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Mallacoota is one of those places that I've always heard about, but never visited — hence the reason we wanted to go there on this trip.

...

Three very tired people go on holiday.

After Steve and Anelyn's wedding yesterday we all woke up tired and a little hungover... ok, Jo and Cam were only tired. Breakfast and packing for the week took place in slow-motion, but amazingly we managed to get into the car and away only a little after noon.

Cameron announced it was his lunch time as soon as we got to the outskirts of Melbourne, treeless farmland devoid of rest-stops or picnic areas, the first available place to stop was a detour into Nar Nar Goon — and with a name like that how could I resist.

...

Trying for a smaller meal for once, we had a plain toasted sandwich for breakfast, then poked around in the greenstone shop while Hoki prepared for its Christmas parade. Nothing much of interest in the shops — nothing under a few thousand dollars that is! A little curious that from memory of my visit in 1980 it was all tikis and figurines, now it seems to be all spirals — “koru” — and other geometric shapes.

We drove out of town as the parade was starting, twisting around for 20km or so north then turning inland and commencing the clib up the valley towards Arthurs Pass. The road followed the old railway line on and off before losing it in the distance as we started the real 3rd and 3nd gear climbs and corners up through the forest. The views back down or out over the Otira viaduct were incredible — and just on cue two Kea (Nestor notabilis) mysteriously appeared without a sound. I'm not sure if they fly quietly in or walk out from under the bush, I'd suspect either. Very intelligent birds, they remind me as much of owls as they do of parrots.

Once over the pass the forest changes almost immediately, so much drier on the eastern side. We drove through the town of Arthurs Pass and out the other side before fully realising, then turned around to go back for lunch. So-so bacon sandwiches with more sickly-sweet salad dressing, but more than made up for it with a magnificent icecream, all eaten outside as the Keas circled overhead.

Coming down from the mountains and ski fields parts of the landscape were almost reminscent of the Western USA, dry plains and rocky mountain sides, such a contrast from the green of the west coast forests.

Then a last hour or so across the plains of Canterbury, so green and tame compared to the mountains — and windy too! I can see why there are so many hedges and windbreaks planted.

Saturday afternoon Christchurch traffic came as a bit of a shock; traffic lights and a stop-start crawl. At the entry to the city the sign “Centre via One-way system” provoked a comment of “hold your break, we're going in” and much laughter. Amazing how your perceptions of traffic change after a few weeks of driving around out in the isolation in the country.

A car park in a random city street as we commenced the search for accomodation on foot. Strike one — Coachman is full. Strike two — Excelsior is full. Third time lucky, a bed in Corkers, although there is a long walk up the stairs and signs warn us to beware of leaving valuables about....

Then it is beer o'clock, first the delights of the “Twisted Hop” ale house, then beers and food at the “Dux de Lux.” With food and drink like this I could very quickly grow to like Christchurch!

A snippet via Digg, I don't normally like Flash, and I think it could be done as a plain graphic anyway, but here's a map that shows just how little of the world I've seen.

• [http://www.travbuddy.com//flash/countries_map.swf?id=4707]

[2007-12-31] Ugly, and it seems to break my publishing stream, so I've removed it “for now”.

It was meant to be our shopping day, a last chance to look around the markets, visit the Silk market, and gather up some presents for neices and nephews — unfortunately Jo was still very sick this morning so we spent almost our entire time hunting up the English-speaking SOS clinic.

....

....

The weather in Beijing is officially “cloudy” — there is no smog. In preparation for the 2008 Olympic games, large numbers of new parks and trees are being planted all over the city, and a huge steelworks has been closed and moved to another city to clean up the air — Beijing's air anyway, the unvisited industrial recipient city gets all the pollution now. Car numbers are supposedly to be capped at three million to limit congestion and pollution, but nobody is quite sure whether this will happen, or whether money and privilege will just make for a black market in unofficial cars.

....

Where?

Beijing (北京)

A traveling day; bus from Xiahe (夏河) to Lanzhou (兰州), lunch, back in the bus for the trip to the airport then fly to Beijing (北京). Eight in the morning to ten at night.

Once again our bus driver proved his worth; there was another huge thunderstorm last night — a thunderstorm that I slept through — and the river was even more swollen and flooded and brown than the last two days, the roads were covered in rock-falls and the road-works detours turned into churned up bogs. A fairly routine six hour drive had a number of very boggy crossings and much slaloming around everything from handfuls of gravel to fallen boulders a metre in diameter.

Lunch at a café in Lanzhou, a beef noodle dish that is one of the three things this area is famous for — the other two being labour camps and the Chinese space industry. Good news was that Dan assured us that we'd only get to experience one of the three! Bad news was that Jo started feeling sick shortly after lunch, maybe the lunch, more likely last night's Chicken Biryani in Xiahe(夏河).

....

Checking in at the airport it was interesting to see that although Beijing (北京), like Ho Chi Minh City, has changed in spelling or name from its original westernised version, the airport code that is stuck on all the luggage is still the original, PEK for Beijing (北京) (Peking), SAI for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)!

....

I think Jo and I were the only two in our room who slept well last night; Damian and Amy were both feeling sick, Dan snored a bit and claims that he never sleeps well when he stays here, Julie says she spent the night rolling back and forth between Damian and Dan — not used to sleeping between two others!

After the tremendous thunderstorm last night it was clear and sunny again this morning, I ducked out for a short walk around the place, then Jo and I took off for a longer walk before breakfast, happy to get out and see some of the place without the local children hanging off our arms.

Out the western gate and around the outside of the “city walls” around to the east. Dozens of little frogs were out and about on the paths and the walls themselves, so dense in places that you couldn't avoid stepping on them. There were more smiles and curious looks from the local inhabitants starting their day, fetching water from the bore and putting the animals out into the fields, and watching tourists wander about.

...

Afternoon bus trip off into the Tibetan grasslands, up from Xiahe (夏河) at 2900m altitude to around 3300m crossing the rolling green hills, then back down onto the plains to visit Tsewey Monastery and on to Karnang — also Kharnang or the Chinese Ganjia Baijiao City — to spend the night, Karnang hardly classifies as a city, a population of maybe 500, unpaved roads, no shops and a mass of single storey mud houses inside 1000 year-old city walls. There is a primary school here that Intrepid used to support, but we've learnt that the teachers were stealing the donations and none were getting to the school, so the school visit is off the agenda!

The road out from Xiahe to Kharnang is in fairly good condition, except every single bridge is simultaneously being replaced! This has resulted in detours down off the roadway at every culvert and bridge off to one side or the other, across the hopefully dry watercourse, then back up onto the road.

    I met a hairy black yak,
    In appearance, a shaggy old sack.
    I approached the wrong end,
    In an attempt to befriend...
    and ended up flat on my back.

City walls, drum and bell towers and the Little Goose Pagoda.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was not what I was expecting!

A long time in the bus....

Grey, grey skies....

As it says on the ticket:

As the famous touristy attraction in the world and 4A level scenic spot firstly announced by State Tourism Board, Shaolin scenic spot enjoys rich humanities sight, antique natural sight, massive Shaolin Buddhist and Wushu Culture and elegant & rare geological wonder. Centralizing within 2.1Kmof coral area of coral area of scenic spot, the humanities sight mainly includes Shaolin Temple, tower forest, Damo Hole, First Ancestor Hut, Second Ancestor Hut, etc. Centralizing in Sanhuangzhai of Shaosi mountain, the natural sight integrates three biggest orogenies of Songyang, Zhongyue and Shaolin and land making activeties, which were famous during the precambrian period and are the optimum sight spot of Songshan World Geology Park. The natural sight mainly contains over 40 spots such as monkey watching sky cloud apices and howling tiger setting sun in Yusai, autumn scenery of Shaoshi, Waterfall, Atalagamite Hole, Daxian Gorge, Lingxiao Gorge, Nappe Hole, Camel Stone, Elephant Stone, Dragon Head and Tail, etc.

A day to ourselves today, just be back in time to get to the train! At 08:30 or so we'd packed our things and checked the bags into storage at the hotel, then walked off towards the old town. A long way to walk, but neither of us had much of an idea how to go about finding the right bus, or how to flag them down and pay. Breakfast again of mysterious tasty bread-things from a stall, then roughly south and east zig-zagging along the streets and trying to stay in the shade — it was already hot in the direct sun.

Past the “Bund Centre” and a mandatory photograph for the folks at bund.com.au — its a tall building with what appears to be a concrete crown, I may have taken a photograph of it yesterday.

Around the corner and suddenly we found ourselves in blocks of traditional-style buildings, some still under construction. In fact everything in China appears to be still under construction. One huge marketplace of little shops selling to tourists, endless streams of touts on the footpaths wanting me to buy “Watch, Prada bag, lady watch, shoe,” all rattled off as one long meaningless sentence. Crowds of people around the — bright green — ornamental lake, including a TV crew filming an interview with someone, I've no idea what its about but I'm in the background!

Then RMB30 to enter the Yu Yuan gardens where it was far more peaceful, although we still had to dodge 50-person Spanish and American bus-tour groups as we walked around in the maze of rooms and gardens and pavilions. A real shame there was no map as it seemed a lot larger inside than expected, all the small spaces making it easy to miss parts of the whole.

Finally we made our way back to the entrance, then back up to the Bund to start on the day's chores — money and food for the train. A green-bean icecream as we crossed another new park and back in the direction of the river, confusion set in and we headed the wrong way along Ren Min Lu and found ourselves walking three-quarters of the way around an enormous building site then along a main road in blistering sun and finally to a corner of the park where we were within sight of where we'd sat to eat the ice-creams! Took the correct turn this time, then alongside the river on the Bund walk, again really hot as there's hardly any shade up on the embankment.

The first bank we stepped into while hunting about to change money was enormous, one of the traditional old-fashioned style banks, all timber panelling and 19th century attitude. Completely overwhelming and no signs anywhere in either English or Chinese of where to do anything. The second was much easier, the guard took one look as we walked in the door and guided us upstairs to the foreign currency office.

Financial transactions completed, back across (under) the river via the “Pedestrian tunnel,” a bizarrely misnamed piece of tourist tat which is a very expensive little train that holds eight or so people, costs RMB30 one way (as against RMB1 for a return ticket on the ferry) and has a very tacky and very loud laser and light show its entire length. We had been warned by Julie, but we just had to see it for ourselves!

One good point is that the tunnel exit is right next to the Pearl tower and across the road from the enormous gold coloured supermarket-mall-department store that Dan had suggested was a good spot for provisions. Once inside it was a bit tricky finding the supermarket, luckily Jo remembered that it was in the basement!

It felt strange to be walking around in an enormous supermarket, everything marked in Chinese, but little different to any supermarket anywhere else in the world. All the same bright fluorescent lights, bright colours, endless brands and packaging. A reminder of how different the culture is came in the form of a company rep. standing behind a display rack of cartoons and a tray with tiny sample cups full of a mysterious drink... “Sir, madam, try this, its milk” Indeed it was, simple, ordinary, plain cold milk, but a product that necessitates a special advertising campaign in a country that doesn't consume much in the way of dairy products.

