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Day 3 Denneville to Gouville-sur-Mer (click link to view route in new page)

Our usual routine is to get up around 9am, Mike makes a cup of tea, I complain the water tastes funny, so he makes another one out of our bottled water. Then we have a big bowl of cereal with fruit, pack up our tent and stuff and be on the road by about 11am. It’s a perfect lazy way to start the day.

On the road the first priority is to pick up a baguette for lunch and a couple of pastries for afternoon munchies, and either some ham or cheese.

The trick is to get to the shops either before 12 or after 2pm as they shutdown for lunch.

We had another stunning day of flat riding.

At 2pm, after 35kms I decided I had enough. We found a perfect campground right beside the beach. The weather was deliciously warm. It was nice to thaw out after the previous freezing cold days. We grabbed our e-readers and sat on the beach reading for the afternoon and drinking beer we bought for 44c.

We cooked a delicious bacon and mushroom pasta for dinner, served with crusty bread.

We finished the day watching the sun set over the atlantic while sipping our 44c beer.

Day 2 Le Rozel to LePieux to Denneville (click link to view route in new page)

The day started with a big arsed hill. I moaned and cursed as I pushed my bike up thinking “I’m not sure I wanna do this any more, it’s just too much effort”. As I approahced Mike who was waiting for me at the top, he said ” Look, we have a nice downhill run now, doesn’t that make it worth it”

And he was right. If this is the reward for the uphill slog then it’s definitely worth it. 2 km of sheer downhill bliss, no peddling, wind in our faeces, not a care in the world.

Until the road ended.

“That bloody GPS is a piece of shit”, I exclaimed

“oops, sorry” said Mike.

So we pushed our bikes back up and continued on in silence.

The rest of the day was perfect cycling along quiet country lanes and quaint villages. After only 30kms (yeah my arse was hurting) we decided to stop for the night. We staked out the campground and decided we would be happy to camp here. Then someone had a bright idea to try the next campsite as it was more likely to have a bar and internet.

We cycled 3 kms to the next campsite only to find it was 5 euros more expensive ,they didnt have internet, the bar was closed and they had no toilet seats! We decided to backtrack 3 kms for toilet seats.

For dinner we cooked cajun pork, fried rice and mushrooms.

Day 1 in France Cherbourg to Le Rozel

We caught the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. It was a rough crossing and I was glad I took some kwells and people were vomiting all around us.

Mikes GPS got us out of cherbourg via a big hill which we ended up pushing our bikes up. There were lots of hills coming out of cherbourg and busy narrow roads with large trucks. We turned off and headed for the beach on the quieter roads.

We stopped at a small town but their campsite was a bit dodgy so we decided not to stay there. We headed on another 10 kms and stayed the night at Le Grand Large camping ground. I was really impressed with Mikes ability to ask for things in French, and it was hilarious when they reply to him in French and he can’t understand a thing!

We camped right beside the beach. Huge beaches with lots of sand. too cold here for swimming though – in fact too cold to even stay up and watch the sun set so we seeked the shelther of our tiny tent.

There was not shop or restaurant at the camping ground so luckily we had packed some stuff. We cooked a meal of brown rice and sweet chilli tuna. We forgot to pack plates so we scoffed it out of our sieve! We ate our cereal out of our mugs.

Mikes blog and route

Day one – Bournemouth to Poole – 10kms

We miraculously condensed all of our stuff into four panniers.

Here are our bikes all loaded up

The yellow panniers contain the camping gear. One of the red ones has my clothes and the other red one has Mikes.

We cycled to Poole as a test ride.

The bikes, Mike and I checked into a hotel in Poole as we have an early ferry crossing to France in the morning.

Self Portrait

As Mum predicted – the weeks of sunny weather have decided to stop for our bike ride.

Click the link below for mikes blog and a map of our route so far

mikes blog and route so far