πCycle.net

Hungary is not a big cycling country. There may be miles of cycle routes but in our experience so far they are in useless strips 100m long with 10cm kerbs at either end. We have picked up a map of cycle routes in Hungary and it shows that any major road that goes directly from A to B cycling is prohibited.

As we pack up in Zagreb we find a mouse in my pannier, but it has to go, no freeloaders are allowed. The campsite is South of Zagreb so to get North we have to cycle through the city. We use cycle routes we spotted from the bus the day before, avoiding the horrendous route we took in.

After Ljubljana we head North West to Bled, Slovenias number one tourist location. We stay there 2 days and do a days ride without luggage which is a pleasant rest. We climb the foothills of the Julian Alps and do our steepest climb yet of 18%. The scenery is lovely but the road surface degrades to gravel and potholes at the top, which makes it harder work for Ian steering.

We had a couple more pleasant days with my cousin and her husband in their house in the country. The address is just a number and the village name as there is only one street. Ian surprised them both by insisting on a DIY fix of various hard labour in hot sunshine, so he earned our keep.

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.