We made our way back towards our hotel by the metro, then sheltered for half an hour or so in an air-conditioned foreign-language (ie English) bookshop. The thermometer outside happily telling us it was currently 35°C.

Regrouped at the hotel then all piled into taxis for the trip to the station. An amazingly noisy and slow trip, I'm sure we could have walked it quicker, then down into the largest underground taxi rank I have ever seen.

Show our tickets at the turn-styles with guards outside the building — with so many people in China you can't even get into the train station without a ticket, but even so it was packed once we got in. The waiting halls are amazing, enormous cavernous rooms just full of people.

A deafening and distorted PA system blasting out announcements, then down onto the platform for the long walk to carriage 17 of 20 or more — sorry Marko, no chance of taking any pictures of the engine for you!

We made ourselves at home in our compartment, six beds in two stacks of three, then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting around chatting and eating our way through assorted snacks, watching as the world went by. Noodles for dinner, the same as most of the other passengers, RMB5 from the lady with the food cart then fill them up with hot water from the urn at the end of the carriage.

Lights out and into bed at 10; I slept fitfully through the night, waking up occasionally as the train lurched and banged or stopped in odd locations.

After a day of travelling, last night I slept like a log, but surprisingly still managed to wake up around 7:30 this morning. Off to find something for breakfast out on a street stall before our first group event — subway and walk to the Shanghai museum. Temperature already up around 30°C as Jo and I headed off at semi-random around a few corners and bought a pastry-thing and a bun-thing from a street vendor.

The group met up around 9:30 for the walk over to the museum, I think I was still confused about west and east and thought we were heading in the opposite direction — towards the river rather than away from it! The museum was far more interesting than most of us expected — we didn't think we'd be there long but found we spent almost an hour on the fourth floor just looking around at the exhibits and costumes (we'd decided to start at the top of the building and work our way down). Some fascinating calligraphy and scrolls — but of course neither of us can read any of it. Nearly everything was labelled quite well in English.

Ming and Qing furniture, a huge room full of bronzes, we skipped the exhibit of five thousand years of pottery and finally made it out around 12:30 to find that it was still hot, but had just finished raining.

With the afternoon free we took off on foot to the French quarter and found ourselves surrounded by construction work everywhere we went. Buildings listed in our maps simply did not exist anymore. A new park with a sign proudly proclaiming “4,936 families successfully removed to create this park” — we wonder where the families are now.

The old flower market is gone, one huge building site of rubble in its place. Slight mis-reading of a map on the way back had us walk the long two sides around a triangle, then successfully made it back to Middle Hennan road on the metro — including a change of trains and puzzling out the automated ticket machine. Simple things that become suddenly complex in a new place and a foreign language. Dinner by ourselves of “three mixed meats” and eggplant and Chinese vegetables, then regroup at the hotel for a visit to the acrobats. Wow! These are absolutely amazing people. Traditional pole and rope climbing, running up poles as though they were stairs. An incredibly flexible girl performing some sort of yoga/ballet will holding five sets of lit candles, tying herself in knots and not setting anything on fire. Hoop diving, plate spinning, a tacky silk-rope show set to an over-the-top backdrop projection of music and film from Titanic. Cyclists on eight bikes in formation, then eight cyclists in formation on one bike! The climax of the show was the motor cycles in “the wheel of death”. Completely crazy to watch with one guy spinning around inside the ball, when the second bike entered it was amazing, then it was three... four... five motorbikes whirling around in a blur of two-stroke and noise.

Successful negotiation of the metro back to the hotel and then some very expensive beers outside on Funan road — the Chinese equivalent of Eiffel tower beer, RMB25 a bottle, 20 of which was for the seat and the view! Then back to the hotel, exhausted.

An hour and a half this morning in Changi airporty in Singapore, time enough to walk around and look at the pools of Koi and orchid gardens, then back on the plane for the flight to Shanghai (上海).

Long queues at Chinese immigration, video cameras everwhere filming the arrivals in the hall, then quickly through a very prefunctory customs check and out of the aiport. Do we change money insider or outside the immigration? The rates inside didn't look so good so we waited until outside — should have known, the rates outside were exactly the same. Luggage and money, now time for transport — woohoo, the maglev train! Only one small problem, we couldn't find it!

The sign that we thought pointed outside to the Maglev train actually meant go upstairs to the second floor! Luckily a woman for one of the hotels tried to get us a taxi, then told us how to find the train station once we explained our predicament.

RMB40 and an aircraft boarding-pass stub and we were onto the train. Very ordinary looking on the inside, apart from the groovy illuminated signs that tells you how fast you're travelling; 100, 200, 300, 400 — ticking away up to 432km/hr! Only a little bit of noise and shaking, it was all quite amazing really. Eight minutes later and we were in the station in the centre of the city, this is definitely how it should be to get from an airport to the city!

Struggled across to the metro station and puzzled our way through tickets; machine or person? The machine has English text, but is slightly confusing, as every ticket machine in every city always seems to the visitor. We made it though, two RMB4 tickets and onto the train, then across Pudong, under the river and off at the correct station of Middle Hunan road — Yay!

I'll blame the northern hemisphere! Subconsciously navigating by the sun we came up blinking into daylight from the metro station, confidently turned left and strode off in precisely the opposite direction to where the hotel was! Luckily it was only half a block before the rational part kicked in and had us make an about-face, then down the side street to the Nanjing hotel and inside to checkin and get a well-earned shower!

After getting established in the Nanjing hotel we headed back out for an exploratory walk, once again I got confused about north and south, that subconscious is a dangerous thing! Nanjing Lu is one big pedestrian mall, the crowds and shops and stonework making it all look vaguely reminiscent of Bourke street mall in Melbourne — but maybe that's just because I don't spend much time in Bourke street mall! Maybe not so similar after all, the architecture and neon signs all straight from the 21st century.

Early in the evening we met the rest of the Intrepid group for the first time, handed over our wads of cash for the “local contribution” then headed out dinner. Damian and Amy from down near Geelong, Peter and Rachel from Ballarat, Steven and Kristine from Toronto in Canada, and Julie from Adelaide, to be led around the country by Dan.

Dan quickly proved his leadership abilities by taking us around a few blocks to a favourite restaurant where he ordered the first of what turned out to be many fantastic meals in China! Of course no meal and no holiday is complete without beer, so there was a highly symbolic “first beer of the trip” in the restaurant, followed by a couple of very expensive — for Shanghai (上海) and China — beers at an outdoor café on Nanjing Lu. At RMB25 per bottle, we were definitely paying for the pleasure of sitting around outdoors in the warm evening air and watching the world go by.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single zone one Met. train.

Oh well, it sounds good, sufficiently Confucian for the start of a fifteen day trip through China. The 9:30pm to Spencer Street station — errr, make that Southern Cross station. The station looks almost complete now, totally empty and desolate at ten o'clock on a Sunday night. Foolishly, Jo thought we'd be able to buy a coffee while we waited for the bus to the airport... not a chance! Just sit in the cold grey echo-ey concrete carpark that is the brand new bus station. I wonder if there is a bus station anywhere in the world that looks attractive?

A small mercy on the bus to the airport, for once we were not subjected to the appalling “Come and spend all your money at Chadstone mega-mall” video. Maybe it only shows to arrivals, maybe the driver hates it as much as the passengers do.

Checkin as much fun as it always is, this time we got to queue up behind an entire teenage German orchestra and most of their instruments. All kinds of oddly-shaped luggage requiring all kinds of different handling.

Eight hours to Singapore and I tried to sleep, dozing badly while being leant on by a man we nicknamed “Mr Stinky” — the owner of one of the worst cases of halitosis I've ever had the misfortune to experience. When his fat arms and broad shoulders weren't leaning on me, he was subjecting me to a form of chemical warfare that must surely be illegal on a civilian aircraft.

  Odometer: 1870.7km
  Today: 0.0km
  Trip total: ??km

Hangover time, last night there were far too many Newkie Brown's with Debra and Nick (Irish barmaid and Welsh traveller) at Dick Turpin's — an English theme pub. Debra kept trying to embarrass guys by flirting with all the guys in the pub and making jokes about her exceptionally large bust. I'd met Nick and another Welsh guy a few days ago in Nantes, but didn't recognize them at first.

Did very little all morning except wander around through back streets and parks between the station and the hostel, snoozed in the sun and wrote another postcard. Finally feeling a little better I found some great looking back streets around a college, took a few photos and found the local Saturday market. Mostly clothes and food stalls, all packed with customers and all run by africans or Moroccan's

After taking a few photos and a brief look around inside a church I made my way back to the hostel and gathered up my stuff to move on to meet the Wide Open Road group. To my amazement someone had pinched one of my hooters while the bike has been locked up in the bicycle store room (the horns on the end of the handlebars). Rode the couple of blocks to the Hotel Kyriad and spent the rest of the day snoozing on the bed.

Later, we all met up at one of the cafés near the train station for introductions, beers, and for dinner. My choice was a magnificent bowl of onion soup, which was presented to me accompanied by a bowl of raw garlic cloves. I assumed that the chef knew what he was doing and so I tentatively chomped into one of the smaller cloves along with the soup. An impressively strong taste! The others were laughing and joking and wondering who I was sharing a room with when Dave piped up from the other end of the table. He'd ordered the same dish, so the two of us toasted each other with the largest garlic cloves we could find, then ate them with tears streaming down our faces.

Where?

Bordeaux

  Odometer: 1870.7km
  Today: 0.0km
  Trip total: ??km

The English guys managed to flood our room three times this morning by overflowing the shower! Somehow the sign telling people not to turn the shower up too high just wasn't getting through. They were going to the beach for the day and invited me to go with them. When I got to the station it all started to look too hard, the trains too infrequent, so I changed my mind and sat down to have a coffee. More indicision and the fine sunny weather and I changed my mind back again, trotting inside to catch the train to Arcachon for the afternoon!

It was well worth it, I sat on the beach in the sun, watching the world go by. A strange mix, as some people were out in beach clothes, others seemed determined to wear their Sunday best.

There were signs pointing to the ocean beach and the world's biggest sand dunes. Or maybe they were Europe's biggest sand dunes. In any case it was too hot and too far and I was too lazy, so I had a gelato instead and wandered around the shops.

After catching the train back to Bordeaux I headed out for the evening, choosing the Irish bar and English-speaking company over a French bar and much less conversation!

Where?

Bordeaux, Arcachon

  Odometer: 1870.7km
  Today: 0.0km
  Trip total: ??km

I'm not sure if I'm getting better or not! There's less phlegm, but more cough, maybe all that beer and wine and the smokey bar last night was the correct way to treat bronchitis!

I got in earlier today and paid my 160FF to take my chances on the winery tour. It turned out to be more of a chateau drive-by bus trip, with two winery visits thrown in. A little dissappointing to anyone used to a visit to Australian wineries, especially the smaller, more personable ones.

I could laugh at the comments that came from the French, automatic out-of-hand dismissal of Australian wine. Or the comments; “naturally they go for quantity at the low end of the market,” or “they change blends on a whim, here everything is controlled.” Then there's the Americans on the bus, none of them have ever been to a wine tasting before!

Once back at the hostel I had a more leisurely evening than last night; sitting around eating bread and cheese and sausage, and drinking wine with Lolita and Tiffany, Brazilian and Canadian respectively, and Julie, from the Blue Mountains in Australia.

