Ready to go!!
The excitement of stuffing a bike-shaped bike into a box-shaped box must be similar to what Doctor Who’s assistant experiences the first time he or she steps into the Tardis and discovers it’s bigger inside than out.
But there is an art. So, first, catch your bike box. They’re known to congregate in groups around the back of bike shops. You’re best to get an unflattened box. If you talk nicely to the bike shop man, he’ll probably be happy to give you a box. As in other aspects of life, though, size does matter. The difference between eventual frustration or delight might be half an inch or so in the dimensions of the box.
Then get some sturdy duct tape, the kind Nasa uses to stick their rockets together, and tape up the bottom and corners. Next get your bike, take off all the accessories, racks, pedals, front wheel and handlebars. Zip tie the front wheel onto the frame. Twist the front fork 180 degrees, rotate the handlebars and gently shove them through the front wheel spokes. The bike should now look box-shaped.
And, if you’ve chosen the right size of box, it should drop in nicely. (If you haven’t, this is when you swear to your favourite deity about why she didn’t make space-time more elastic. And then you go and get a bigger box from the bike shop.)
Apply padding and liberal amounts of duct tape to the outside of the box. Leave the top open for the nice people at the airport to check inside for non-bikey substances.
Another year, another bike trip. In 2017, we cycled 1854 km from John O’Groats to Lands End and in 2018 we cycled a more modest 1191 km to the west coast of Ireland. This year we plan to cycle from Chippenham to Normandy and back, and we thought we’d do another blog for anyone who’s still a bit interested.
On that note, I’ve collected together a few thoughts and suggestions for anyone who might have a hankering to try out our kind of relaxed cycle touring. You’re welcome to download my guide (PDF). Any feedback or suggestions appreciated.
Next post closer to when we leave.