2019's bright idea: cycle to Gibraltar via 21 back-to-back centuries. Let's help M.N.D. research, Bloodwise and Blesma! Wagon rolls on Friday 20th September...
Bonsoir mes amis! Unbelievable scenes Jeff, but the wifi onboard this DFDS ferry actually works, so you can blame them for this latest horror show, hah-hah! I rolled out of Cambridge just before 7.30am: it's never early enough for this caper though.
Halfway-up the first slog of a climb. Joy!
Progress wasn't exactly light-speed which was fair enough but I managed to complicate things by missing a turn to route around Stansted Airport to the east.
I'm sure one day I'll look back on this and chuckle, but at the time it was another time-consuming, doubt-generating faff although it did provide some invaluable off-road malarkey, hah-hah! West ain't always the best...
This was the couth section...adjacent to Stansted Airport!
Some grand gaffs around too. Wimpey have upped their game.
There was the odd shower around too. Any excuse to take a break, right?
Today's schedule was a bit unusual: to get across The Thames, I had to get down to the Thurrock cycle crossing control between 10.30am and 2pm, and they would be available to cart me and YP across. Excellent!
Of course it didn't really happen that way at all...traffic through Essex was a 'mare, as were diversions, road closures and to top it off, the so-called cycle path to take you to it was er, not a goer...
You have got to be kidding me. The air turned bleu for a minute, hah-hah!
Google was sod-all help initially as were any nearby civilians, and the clock was approaching 2pm pronto. Eventually a super-convoluted and possibly not entirely legal route was used, and I made it to the RV point with 7 minutes to spare.
Give them their due, the vehicle rolled-up 15 minutes later and the friendly driver said that I was lucky as he reckoned that a couple of his colleagues would have let the phone ring.
Thurrock RV point. Waiting for the van!
Appalling quality photo. You're welcome.
Avant Garde selfie, almost. Anyway, south of The River. Next stop Dover!
Do your own theme tune nostalgia!
The other reason for trying to keep to some semblance of a timetable was that I had arranged to meet my sister and her other half, Stephen for a late Sunday lunch.
This worked like a charm back in 2014: the slight difference then was that I only had to get down to near Canterbury from London, not effin' Cambridge like today. Honestly, what berk plans that? Er, anyway meet we eventually did on the lovely A2, hah-hah!
Thanks for putting up with the chaos...good effort!
By now I had already resigned myself to missing my original ferry departure but steamed on as best I could to make the next sailing at 7.50pm. In the event, DFDS were as good as- even their onboard wifi worked well and they were serving le peas mushy avec their fish & chips. Result!
I was going *so* fast into Dover that light distorted. Yeah, that'll be right...
For a large chunk of today, I doubted whether I'd see this. Sweet!
YP is tucked away in the corner. Last one out of course.
But guess who gets their very own 'Follow Me' all the way to the exit? To be fair, I did look incapable of following basic signage.
Right then, it's midnight here and time for a kip...take it away, Rod.
Battery was on its last legs about 5 miles before Dover. Fair enough, hah-hah!