Where?

Bordeaux

  Odometer: 1870.7km
  Today: 0.0km
  Trip total: ??km

Bronchitis hit me hard this morning, coughing and wheezing and spitting for an hour or more when I woke up. I was feeling sorry for myself and equally sorry for the others sharing the room.

Spent much of the day being a tourist and walking around, by lunch time I wasn't sure whether my aching legs were from cycling, walking, or just from being sick. I'd hoped to get onto the winery tour today but it was booked out. Maybe tomorrow….

After taking a couple of photos of the very famous statue I found out that I'm nearly at the end of a roll of film, and again I've left my spare film behind at the hostel. I also forget to copy down the statue's name or the comprehensive plaque around it. It had kings and queens and symbols of the republic and seahorses and water monsters and all kinds of things...

I found a shop with internet access, then had what the customer relations people would describe as an “unpleasant end-user experience.” Creaking old 486s, grotty keyboards, slow net connects and foreign keyboard layouts. Assorted linked systems back at Monash being out of action all affected each other, and the lack of server-side mail processing meant that when I could get through, there were several hundred mails waiting in my inbox to be manually sorted.

I spent the afternoon walking around the public gardens and the Natural History museum. It's a magnificent old building that feels like something out of the 19th century. Fusty old paint peels off the walls and the rooms are full of row after row of stuffed animals in glass cases.

I adjourned to an Irish pub to sit and write a few postcards, then after a large steak dinner, headed back to the hostel where I spent the evening with a bunch of Canadian guys and three young Finnish girls, drinking far too much wine and talking late into the night.

Where?

Bordeaux

  Odometer: 1870.7km
  Today: 151.09km
  Trip total: ??km

Good news or bad news first? The good news is that sometime during the night it finally cooled down and now is slightly overcast and around 20°C. Perfect weather for cycling. The bad news is that my cold is now much worse, probably bronchitis judging by the coughing and spitting!

Fantastic weather to ride in, cool and a light mist, so little that nothing stayed damp, just enough to keep me cool. It warmed up gradually later in the day, but stayed overcast the whole time.

Bordeaux was quite a hassle to get into, as most large cities are. Roadworks on the motorways meant that there were diversions all over the place. The side road I was on ended up being the motorway for quite a way. Further in I found a cyclepath labelled “Bordeaux Centre” and followed it for ages, then just as I was feeling hopeful that I was actually going to reach the centre of the city, it expired in a building site in a dodgy part of the docks on the wrong side of the river.

Bordeaux struck me as being overwhelmingly big. A big city, big traffic. It's probably the largest place I've had to ride into. Surprisingly enough, once I'd made it across the river I found the hostel easily enough.

The Garonne river is quite something to anyone from Australia. We just don't have rivers on that scale! The current looks frighteningly strong, full of enormous eddies.

The hostel is very new and clean, it even has a bicycle room, but there isn't anything to lock the bikes to inside the room, so you have to trust all the other people with access.

Route

Saintes, D6 to Thenac, Tesson, Gémozac, Toutvent, Mortagne-s-Gironde, D145 to St Thomas de Conac, St Bonnet-s-Girone, St Ciers-s-Gironde, D9 to Blaye, D669 to St-Andre-de-Cubzac, St Vincent de Paul, Bordeaux.

  Odometer: 1719.6km
  Today: 95.41km
  Trip total: ??km

I'd left La Rochelle with a vague idea of riding to Bordeaux today, optimistically managing to mis-read the map. At lunchtime as I neared Rochefort I saw that it was another 160km! Decided to make for Saintes instead, and only just made it there, during the afternoon the temperature just kept on climbing, around 35°C I guess.

I found a bike track this morning that ran from La Rochelle to Rochefort, but as with bike tracks everywhere it didn't seem to have enough signs and I managed to lose it a couple of times. One particularly frustrating occasion had me zig-zagging back and forth and venturing onto the motorway before I rediscovered the track.

The last stretch from Rochefort to Saintes was exhausting, I was just plodding along guzzling down hot water and counting down the kilometres. Finally got in around 3pm, had a shower as soon as the hostel opened, and then went to bed and slept for an hour.

After a sleep I felt much refreshed, the temperature had dropped too, so wandering around the town was quite reasonable. I had a look at some Roman ruins, drank a few refreshing beers, sat in the park and then had a meal in the square.

Route

La Rochelle, Châtelaillon-Plage, Vieux Châtelaillon, le Marouillet, Yves, Fouras, Rochefort, N137 to Saintes.

  Odometer: ??km
  Today: 0.0km
  Trip total: 1455.0km

It was nice to wake up and not have to pack up and move. Michael and I walked around for an essential visit to the laundromat, then spent the morning sitting on the beach watching the girls go by.

The beach and the bay looked fantastic, but as the tide went out we saw that the sand ended at the waters edge, and it was all mud and rocks from there out! Probably explained why so many people were sitting on the beach, and so few were in the water.

In the afternoon I managed to chase up an internet connection and check my email, 690 messages to sort through, and only two that I was interested in, the two from Jo. The French keyboard isn't a QWERTY layout, and that really slowed me down. The whole “internet booth” was an Apple iMac in a fancy cabinet, and it crashed as soon as I tried to access St George's electronic banking applet. Not a satisfactory experience!

In the evening we walked around the harbour again and drooled over the Round-the-world yachts that had tied up as part of the BT Global Challenge event. Fleetingly joked about trying to crash the welcome ceremony and help ourselves to the seafood buffet and champagne that we could see, but settled for going to dinner and a few beers in a nearby café.

39FF for a pint of Guiness came as an unpleasant surprise, although the beer and the bar and the company were good. Later we explored a few more side streets as things got a little quieter with the end of the weekend, and found a statue of a horse that someone had put a beer bottle in its mouth. I tried to take a picture, but had trouble zooming in on something that far away. Again, it cooled down rapidly once the sun went away, and we had a fairly early night.

  Odometer: 1622.7km
  Today: 167.7km
  Trip total: ??km

My cold is growing, I've been sneezing all day, and my nose is running constantly.

Stinking hot again inland, later in the afternoon it cooled as I got the sea breeze, but there were then 30km of head-winds across “Les Marais” which I think translates as “the swamp”. A flat, smelly, and very uninspiring ride!

It took me almost an hour and a half to get out of Nantes, I kept having to avoid motorways and zig-zag about, never seeming to make any headway. Managed to get lost in a couple of smaller towns as well.

In Luçon I was stopped reading a map when a French girl and her daughter came up and chatted (in English). She had ridden across Canada about 9 years ago, and would like to travel more, but with her young daughter now she just makes do with talking to riders that she meets.

Crossing Les Marais there are some strangely disturbing bits of road-kill on the desolate roads and lane-ways. They look like beavers, or enormous rats. I've no idea what they are, but I don't think I'd want to fall into the drainage ditches off the road. If anyone knows what they are, please tell me!

In La Rochelle I met a guy from Mt Evelyn, just out of Melbourne! Neither of us had booked into the hostel and we were surprised at how full it is, apparently we're lucky to get a bed at all! We spent the evening exploring the town, but it cooled down pretty quickly once the sun had set.

Where?

Nantes, Luçon, La Rochelle.

  Odometer: 1455.0km
  Today: 143.9km
  Trip total: ??km

I've had a sore throat all day, I think I'm getting a cold.

I felt like crap and hardly wrote anything in my journal.

Rennes was nearly impossible to get out of on the bike, I ended up heading south on the main highway for a few kilometres before being able to escape onto the side roads.

Where?

Rennes, N137-E3 to Chartres-de-Bretagne, Noyal-Chatillon-sur-Seiche, St Erolon, Bourgbarré, Chanteloup, le Sel-e-Bretagne, la Bosse-de-Bretagne, Teillay, la Thébaudais, Rouge, Châteaubriant, Issé, la Robertière, Nort-s-Erdre, D 26 to Sucé-sur-Erdre, Nantes.

  Odometer: 1311.1km
  Today: 141.9km
  Trip total: ??km

A long day, but in some ways it didn't really feel like it.

After getting out of bed and queueing for breakfast with hundreds of French school girls all on a school holiday trip, I headed out at 10:00 along the minor coast road in the direction of Mont St. Michel. I hadn't realised how far it was, so it was 64km and 1pm by the time that I got there, very hungry and hot. The early fog burnt off quite quickly to a hot day. Mont St. Michel loomed into sight when it was at least 50km away, and just didn't seem to get any closer, when I finally got there it was a bit of a dissapointment, with hundreds of people, cars and tour busses all around. With nowhere to lock my bike, and hunger rapidly rearranging my priorities I headed back over the causeway to a supermarket and then lunched in the park.

Over lunch I decided to head for Rennes since there was still plenty of time and I was feeling fine. Three hours later, stinking hot and probably stinking, I rode into Rennes with no real idea of where I was heading. Just as I found the centre of town I spotted a hostel sign, headed off and got lost and confused, then found the signs again, and by 18:00 I was showered and comfortable, amazed at how far I'd travelled in one day.

Where?

St Malo, D201 to Rotheneuf, le Verger, les Portes, D155 to le Vivier, D797 to Pontoroson, D976 to le Mont-St-Michel, Pontoroson, D175 to Antrain and Rennes.

  Odometer: 1169.2km
  Today: 48.110km
  Trip total: ??km

Young Sammy's first birthday if I remember correctly...

I bummed around all day in the sun, riding out to le Corbienne lighthouse in the south-west. Once there I found a broken spoke, on the cluster side of course. Probably as a result of over-changing and dropping the derailleur into the spokes.

Rode back to St Helier and tried all three bike shops, all were too busy to change it. I ended up doing it out on the street with the help of a guy who ran a tourist bike-hire business, he'd called in to visit at the same time I was there. After a bit of re-tensioning to the entire wheel it all finally stopped creaking and so we went and had a beer while I waited for the ferry...

Chatted to a Danish motor-cyclist on the crossing to St. Malo, then had my bike disinfected against foot and mouth yet again as we disembarked. The guy manning the disinfectant sprayer was pretty good about it, acknowledged that the odds on me managing to bring foot and mouth disease on the bike tyres were almost zero, and was careful not to blast the oil and grease off the gears and chain.

A little disorientation and riding around in circles before I managed to find the St Malo Youth Hostel, I ended up almost heading out of town before I found a sign pointing back in towards where I wanted to go. My minimalist map was no help, so I covered the same roads about four times in different directions.

Where?

St Helier, St. Malo

  Odometer: 1119.5km
  Today: 42.03km
  Trip total: ??km

I woke up this morning and couldn't work out whether the clocks were right or not; I had no idea whether Jersey was in the same time zone as the UK or not!

I left the panniers in the B&B for the day and headed out on the bike. Riding into town after breakfast I was wobbling all over the place, its amazing how different the bike feels without the panniers on it, and how quickly you become accustomed to them. Chose to ride through the tunnel, twice, which I think was illegal, rather than go the long way around the point.

Yet another ferry ticket mystery. A one-way ticket to St. Malo is £28! I really can't understand these pricing structures.

