πCycle.net

This is the report you have all been waiting for – how we survived Swiss floods and conquered the Alps, so read on…

After a leisurely time in Zug we head West on a roundabout route towards Luzern. We encounter manic Swiss lawn mowers at the campsite who are so keen they mow off one of our tent pegs.

We left Luxembourg and headed back into France in the Lorraine region. We needed another map showing campsites but the tourist information was closed for a 2 hour lunch so we decided to wing it, as Ian says, campsites are everywhere in France. We stopped in a fair sized town for the night, or so we thought, and only had to re-track 7 miles to a campsite we had passed earlier.

Slight change of format so that we do not spend hours in internet cafes typing and you do not get too bored. Input speed is not helped by a really strange keyboard layout which means the letters are in the wrong place !

Had a really grim ride along the A20 to get to Dover docks. Cycle provision laughable. The red line we were meant to follow often disappeared.

Bearsted to Cranbrook 21m

Very damp day. Spent a lazy morning being Auntie and Uncle and decided to leave by 2pm whatever the weather. Steve (Ians brother in law) guided us out of Bearsted and though Otham. By now the rain had stopped and Steve was enjoying himself so much that he cycled all the way with us. This was his longest ride on his new bike.

Unfortunately we are still not up to speed how this site works so bare with us.

Day 1 Sat 23/07 Slough to Bearsted 87m
For some reason I agreed to a really long start to this adventure. Our friend for the local cycling group Chris guided us to Dorking through some very quite routes we would not have found unaided. Then we sat on the A25 to get some miles in.

We are now getting very excited – only 4 days to go!! The bike has been fully serviced and the first test pack completed. This went better than expected with more room for food than we a used to, mainly due to our new sleeping bags that are about 1/3 the size of our previous ones.