The Zoo—Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

[www.durrell.org] I'm not sure what I was expecting here, I've been a fan of the late Gerald Durrell since I was about 12 and first read one of his books. For years I've wanted to visit, and now that I'm finally here its all a little disappointing. The animal enclosures were excellent, the animals healthy, but it wasn't easy to find your way around, the signs were all in a dozen different styles, frequently just photocopied sheets of paper. Without a guidebook it would be nearly impossible to find your way around.

Thinking that I was about to run out of film, and having left all my spare in the B&B, I bought a pack of three forty exposure films, then discovered that I was up to frame 24 of 40, not 24 of 25! As a result, I've now got enough film for 200 more shots! It'll probably last me an eternity, since I tend to take very few photos.

The frogs cage was one of my favourites, with a number of beautiful individuals on display. I spent most of the day following the free guided tour, our guide was incredibly enthusiastic and almost overcome with laughter when the free-range marmosets started climbing all over her to get to the food. Apparently this was the first day that both species — of marmoset, not marmosets and zoo keepers — had been together in this area.

Eventually I felt I'd seen enough and left the zoo to meander around in the sun along the lane-ways of the north coast, then sat on a small rocky beach, gazing at France, feeling content and finally on holiday. Feeling much happier now that I was out in the warm weather and out of the UK — hang on, Jersey is part of the UK, make that out of England — it just hadn't been feeling like a holiday for a while there.

There were many other cyclists out on the roads during the afternoon, all sorts of bikes and all sorts of people.

Came home and lay down for a nap for a while, then walked in St Helier to resolve my mounting money crisis. I've spent a scary amount today! Walked around the centre of town looking at menus but it was the bistro at the end of the local street that caught my eye, so when I got back I went in there and had a luxury meal, scallops in garlic sauce followed by a Seafood Tagliatelle. All excellently prepared, and in large quantities, as I waddled out the door, the plate-full that I left looked as though I had hardly touched it.

Which reminded me of some of the other menus I had seen across the south of England:

“Chorizo sausages in Sweet'n'sour sauce with pasta” — seems an interesting mix of nationalities.... or

“Menu Español” — containing lasagne, spaghetti bolognaise, and fish & chips!

Where?

St Heliers.

  Odometer: 1077.1km
  Today: 29.20km
  Trip total: ??km

Six weeks until I see Jo, and I've got a broken tooth. Feeling just a little depressed today, the grey English weather isn't helping. On re-checking the calendar I found that it's seven weeks, not six.

A lazy day, I rode the 12k or so through Studland and the coastal park to the ferry then paid my 80p to cross to Poole. The ferry prices are strange, I've paid anything from 80p to £3.50, and it would have cost £4.50 to cross Exmouth! The prices seem to depend on whether the ferry is oriented at tourism, or is a functional replacement for a bridge. Found that the 1:45pm ferry today doesn't go to Jersey, so I bought a ticket on the 4:15pm, paid my £51, then lazed around in Poole on the Quay, watching the boats in the harbour and the passers-by. Directly across from where I was sitting is the boat-builder for one of the multi-millionaire off-shore cruiser boat firms, there are some fantastic looking boats being built.

The ferry ride was a bit of an anti-climax, no reading material because I'd left it all in my bags, and nobody to talk to. One thing that caught my eye was a plaque with a map of Tasmania on the wall. The ferry is built in Tasmania, and seems to be more successful at crossing the English channel then they are at crossing Bass Strait.

A problem I found with leaving at 4pm was that I didn't arrive in Jersey until 8pm, after the tourist office had closed. With no idea of where to stay and it rapidly getting darker, I rode around and around looking for an affordable B&B and eventually found that £25 a night was all that was available — but only if I booked in for two nights!

A bite to eat and a walk along the foreshore, then I sat with a pint and listened to some Karaoke in a bar. Strangely, nearly everyone who tried could sing — one big guy called Andy had the most amazing deep voice. I left near closing time and nearly forgot which street was home, but found it after only one false start.

Where?

Swanage, Studland, Poole, St Helier.

  Odometer: 1039.7km
  Today: 89.45km
  Trip total: ??km

Worst part of the day — stopping to grab some fish and chips in Swanage from The Fish Plaice and breaking a tooth on a piece of grit in the second chip I ate. Staff in the shop couldn't care less, grabbed another chip out of the fryer, poked it with their fingers and declared “nuffin wrong with em”.

I'm staying in a B&B because the YHA is shut! There are no people, no signs, no messages on the answering machine, nothing. Just an empty building and a recording of “we can't answer the phone, please leave a message and we'll call you back,” which is of zero use if I don't have a number to be called back on! To make it more inconvenient, the YHA is most of the way up a hill, and the nearest phone-booth is down at the harbour, so I rode up and down a very steep road about three times. Eventually I gave up and checked into a B&B.

This morning I rode up around the Isle of Portland, there was a local cycle race around the roads on the top and they all laughed when I rode into the start with the panniers and asked if they were accepting late entries, and what was the handicap for 20kg of gear. Lots of motor-bikes around as well, all out for their Sunday ride. Stopped to look at the lighthouse, and was reminded of a conversation a few days ago with someone who said he was photographing every lighthouse he came to because his mother collected lighthouses... mostly just photos and models, I don't think she had a real one yet.

I didn't end up leaving Weymouth until 1pm, there was a parade of WWII vets and vehicles celebrating the Queen's birthday, people everywhere and traffic brought to a standstill. It felt like being on the set of Dad's Army! One of the last groups to drive past was a collection of motor-bikes and bicycles, with one of the bikes stalling on the start line and refusing to restart. When it eventually could be kicked into life, the crowd gave the rider and round of applause.

After sitting and watching the parade I made my way to the ferry terminal and found out that although the day return ticket to Jersey is £29, they want £51 for a one-way ticket! I could try for a day-return, but was told that if they suspect that I'm “miss-using it,” when I get to Jersey, I'll be charged double the day return, minus what I've spent already!

Left Weymouth along the A353, then followed the A352 to the delightfully named town “Wool,” just another of the towns I seem to find that have a single noun for a name. Turned off at Wool down the B3071, then down a lane through Coombe Keynes, Shaggs and on to East Lulworth.

The ride out through the Dorset countryside from there was through an army firing range! It took me some time to convince myself that I'd taken the right turn, and I retraced my steps back to East Lulworth a couple of times before I was sure. Very strange to see burnt out tanks sitting in the fields besides the roads.

Corfe Castle looked very impressive, towering ruins poking up out of the trees. I ran into a large group of motor-cyclists out for a Sunday run there, some of them were the same group I'd met in Portland this morning. From there it was back onto the A351 for a busy rode down into Swanage.

Once in Swanage, it was up and down the hill trying to get into the Youth Hostel before eventually settling on a B&B, some of these places must seriously believe that Faulty Towers is a training video.

Where?

Portland, Weymouth, Wool, Coombe Keynes, Shagg, East Lulworth Swanage.

  Odometer: 950.2km
  Today: 145.31km
  Trip total: ??km

The hostel last night was far less crowded, our eight-bed room only held me and the two Swedish girls, and neither of them snored. Woke up to yet more drizzle though, a theme that continued through the day.

I dodged the rain; I got caught in the rain. I made it to Starcross just on 10:15, and since the ferry runs on the hour, I either had a forty five minute wait or I could ride up to Exeter and back along the other side of the river. Since the only way to get from the main road to the passenger ferry was on a footbridge up and over the railway lines, and I did not feel like lugging the bike up and down them, I took the long option and rode to Exeter instead.

From Exeter I stuck to the A3052, not a very scenic ride, but since I'd already added more distance than I wanted, I didn't feel like going around the coast in the rain.

Coming down a 16% hill towards Seaton my rear tyre decided to make life more exciting as the tyre split and the tube blew out. Luckily I wasn't going too fast, so there was only a small scrape of the rim against the road before I managed to stop and walk the rest of the way down the hill. I walked about a mile into Seaton and asked a passerby about bike shops, he directed me back out of Seaton towards Ladyton, about 2½ miles, a long walk along the lanes, he also warned me that the shop closed from noon until 2:30 on a Saturday so the owner could have his lunch. It was with some misgivings that I made the walk, thinking that my chances of finding a bike shop here were minimal, and trying to work out the best way of locking the bike up and catching a bus to Lyme Regis, which I thought would be the closest large town, and most likely to have a bike shop.

Amazingly enough, the shop did exist, and it seemed enormous for the tiny village. It also seemed to be as old as most of the village, containing stock from decades ago. After returning from his leisurely lunch, the staff opened up and found me their last 26" slick tyre, a Tioga Cityslicker that they sold to me for £10.

Shortly after leaving Ladyton I was drenched by a thunderstorm, but was too hot to put on my spray jacket, so I just rode along, steaming gently.

I finally got to Weymouth around 6:15pm, and with much misgivings turned towards Portland and over the causeway. Trusting to luck to find the YHA, the first corner I came to had a large sign pointing straight to it! Brand new, still smelling of paint, the hostel is an ex-Ministry of Defence Police house on the naval base. Its newness explains the omission from the phone listing.

Life took a turn for the better with a comfortable room for the night and a warm shower, I'm sharing a room with a German guy from Oxford who is riding from Oxford to Exeter this weekend via Salisbury and Portland. Rounded off the evening with an excellent meal at the Cove House Inn, and sat and drank and talked with Tony and Tricia, a couple from Mansfield in Nottingham.

Where?

Torquay, Starcross, Exeter, Seaton, Ladyton, Weymouth, Portland

  Odometer: ??km
  Today: 0km
  Trip total: ??km

Drizzle in the morning, fine in the afternoon, then pouring with rain in the evening. Not the best day to spend wandering around through the shops, although I did manage to go for a walk up along the beach path quite a way. Visited Torre Abbey, but I didn't feel like paying the £3 entry fee, so I just walked around the outside and looked in.

Money just seemed to be disappearing today, nothing to do but fritter it away on things to eat and things to drink.

Where?

Torquay.

  Odometer: 804.0km
  Today: 67.02km
  Trip total: ??km

A grey day, a grey mood, a cold south-easterly head wind and about 10km extra due to my inability to read road signs. Somewhere along the way I detoured off the A370 and ended up at Underwood, then had to retrace my steps as I was determined to not ride on the A38.

Felt rotten all morning, that the riding was just a chore to be finished. The A379 to Brixton, detour to Underwood and back, then A379 to A3121 to Ugborogough, turning off onto laneways to Totnes, then the A385 to Paignton, and around the bay to Torquay.

One bizarre event was stopping at a petrol station on the A379 for a mars bar and a drink. I could swear that I went through the same conversation with the same lady as I did three years ago when I last rode through here.

I managed to get to the hostel in Torquay at around 1pm, just ahead of the rain, then sat around drinking coffee and chatting with the other residents and restoring my good humour.

Later on, around 4pm, went out to a nearby pub that had a PC with free internet access for as long as you had a beer nearby. I managed to somehow dispose of the more than 7000 emails that had banked up in my in-box! Some well-meaning person back at Monash has put in a vacation message for me and thus stuffed up half my mailing list subscriptions and automatic mailings. I did manage to send a second message to Jo, as well as catch up with Andy at Wide Open Road, and turn off all the cron messages from Monash, so it wasn't a waste of time.

Spent most of the rest of the afternoon unwinding from too many days riding with too few breaks. Had a few pints, then a dinner and back to the hostel, before going back out to the pub with everyone from the hostel. It was good to be out with people for a change. The local surf band were nothing special, too loud for the venue, but full of enthusiasm. A fine cover of the Buzzcocks' “Ever Fallen in Love” seemed to suit the singers voice perfectly.

Off to a club afterwards, but I was starting to fade at this point, a glass of water and all I wanted was to go to sleep, so I left — then managed to get lost on the way home and covered twice as much of Torquay as was necessary.

Where?

Plymouth, Brixton, Underwood, Ugborogough, Totnes, Paignton Torquay.

  Odometer: 736.9km
  Today: 112.24km
  Trip total: ??km

A few minor misreadings of the map and my estimated 80km trip turned into 112km!

Three ferry crossing during the day; three very different styles of ferry. There was a very touristy pedestrian one from Falmouth to St. Mawes, at Fowey a creaking little car ferry drawn along on chains, then another pedestrian ferry right at the end of the day into Plymouth.

Lunch at St. Austell, a place I thought was a bit of a dump. Dingy concrete shopping malls straight out of the 80's, unemployed and single mums just hanging around hopelessly everywhere. The bakery staff warned me to a keep a close eye on my bike and all my stuff if I wanted to keep it.

I did manage to find another of the cross-country bike routes though, “NCN3” I think it is, but without any maps of these and of where they go, I don't find them particularly useful! Before coming away on this tour I had tried emailing the CTC, Britain's cycling group, as they seem to have a large amount of information on touring. Unfortunately they seem to only make this available to their members, I couldn't download any of the useful material from their web-site, and they never responded to the email enquiries. A shame really, as I've been assured that they are very helpful normally!

Met an older couple who are doing the end-to-end ride. I saw them yesterday near Penzance, and we're all staying at the Plymouth Backpackers. The backpackers was still as I remembered it from 1998, more importantly, it was still where I remembered it from 1998, since the street signs didn't seem to help in finding it.

Where?

Falmouth, St. Mawes, Fowey, St. Austell, Plymouth.

  Odometer: 624.5km
  Today: 77.51km
  Trip total: ??km

No breakfast at the backpackers so I cruised out at 8:30 and rode down to Lands End. It's the sort of place that everyone knows is tacky, but everyone visits all the same. At nine in the morning before it all opens up everything looks even sadder and more depressing than normal. It was dead still, no wind, no people, just flat sea and gulls calling.

I sat at the famous sign post and wrote a postcard to Jo, taking my own photo before the stalls opened up and I was forced to pay the £5 charge for a photo! I love the sound of the gulls here, it just seems to suit the place.

Breakfast wasn't until Penzance at about 22km, I was more than a little hungry by then! I nearly laughed out loud at the menu when I saw the English Vegetarian breakfast — fried eggs, fried bread, beans, everything else fried in butter and bacon fat. The only difference from the regular breakfast is the absence of bacon and sausage. I had the traditional breakfast, which was ok, but foolishly asked for a caffe latte, which was shocking. I should stick with straight espresso or filter coffee here — these strange foreigners just don't seem to know how to drive their milk frothers.

The tendons in my right knee were very sore this morning, but raising my seat a fraction seems to be helping and it got gradually better during the day. I think a few things have come loose in the days on the bike.

Falmouth is a nice place after the tourist towns, just a plain ordinary sea port town. I'm staying at a B&B though, since the hostel in the guidebook has apparently been closed for a couple of years! The ever-so-helpful local Tourist Information Centre staff tried to direct my to the nearest backpackers — “just a little bit up the road” — in Newquay, where I stayed two nights ago!!!

Later in the afternoon I sat on the beach eating apple pie and cream while waiting to get to the B&B, then had a wonderful hot shower once I was inside. The only drawback is that Norky bike has to live outside chained to an old ladder.

These £15-20 B&Bs are pretty worthwhile when I consider that most hostels are around £10, with breakfast typically another £3-£5. A very different clientele that they're aiming at though, a few times I've had the B&B operators look down their noses at a single person on a bicycle.

Spent the evening sitting in a pub having a pint and then another pint... Sitting and watching the bay and the old video clips from the early eighties on the juke box. The Jam came on and brought a smile to my face. Then an old Carly Simon clip of “You're So Vain” from years ago. The Jam ended and a song started that I knew I should remember but I just couldn't place it. Finally it twigged, “Teenage Kicks,” the Undertones, another strange musical coincidence that seems to haunt my visits to the UK.

Where?

Sennen, Lands End, Penzance, Falmouth.

  Odometer: 547.0km
  Today: 94.66km
  Trip total: ??km

Jo's email yesterday and my thoughts of her were heavy on my mind all day, a melancholy day, and it's only one week into the nine so far.

Right now its 7pm, the sun is miles up above the horizon out over the Atlantic. I'm sitting on the headland up above Sennen Bay. It is incredibly peaceful here, the only sound is the waves on the shore, the sea is quite flat. (Seems that everywhere I go, the sea is flat!)

All the other travellers I meet all seem so young. I'm missing Jo already. This nine week trip seemed good in theory, I hope it works out well in practice!

Back to more prosaic matters, St. Ives was an interesting place to visit, but I think I'd prefer to do it on foot if I came here again! Steep narrow roads, all marked one way only, and tourist busses everywhere, grinding their way up and down from the harbour. I managed to take a wrong turn while trying to get out of town and ended up back at the harbour, on my second attempt I followed a local bus, even with the panniers I managed to follow it far enough to get me back to the country roads.

Somewhere along the way I've managed to hurt my right knee, possibly from struggling up some of the hills, but I think my cleat has slipped a little as well. The constant hammering on the handlebars has also left me with a blood blister on my left hand.

I had been intending to stay at the Lands End YHA at St. Just, but when I got there I found that they were closed. No real reason, just a note pinned on the door saying “shut for two days”, just another case of British tourism at work I guess.

Dinner was excellent. I sat in the Sennen pub and had a home-made fish cake with chips and salad and the best garlic and herb bread that I've eaten for months. The fish cake was enormous!

Where?

Newquay, St. Ives, St. Just, Sennen.

  Odometer: 451.9km
  Today: 64.97km
  Trip total: ??km

Woke at 5:30 as usual, but managed to sleep for another two hours with my mask on and ear-plugs in. When I finally did get up it was to see a gray dismal sky and listen to the howling of the wind.

At breakfast an old man celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary observed, “In my day, you was a sissy if you 'ad gears.” Despite the accusing tone, he was quite interested in where I was going and where I'd been, and did temper his initial comment by pointing out that he “'adn't carried arf as much kit” as I was.

Finally saw another bike tourer as I rode through Tintagel, a girl heading north with bigger panniers and twice as much to carry as I. I called out hello but she either didn't notice or didn't respond. Tintagel looked a bit too touristy for my tastes, too many plastic king arthurs and merlins, so I didn't stop to look around.

One of several strangely named towns for the trip was “Rock”. These single-noun towns seemed unusual, I guess I was expecting them to be prefixed by “The Rock” or “Fred's Rock” or “Big Rock”. “Rock” and “Beer” just seemed too short.

Showing that the residents have a decent sense of humour, I sat around in the local “Soft Rock café” for morning tea, then spent half an hour in the shop next door chatting to the guy who runs it. He normally lives in Grenoble in the Alps, and was full of advice on places to visit and roads to ride. Unfortunately most of these were rattled off at such a pace that I couldn't remember more than one in ten. He was also surprised that I'd chosen to go touring with SID forks on the bike, I think brave was the politest way he could find to express himself.

After wheeling my bike across the sand and hoisting it into the boat, I caught the foot ferry across to Padstow, then it was pleasant riding the rest of the way to Newquay. Like most of the coast, the road swoops up and down from sea level to moors, and on one my chain decided to come off just as I started to climb.

Newquay is crass and touristy, full of surf culture and pinball parlours. Out-of-place looking Australian surf memorabilia and shops. The strange thing is that for such a tourist-oriented town, the Tourist Information Centre is shut on a Sunday! According to the sign on their door, they're only open half of Saturday too. True British tourism at work.

After negotiating a maze of one-way streets I found the backpackers and left my bike in “the Boardroom” — a room full of surfboards and wetsuits.

The ATMs decided that I wasn't going to get any money, so I thought that £11 was going to have to last me til morning, but after lunch the VISA machine decided to work and let me have some. Checking my bank balances on the Internet I found that I've already maxed out my Mastercard! I tried to check my email, but one of the automatic processes back at work has gone badly awry and there are 2900 email log messages in my in-box. Attempting to sort through these over a dodgy connection with a PC that keeps substituting ding-bats for the fonts is well nigh impossible. I found one email from Jo from last Thursday, managed to rattle off a quick reply, disconnected and was charged £5.20 for the whole unsavoury ordeal!

For entertainment in the evening I headed out to an Aussie theme pub for a beer, laughed at the tackiness of it all, street signs from Melbourne and Sydney, the front half of a Holden Commodore hanging over the bar, stuffed crocodiles everywhere. A tiny portion of expensive fish and chips and a couple of beers, most of the entertainment was in the 20ish crowd, dressed in American/Australian surf gear, but talking in west-country accents.

Where?

Boscastle, Tintagel, Rock, Padstow Newquay.

  Odometer: 386.8km
  Today: 125km
  Trip total: ??km

I discovered today that my panniers are falling apart! The right one has lost one of the bolts that holds a hook on, and the left one has come half-undone. The threads on the left hand side are stripped and the aluminium bar is bent where the hole weakens it. Will they last seven more weeks?

I got lost in Barnstaple in the Saturday morning market crowds, then it took ages to get out of town onto the Tarka Trail, and as soon as I found the trail I punctured the rear! Wheel off, tyre off, tube out, patched, back together, back on the bike, all before finding out that it was a snake-bite and I had the other hole still to fix. Consequently, not in the best of moods as I rode out of town.

About 65km into the day the tyre went soft so I was pumping it up every 10km, preferring to change it when I got to town rather than out on the road. On top of that, I didn't eat enough and bonked out at Holsworthy. The Holsworthy bakery performed life-saving service with a cup of tea, an apple donut and a slice of tea cake, and I was in much better spirits from then on.

The last 30km seemed interminable, dragging on and on up and down the hills. I finally got in to Boscastle at 5:30 and it more than made up for it. The town is magic, a little world heritage village nestled in the bay, the sort of place that made me think of parking the bike and just moving in for a year, to live here through the winter as well as the summer tourist time. The YHA is right on the harbour in a converted old warehouse, there are photos of waves coming over the wharf and hitting 4’ up the walls, washing two foot deep around the door!

Changing inner tubes I found that the spare has a slightly shorter valve stem and is barely long enough to fit through the crappy rim. Pumping it up was a trial of patience, as it has to be completely flat to let the pump grip the valve, but if it slides off before its fully inflated, I have to let it all back down again!

Where?

Lynton, Barnstaple, Holsworthy Boscastle.

  Odometer: 261.7km
  Today: 115.4km
  Trip total: ??km

A long ride, with some amazing hills. I discovered that gradients of 1:4 are scary downhill, and nearly impossible to ride uphill.

Leaving Glastonbury I got a little bit lost, heading north-west instead of west I'd turned off the A39 somewhere near Northove, desperate to get off the A road, and added a few more miles onto the route. Part of the problem was getting breakfast. Nothing seemed to open in Glastonbury before noon, I managed to find a bakery and a couple of buns, but all the shops and cafés seem to be for the tourist crowd and don't open until noon. Eventually I found myself back on the B31351, so continued along it to a turn off that headed back south, crossed the A39 near Ashcott, then headed west along the back-lanes.

Bridgwater was a bit of a nightmare to navigate, it was market day and the place was packed. I finally managed to get out and onto the A39, not that it was pleasant. A nasty shock being on an A road; not much wider than the lanes, but a lot more traffic. Once I turned off back into the lanes I quickly needed the granny gear, but the chain still kept jamming. Judicious applications of lube and swear words seemed to make it better, which is good, since the climb up through the Qantock Hills would have been impossible otherwise. Very steep descents into Stogumber, then I got lost somewhere at an unsigned corner and had to backtrack. At Washford I rejoined the A39 and A-road traffic to Minehead, then sat in the sun in the town square and ate a sticky bun, glad to be out of the wind.

From Minehead the only option is along the A39, until I reached Porlock, where cyclists are allowed to use the private toll road. It's a 6km climb up through the woods, spinning along in granny gear at about 10km/hr with magnificent views out to sea. The toll-keeper at the top just waived me through, I think the 50p bicycle toll is reserved for people who drive their bikes out here on the roof of their Range-rovers and ride up from the village.

Then it was back onto the A39, rolling ups and downs across the wind-swept moors. I found a mobile phone sitting at the side of the road, it made me laugh that in the supposed desolation of the moors people could lose their mobile phones.

The hills down to Lynmouth are amazing, 1:4 gradient, holding the brakes hard on most of the way down. Then when I got down to the town I found it was exactly the same going back out! With the short wheelbase and weight of the panniers I found it completely unridable, the bike was wheel-standing and threatening to flip right over, so I ended up walking most of the way up to Lynbridge.

After lying on a bench in the garden and waiting until they opened, I checked into the hostel and had a much-needed hot shower.

Changed into clean clothes and walked down to Lynton on very rubbery legs, most of the village was shut, but I did get to ride on the vertical railway down to Lynmouth. Its a marvellous piece of Victorian engineering, water from the river fills a tank under the railway cart at the top, then the weight forces this car down while a chain pulls the other car up to the top. The drivers regulate the amount of water in the tanks to cater for the weight of passengers, and its been running like this for the last hundred years.

A filling pub meal of baked potato and salad, thankfully with none of the evil salad cream that the pubs seem so fond of, a quick pint and I was home and in bed, exhausted, by 9:30pm.

Where?

Glastonbury, Northove, Ashcott, Bridgwater, Stogumber, Washford, Minehead, Porlock Lynmouth, Lynton.

  Odometer: 146.2km
  Today: 62.41km
  Trip total: ??km

Sitting in a pub in Glastonbury, the second of two pubs this evening, having a beer and watching the sun go down. The distance today was a little less, I didn't feel so pushed for time.

Got in around 3pm in plenty of time for a shower and a wander around town. I caught the bus out to the Tor and walked up to the top — then nearly got blown off by the icy wind. Glastonbury Tor seems to be the only thing that sticks up from this part of the country, and collects the wind straight off the north Atlantic.

Glastonbury is packed with new-agers, feral people of every description, hippies, beggars etc. All the standard “alternative” crafts you can find, all looking the same the world over. It could be Daylesford, it could be Byron Bay....

Riding along today I passed through some tiny lanes; one car wide and very dark, with the hedges meeting overhead. I learnt not to ride too close to the soft, verdant, green walls after brushing one too many protruding nettles and blackberries! Saw a dead badger on the road, and lots of foot and mouth warning signs, “Stay off this farm to prevent the spread...” A killer climb up out of one village and I discovered that my granny gear won't work properly. Worn ring or bad tension, I later discovered that the shop in Devizes hadn't re-adjusted my derailleur to cope with the different wheel.

Highlight of the riding would have had to be the lane down through the Cheddar Gorge. From the top it's a narrow country lane-way, a spectacular descent, 16.5% slope complete with a sign warning cyclists to dismount and walk. The temperature dropped between the limestone walls and I shivered as I chased a flock of wild goats down the pass.

Once the sun set, the alternative people came out in force. Some to the pubs, the poorer to just sit in the square, drink and smoke. What would have had to have been the world's worst busker set himself up directly below the hostel window with a drum kit and a ghetto blaster playing Hendrix. Ten or fifteen minutes of appalling noise and my room mate offering to drop a plant pot on his head, eventually the manager went outside and convinced him to turn it down.

Where?

Bristol, Cheddar Gorge, Glastonbury.

  Odometer: 79.9km
  Today: 79.72km
  Trip total: 79.9km

I must write this down while I remember it, sitting here in a pub in Bristol. Somewhere along the canal in the past two days I came to a little bridge, a narrow boat had stopped and a lady was carrying a bag of rubbish across to the bin. A stereotypical west-country old codger was sitting on a bench nearby, just watching the canal and the world go by. He looked at the lady and said “'eee, you be watchin' for trolls.” The lady didn't seem to understand, he looked at me, “eer, you know about trolls...” “Sure,” I said, “they live under bridges — little ugly fellers.” Old guy nods and replies “eee, 's right, I had some under me sofa once,” then goes back to watching the canal. The lady gave a quick “Harrumph!” and walked quickly back to her boat, and I rode off down the canal. Just a wonderful character at peace with the world, its a whole different world along the canals and towpaths away from the traffic and roads.

Back to today. There was an hour of fiddling about in Devizes after riding back up past Caen locks, phone cards and stamps and stuff, then back down the hill past the locks and finally on my way along the canal towards Bath.

Quiet and empty along the canal until Bath, then it was bizarre. Until then I'd only seen pensioners and mums with babies, all of a sudden I was in the middle of Bath and surrounded by hundreds of people of all ages. Tourists, shoppers, everyone.

Swapped the canal for a rail trail and rode the rest of the way into Bristol, a major problem being the “anti-car” barricades on the path. The only way to fit the bike through them was to stop, get off, and flip it up onto the rear wheel to walk it through, scraping the panniers on the poles or walls.

A strange feeling to be back in a big town. Bristol is not as touristy as Bath, but bigger. I walked around a fair bit in the afternoon and evening, getting a general feel for the place and making my way up to the famous suspension bridge over the gorge. Unfortunately all the postcard photos seem to be taken from aircraft or balloons, from ground level it was very hard to get a picture that wasn't all sky, or included street lights and wires. Traffic was as bad as most large English towns and I was glad to be getting about on foot, not stuck in a car crawling along.

Where?

Devizes, Bath, Bristol.

  Trip total: ??km

The sun comes up at 4:30am! Jet lag kicks in and I'm wide awake. Lie around until 7am dozing and listening to the birds — and trying to stretch my neck and shoulders. Ouch!

Pore over the maps and changing my mind — my original plans were to go further north, I think I'll explore Cornwall!

It was an expensive day, and an over-ambitious one. The hill out of Streatly was a killer, I had to stop three times going up, and nearly couldn't start again. Then an easy ride over the tops to Newbury, absorbed in my own thoughts. Somewhere in Newbury I went down a kerb on a bike path — not a good thing to do with panniers on, unfortunately I was too busy trying to read road signs to spot that the path went down the kerb.

Following the advice of the tourist information centre I rode along the canal tow-path along the Kennet canal. Idyllic scenery, and not a human sound to be heard. The tow-path varied from gravel track to single track to great expanses of rough-mown grass. The latter was arduous, and very slow going.

Somewhere between Pawsley and Devizes I got a puncture, stopped and realised that the slight buckle in the rear wheel was much worse and that a spoke had ripped through the rim, probably on that kerb in Streatly.

Fixed the flat and crawled into Devizes, the Tourist Info. office set me up at a £25 B&B. Very nice place, bottom end for a B&B, but up at the high end of what I was intending to pay! Pub rooms seem to start at £50 and are all up-market. I'm a mile or two out of town at the bottom of the famous 29 Caen locks.

£37.50 got me the only eight-speed wheel available in the bike shop, a very robust looking deep-dish rim, designed to appeal to the off-road cool crowd. £9.95 for a replacement computer, and so for a touch under £50 I have a working bike again.

Walked from the B&B to town for dinner at the Black Horse, a pub on the canal, then back down Caen hill to get home. Too much walking!

Where?

Goring, Streatly, Newbury, Pawsley, Devizes.

  Trip total: ??km

Day the first, long and arduous. Out of Heathrow and found that the airline had ripped off the speedo cables — finally, after years of the cables looking “nearly ready to rip off”. Then I managed to twist the valve while trying to pump up the rear tyre and flattened it — always the rear. After removing wheel and tyre I repaired it and finally got on my way. Straight out into 8am A-road London traffic. I also discovered to my dismay that the notes I had on how to exit Heathrow by bike all referred to people arriving in the other terminal!

I escaped London easily enough. A few hints from an old man standing at a roundabout had me headed the right way towards, but not onto, the A30.

Stanwell, Ashford, Staynes, Wraysbury, Datchet. A pause for a beer in Datchet, the all important first beer of the trip. Datchet to Windsor — then around Windsor a dozen times. Gray and overcast I was lost immediately, then popped out at the castle; sat and watched the tourists for a bit, then out onto the B3024 to Reading. Leafy and green, very green, and not much traffic. Not much elbow room on the road either. I got to Reading to find that the YHA I thought was in Reading is 8 miles up the river at Goring, so by 3pm when I got here I was tired, a little stressed, and still wearing some of the clothes from Sunday as there hadn't seemed to be the time or place to change them at the airport.

The hostel is a big old house, sitting quietly on its lawn. Most of Goring seems to be doing that as well—just sitting quietly.

I've got aircraft hair and aircraft neck — will probably feel terrible tomorrow.

The girl with the bike on the flight yesterday had returned to Aus. for a few weeks to see family before returning to the UK to continue her “big trip.” She was taking her bike because she missed it, and the rental ones she'd tried are terrible.

Where?

Heathrow, Stanwell, Ashford, Staynes, Wraysbury, Datchet, Windsor, Reading, Goring.

I woke up this morning feeling that my trip wasn't really happening — I just haven't prepared anywhere near as much as I should have!

It was noon before we went out looking for a box to put my bike in. The first three shops were shut, finally Lawrencia Cycles in Glennferrie road came through — with the only box on their floor! Absolute dismay at the size of the box, but after dropping the seat, removing wheels and pedals, and spinning the bars around it all went in. A good thing too, just in front of me at the check-in counter there was a girl with an unparceled bike, she was just about reduced to tears by the flat refusal of the British Airways staff to take the bike. Her and her brother disappeared to look for a box, while I prayed that I wasn't going to end up at the same counter.

British Airways have been great, its a new aircraft, everything is clean, the food was excellent, all the babies are quiet, life is good.

The seat-back video screens are a bit of a problem for me though; when the old lady in front reclines her seat, the screen gets so close I can't focus on it! Maybe I'm getting too old and long sighted...

I sat and watched Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland in Space Cowboys, fun, but very corny, and then the oh-so-British Noel Coward in a 1950's war movie, something about destroyers, but I can't remember it's name.

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  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.8km

Two months, three countries, 3442.8 kilometres, but it has come to an end.

Where?

Reading

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

John cooked us a big fry-up breakfast before we headed off to Warwick to catch up with Amy. We got there around noon, but she still hadn't got home from her party in Oxford the night before. Such is the life of a first-year university student. She was stuck at the station waiting for a friend and eventually turned up around 2:30, then the seven of us went out for a late lunch at a pub in a nearby village, three pretty 19 year-old girls, Toby, John, Lynn and myself.

Afterwards, Bev and Heidi gave Toby and myself a lift into Oxford to catch the train, Heidi back to Southampton, Toby and I to Reading.

I tried to call Jo from the station but she'd gone out, I was thinking of heading in to London to visit if she'd been in. Turns out a good thing I hadn't suggested it because just after we got on the train there was an enormous bang, all the lights went out, and everyone ended up lying on the floor. Another train had run into the back of ours as we sat at the station platform!

We stood on the train for about 45 minutes, occasionally hearing messages stating “There has been a delay, thank you for your cooperation.” Nobody knew anything, no one had any idea of what was going on. Some ambulance officers came and treated a few concussions and other injuries, but no one asked if people were OK or anyone was hurt, I guess you were meant to grab them if you needed them.

All the while, more and more people were turning up for other trains and asking whether ours was for Reading, or London, or Bristol...

Eventually there was an announcement that a three carriage train would leave for Reading from Platform 2, on the other side of the tracks, so everyone trooped over the bridge and crowded as close to the platform edge as possible. Since only a quarter of us would fit, everyone wanted to be the ones to get onto the train. I was convinced that someone would end up falling onto the tracks.

An amazing number of people crammed on board and we spent the half hour trip to Reading standing up like sardines. In order to leave the station we had to back up and cross over onto another track, giving us all a good view of the two crashed trains, still stuck together.

Toby and I finally got to Reading at about 9:00PM and went straight to the pub for a much-needed pint, and talked about a whole range of things. It was while sitting there that I realised how sore my left shoulder was from where it had bashed into the train, and that three fingers of my left hand were half numb with pins and needles for about an hour, in addition to sore muscles all down my neck from whacking my head into the carriage wall!

Finally got home just before 11PM and fell straight into bed, quite an event-filled day!

Where?

Bramham, Warwick, Oxford, Reading.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Where?

Bramham.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

A strange coincidence — yesterday afternoon as I was walking through Leeds I passed a shop called “Teenage Kicks” and started singing the song of the same name.... This morning Lyn left the TV on at breakfast and there was a brief interview with Fergal Sharkey, ex singer of The Undertones and now on the Radio Licensing board.

They opened the interview with a twenty year-old video clip of the Undertones playing their most famous song — “Teenage Kicks”.

Where?

Bramham, Leeds.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Where?

Matlock. Hope, Sheffield, Leeds, Bramham.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Where?

Matlock.

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Slept most of the way to Derby in the bus, being exhausted from staying awake reading until 2am, and from all the running around with bus stupidities. It was noticably cooler at Derby than down south, my breath fogging, everyone wearing thick jackets. I asked someone for directions to the train station and they were of the “up there, keep left, right at the pub... you can't miss it” variety — I thought I didn't have a chance, but luckily quite quickly ran into signs pointing the right way. By now it was five to nine, there was a train waiting to go to Matlock. Phew! Lucky, since the next (and final) train wasn't for another two hours at eleven p.m. or so!

Finally I arrive at Matlock at around 21:30 and Gina came and picked me up from the station, she had my cousin Ben with her, and in the four years since I last saw him he looks as though he's doubled in height and stayed the same weight — seems quite human now! We decided to drop in on Kay — Ben's older sister — and surprise here, and wow, what a surprise! She didn't recognize me at first and then completely freeked out and ran around like crazy!

Ended up back at Gina and Simon's house talking till long after midnight. Unrolled my sleeping bag — finally — and slept on the floor since both bedrooms are full.

Where?

Reading, Matlock

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Where?

Reading

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3442.6km

Where?

Reading

  Today: 91.42km
  Trip: 3442.6km
  Avg: 21.6km/hr
  Riding: ??

Where?

Salisbury Reading

  Today: 150.53km
  Trip: 3348.3km
  Avg: 23.3km/hr
  Riding: ??

Cold and damp.

Where?

Exeter Salisbury

  Today: 85.93km
  Trip: 3137.4km
  Avg: km/hr
  Riding: ??

Where?

Plymouth Exeter

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3103.5km

Where?

Plymouth

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3103.5km

Where?

Santander

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 3103.5km

Where?

Santander

    Today: 0km
    Trip: 2865.0km
    Avg: 0km/hr
    Riding: 0

Where?

Bilbao

Make k's while the sun shines...

    Today: 168.2km
    Trip: 1185.9km

It was a very long day, not really tiring, just so many things happened!

The sun was out when I left at 9, but it was only about 10°C or less, I was glad I'd put on my warm jersey for the first time. I grabbed some pastries from a café and headed out of town.

Feeling pretty good, I initially thought I'd see about riding all the way to Cordoba — guessing that it might be around 140-150km. The first road sign I saw was a very large, and very clear “Cordoba 198km.” There goes that idea!

The first two hours were into a cold headwind, almost straight south across the plain. Rather than go into Puertollano I tried to follow the detours around the town — labelled as a truck route. Somehow I ended up circling the town and accidently came back in from the south. Bought some water while I was there and thought about stopping for lunch, but it was still early so I headed on out through coal stockpiles, rail yards and a power station.

The next 40km were some of the most desolate country I've ever been through — treeless, bone dry paddocks with a few sheep, and the sight of mountain ranges in the distance. I climbed the first pass past Brazatortas (circa. 850m) and the view back to the north was impressive. I was going to have lunch at the top, then decided to roll on down to the flat... Once down on the plain again there was nothing until the next ridge, so on I went.

I finally stopped at the bottom of Puerto de Niefla for lunch, and had one of those thoroughly satisfying outdoors meals of bread and sardines and chorizo, washed down with cold, fresh water, then got back on the bike for the ride on up the ridge — 950m this time.

Once over the top I was in the mountains, the riding wasn't too bad and the scenery was a vast improvement, mostly pine forests reaching right up to the road. I eventually came to a campground at about the 100km point, but since I didn't really have much food with me, I decided to continue on for a while and see if I could find a town...

Azuel was too far off the road, Cardeña didn't seem to have any hotels, so onwards I headed for Montoro. Due to roadworks I took the scenic route (C-510) rather than the “main” road (A-420). A brilliant decision that was, I could almost touch the trees on either side of the road, there were no cars for at least an hour, and then when the valley finally opened out I could see for miles. Along the way I kept seeing deer in the forests and at the side of the road.

Montoro is very picturesque, on a hill above the river, and I think there must have been a bike race through here recently. Huge slogans painted and chalked on the road gradually crept into my subconscious as I recognised the names and teams — I guess it must have been the Vuelta... Somewhere along the way a pannier bolt disappeared too. Two young boys brought smiles to my face when they ran alongside me up through the streets calling out “Miguel, Miguel....”

I toured around and around the very hilly streets of Montoro, didn't find a hotel or any accommodation, but did discover that their week long festival starts today! I headed on out of town towards the main highway, and found a Hostal at the junction. Showered and changed, then headed back into town to experience the fiesta...

I need not have hurried, after a few beers I found myself wandering around at about 10pm, since nothing starts until midnight! I walked up what I thought was the driveway of a derelict hotel — it appears to be nearly new, but empty and completely overgrown. The view was great, down over the town and river under the light of the full moon, but then some torches came on up on the balcony and made the adrenalin jump! I didn't really want to meet any angry Spanish security guards — my chances of successfully talking my way out of trespassing being nearly zero — so I tried to sneak out through the gardens. Heading up the hill I ran into a row of fences and set off some mean sounding dogs, so this way wasn't working. Then down through overgrown shrubs I finally found myself at the top of a 6m wall, concreted for most of its height, and and one that dropped straight down onto the road! Not only that, but I was stuck in a blackberry thicket. Extricating myself I finally managed to back-track and then walked quietly and briskly out through the main hotel driveway!

After all that excitement it was nearly midnight, I made it back to the town centre and listened to the music for a while, then back to the main part of the fair for a few drinks and some dancing. A couple of girls came and danced with me, then tried unsuccessfully to bridge the language gap. One spoke a little English and had a boyfriend, her cousin didn't speak any English and wanted to dance with me... We smiled, we danced, we toasted and drank each other's health, but the lack of communications got the better of us and they laughed and left.

A few more beers and a long walk back to the hotel. It was 2am, all the doors were locked, and I only managed to get in because a cleaner was leaving and saw me in the carpark! What a day...

Where?

Ciudad Real Montoro

    Today: 122.7km
    Trip: 1017.7km

Where?

Toledo Ciudad Real

  Today: 100.3km
  Trip: 112.9km

This morning I rode slowly down through Lisbon, motorists who'll happily double park and block the trams or go through red lights without batting an eye just lean on the horn if one cyclist slows them down. I'm convinced that I'm the only cyclist in Lisbon anyway...

I made it to the Plaça without too much of a problem and sat down to get my bearings and for some much needed breathing space. It was getting warmer, with a clear, cloudless sky — unlike yesterday. I say for a while watching the baby trams whirr past before heading on down the river towards Belém.

Belém was a nice place to visit — as soon as I got out of Lisbon proper, things improved immensely. However, it was mentally up and down all day long.

The coast between Estoril and Cascais was a mass of tourist developments. Just miles of concrete hotels — very ugly. At the opposite end of the scale from ugly was the girl who appeared from nowhere and cycled past me towards Belém. A quick shouted “Ola” and she was gone, although a few hours later I saw her again, heading back the other way.

Somewhere near Estoril my front derailleur cable half snapped, around a third of the strands parted suddenly, leaving me feeling foolish for not packing a spare cable. The Estoril tourismo directed me to a bike shop near Cascais, but no matter how much I tried I couldn't locate it after three passes through the town. Then the Cascais Tourismo directed me to another shop, but I couldn't find that one either. To maintain my flagging spirits I stopped for a late lunch at a café then managed to bite on a fish bone and jam it irretrievably between my teeth.

I'd given up on the bike shops and was all ready to cross my fingers and leave the chain on the middle ring when a guy rode past in the forests and without thinking, I asked him in English if he knew of the bike shops. Not only could he understand, but he led me to a shop that a friend of his operated out of the garage at the side of his house! When I arrived, Vasquez just looked at me and rattled off, “parlez vous Francais? Speak English? Habla Español?” all in the one breath — leaving me feeling linguistically stupid, a feeling I was to become used to!

Vasquez not only fixed my damaged derailleur cable, he started fiddling and wouldn't let me leave until he'd adjusted spokes, tightened cables, tuned the brakes and so on. On top of that he refused to charge me, claiming that it was the least he could do for someone touring in his country!

I rode off smiling from ear to ear and feeling good, spinning the pedals around through the little villages on down to Cabo da Roca — the Cape of the Rock, the western-most point of Europe. It's renowned for the stormy seas that crash upon the cliffs, but today for my visit it was as flat as a mill-pond. One event that stuck in my mind was when riding along a narrow road through one village, a tourist coach was heading towards me along the lane, towards a squeeze point where only one vehicle at a time could pass. I reached the gap just ahead of the bus and with good grace the driver just waved me through — I was amazed. I'm sure that in Australia I would have just received a blast on the horn and been run off the road.

Leaving Cabo da Roca there was a long grind back up to the main road, and I then chased the daylight and drizzling rain to get to Sintra before nightfall. I arrived just as it started raining properly and discovered that I couldn't make head or tail of the map in my guide book, then got to the Tourismo to find that the hostel I was intending to stay at is closed for renovations and all other accomodation in town is booked out for the night! Taking pity on me, they found me a room in a home-stay with a family. It was a couple of kilometres back out of town, and the rain turned torrential as I was getting there. I found out later that this was the tail end of a hurricane that had just devastated half of the Carribean, and was now soaking Portugal for the better part of a week!

Understandably, the family that I lodged with don't speak a word of English, and I was so exhausted that I couldn't put together enough Portuguese to understand or be understood. Again I felt useless not being able to communicate. I sat stupidly, as 10 year-old Ricardo wanted to know everything about me in his broken English, while his mother just whisked off my drenched clothing, dumped an enormous bowl of stew in front of me, then stood watching while I ate it.

At 9:00 PM I was in bed, exhausted after an event-filled day — my first real day of cycle touring in a foreign country.

Where?

Lisboa Sintra

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 8.3km

At seven pm I found myself sitting on the Paseo at Expo '98, resting my aching legs and writing about the day. I'd been on my feet since 9AM.

Breakfast was the first priority, pastry e um bica in a café, standing at bar with the rest of the patrons. An ordinary request and a simple one, but buying the breakfast and sipping my coffee increased my confidence 100%. The next priority was to try and find a cheaper pensâo for tonight — cheaper, quieter, and possibly safer... I'm not sure what other business goes on in the pensâo, but judging by some of the ladies nearby in the streets, it isn't the classy end of town, and I didn't feel comfortable leaving my bag and bike in a ground floor room with no glass and only half-open wooden shutters across the windows.

The first two pensôes I visited were full, then the tourist information telephoned a few for me and sent me off to one in Baixa — when I got there it was no longer vacant! Everywhere I went I felt that I was being stared at because of um bicicleta, I did get shouted at by a shoe-shine guy when I tried to lock my bike up on the street. I guess it was blocking too much of the miniscule footpath and potentially damaging his passing trade.

The girl in the full pensâo laughed when she saw the bike from the window — in a friendly, amused way — then gave me directions to another pensâo, about three kilometres away back in the direction I'd just come from!

Almost impossible to ride in Lisbon, I walked there pushing my bike, ended up soaked in sweat and very nearly couldn't locate it since the door is unmarked. For $5500.00 for the night, my bag and bike and I are all comfortably located for the night, safe up on 3 Andar — the third floor.

I mentioned to the pensâo's manager that I was going to Expo and he immediately delved into a desk drawer and handed me a free ticket! Labelled at $2500.00 — student discount — it was still better than the $5500.00 that I had been expecting from all the brochures. He said that the tourist office had handed them to all the pensâo operators for international visitors.

I caught the metro to the Expo site and then spent the afternoon seemingly queueing for a long time and seeing the insides of pavillions for a short time. There are so many people here! Expo closes at the end of the month, I wonder what it would have been like just after the Expo opened?

The highlight of the afternoon was the aquarium — huge — it was around 8m deep. According to the brochures it is the largest in the world, and packed with fish and sharks, and one enormous grouper. Another tank was square, about 3m on a side, and just full of the most amazing multi-coloured anemones.

On the negative side, all the food and drink and souvenirs are expensive, but I was half expecting that. Still, $900.00 for an open baguette seems high!

After sundown I stayed to watch this evening's free concert. There's one on every night, tonight it was Lou Reed. Standing here in a packed stadium watching Lou Reed is amazing. 10 or 20 thousand people, I have no idea. Just an incredible feeling, despite the strangeness of him singing in English, and all the fans screaming in Portuguese. Regrettably I had to leave before it finished, hurrying off to catch the last metro at midnight, only to be handed a brochure at the station saying that they were open until 3:00AM for the last few days of Expo. Oh well, by now I was so tired I was ready to go home and sleep regardless.

Where?

Lisboa

Photos

  Today: 6.4km
  Trip: 8.3km

At some strange time in the morning I was flying over Romania — I think. An hour in Frankfurt and then breakfast on the flight. Somewhere out over th Black Sea there was a magnificent thunderstorm to watch, all the lightning playing around below the plane.

Singapore airport seemed huge, we all had to walk for miles to get from the Qantas flight to the check-in counter, then almost all the way back to get to the departure lounge for the Lufthansa flight. My seat was well back behind the wing, and the engines, and fairly noisy. On the plus side, the seat next to me was broken. After trying to fix it and seat three different passengers there, eventually the cabin staff gave up and left it vacant, leaving only two of us in a block of three — almost roomy for the economy cabin.

As a reminder not to pre-judge people into racial stereotypes I'll only have to think of the first couple I sat next to. Since it's a German airline, I had thought that the guy sitting next to me looked to be a fairly typical, large, florid-faced German. Then he turned to me and opened his mouth “Gidday, me name's Bruce, this is my wife Kathleen. How are ya?” — I nearly burst out laughing.

In Singapore we had to go through the metal detectors and security gates again. I placed my pocket knife and bike tools in the tray instead of leaving them inside my bag. One of the guards then spent several minutes looking puzzled while he examined the allen keys and discussed them in great detail with the other guards — maybe worried that I'd start dismantling the aircraft. Eventually he handed them back and sent me on my way.

A couple of minutes later there was an announcement over the PA system calling me over to the desk. I've no idea what it was all about, without a word to me they took my boarding pass off me, tore it up, printed out a new one and handed it to me — re-arranging the seating I guess. When I sat back down all the people around me wanted to know what it was all about — shame I didn't know!

Flying over Saudi Arabia — at least I think that's where it was — some of the cities and patterns of lights looked amazingly beautiful and peaceful. The air was very clear and the looked like patterns of lace against the ground.

I hadn't realised that there was an hour or so of sitting around in Frankfurt between my flights — I'll have to start reading itinaries more carefully in future. There was nowhere much to sit and absolutely everyone in Germany seemed to be smoking. I spent the time watching people; business people travelling, families on holidays, attractive young girls on backpacking trips....

Once I got to Lisbon it took a little while to find my bike, since it was a large item, it was one of the last things off the aircraft. No problems at all, no damage to the bike — and I didn't even have to show my passport to get out through customs! It was hot, overcast, and very humid so I fiddled about getting changed and setting up my bike, then loaded up the panniers and headed out the door into Lisbon. By the time I left the terminal, the customs people had left, it felt strange just walking past their empty desks, I kept thinking that someone would run out of a back room and demand to see passport or visa.

Straight out of the airport, remember to ride on the right-hand-side of the road, then the roundabout from hell! I'd been warned about it sometime previously, and it lived up to the warnings. Four lanes wide, cobble-stone surface, traffic lights on all six roads, no visible road laws and a set of tram lines through the middle! It was with a mighty grin and a great sense of achievement that I successfully navigated my way around and headed on down towards the city.

Four kilometres down the road and the third remaining Michelin tube burst! Again I thought it was on one of the spoke nipples. Punctures on a loaded touring bike are an order of magnitude more annoyance than on an everyday ride. I sat down under a tree, unpacked everything, changed the rear tube, repacked the bike and rode off, all the while watched by four silent old men who sat on a bench nearby.

I saw only one other bike on the road and I think it too belonged to a tourist, it surprised me since I thought that with the economy and history, there would have been people on bikes everywhere. As it turned out, I saw very few bikes in the whole country.

My first impressions of Lisbon were that the semi-cobbled streets were absolutely packed with tiny European cars, mostly FIATs and SEATs. Four or five story buildings on either side, tiny footpaths, not a sign of anything green or a tree or a park anywhere. The cobblestones are laid in geometric patterns of white limestone and black basalt, sunglasses are a necessity!

Accomodation is at a premium — probably because of the World Expo. — the cheapest I can find is apparently $7000 for a room in a Pensâo! Not quite what the guidebooks had implied, this is almost double what I was expecting. The reality of not being able to speak Portugese sunk in and I started to feel very vulnerable in my hunting around for a room.

I found a place for $6000, chickening out of speaking Portugese, I first asked in English and was relieved when I was understood. Spent the rest of the afternoon having an afternoon nap while my body thought about timezones and then headed out about seven for an exploratory walk.

A very hilly place, the cable-car trams run up some of the hills, and the maps are nearly useless. I wandered about Bairro Alto then down to the river — the Rio Tejo — and back through the Baixa district. By then I was so hungry that I had the courage to try for dinner — again the staff spoke English so I managed to avoid Portuguese, but my proposed budget is taking a beating!

After dinner I walked around the Castle and Castelo district, then down through the twisty lanes of Alfama before heading back again through Baixa and home to bed at eleven.

Where

Lisboa

  Today: 2.5km
  Trip: 2.5km

Woohoo! The adventure begins!!

Evan and I sat around chatting at breakfast then he headed off to work, and I bummed around making time pass for the rest of the morning.

I decided that the easiest way to get myself, bag and bike to the airport was to ride down to Chappell street with my bag on my back, then head to Flinders street before catching a cab to the airport... I made it to the bank, and successfully transferred $1500 into my Visa account, before heading on. Wouldn't believe it, heading up St Kilda road I punctured my front tyre! Not the tyre really — the second of the expensive new michelin tubes burst where it may have been caught against a spoke nipple!

My newish Axiom pump started falling apart too — a truly auspicious start to the trip!

One of the worlds most garrulous cab drivers then drove me to the airport, talking of when he and his brothers had ridden up to Queensland as youngsters and all the pranks that they had played, on each other and anyone else around...

Once at the airport there came the task of fitting norky bike into a bike box — not a problem really, the Qantas bike boxes are enormous. The International checkin counter didn't have any bike boxes and sent me off to find the Domestic checkin counter, but other than a long walk I got the box I needed. I think I could fit two bikes in one with a bit of effort! I just hope the bike doesn't rattle around too much. The staff didn't charge me the $20 for the box, since both of them assumed that the person at the other counter had done so.

Another good start, I left my passport at the check-in counter with the attendant and she had to come running after me to hand it back. Felt very foolish as a result, although she claimed it was her fault for getting distracted when handling the extra-large bicycle box.

Sat around in the airport reading the Lonely Planet guide to Portugal and waiting for my flight. I'm glad I bought the book this morning, I hadn't realised just how different Portugal and Spain are... Sitting around it all seemed so unreal, I know I'm sitting in the departure lounge about to go overseas, but it still doesn't seem to have sunk in or make much sense.