BAAARRRRCCCCEEEELLLLOOOONNNAAAA - Vic to Barcelona

Waking up in beds, no chronic back or shoulder pain from sleeping on the ground, was blissful. Looking at the map reaching Barcelona was an inevitability! But we had a bit of conflict, about the route to take, because it was either along the dual carriageway or over a national park hillock. We were told about this route by our mate from Decathlon as he said it was a beautiful cycle and there was good downhill sections the other side of it. But Andy's knee was hurting so he didn't fancy a hill. So we set off towards the dual carriageway. Stopped by a petrol station to get a map of Catalonia, as my map only showed motorways going into Barcelona. But they only had maps of pretty much every region of Spain, excluding Catalonia... So my map would have to suffice for the rest of the journey. Getting to the dual carriageway we went up a bit of the slip road and found part way up there was a massive sign with crosses through pictures of gyspy horse carriages, mopeds, walkers and, alas, bicycles. But our merry man from Decathlon told us about a bit of "how you say? We say the asphalto," "yeh we same the same," "no," "OK we don't." Anyway so he told us about the asphalt that went down the side of the dual carriageway, so we found this and tried it out. It worked well for quite a few miles, but then turned to hard ground and gravel. And then stopped. In an industrial site. Finding our way around the site, under the main road and into some random town. No signs around to say what town it was, we were very lost. Eventually a man came running down towards us, so I walked over into his path and shout "Senior! Senior!" He kindly stopped "si," "errrmm" I hold the map up. He goes "Maybe I could speak in a English? Can you speak English," "errm yes, I can speak English..." "we can both a speak in English, good! How can I help" "Where (the F***) are we?" He showed us and we asked how to get to Barcelona - long shot because we were still about 40 miles away. He said you can pretty much only go on the dual carriageway to get there, no small roads. So we found our way through the town back near the main road and there was a side road, so we took it. And then, oh no, the first mechanical failure of the trip! I had got a puncture! As the road was fairly gravelly a stone had gone through the gapping voids I had in my tyres as they were very old tyres. Sitting on the verge, I felt sharp little pricks on my legs and arms. I was being attacked by a load of bloody ants! Rascals! On we plodded, getting a bit hot and bothered, arguing whether we should go on the main road or not. Eventually however we had very little choice. And reluctantly I led the way onto the duel carriageway. It was pretty busy, and every now and then we had to go into the car lanes to avoid stuff in the hard shoulders. After a while I just had enough. So pulled down a slip road and we cycled into a town. Now about 10 miles or so from Barcelona. Looking at the map the road would soon turn into a motorway and all the other roads on my map were motorways into Barcelona. So we found a train station, somehow Andy confabulated with the Algerian woman there that we wanted tickets to Barcelona and we seemed to receive the correct tickets. and hopped on for the final small part. The train began to fill more and more as we got closer to Barcelona and we released how annoying we much have been taking up a lot of passenger space on the train.

One of our first views of Barcelona on our bikes (Barcelona's "Arco del Triunfo" in the background)

Arriving into the main station in Barcelona we could not yet feel relief as we had to now drag our bikes up London Underground-esque escalators... Now Finally, feeling relieved that we were now in Barcelona and had a detailed map of it, we emerged onto the streets of Barcelona. But as always there is a but, the map did not cover the section of Barcelona where the train station was. So after half an hour or so I eventually worked out that the big diagonal street we were on was on my map, just had to guess which way to go! Luckily getting the direction right we followed the diagonal road unitl we could find our way onto the map. Barcelona has some good bike lanes so was quite a nice safe cycle through the city. Going to the main tourist office, we organised a hotel to stay at, annoyingly at the top of the city so another long cycle through the whole city.

At the hotel, we booked in and asked if we could take our bikes to our room. No was the answer, not even parts of the bikes. So we asked if we could put our bikes in their carpark. "Put them in a carparking space, then take a ticket and pay when you leave," "WHAT!" It was something like £25 a day to keep our bikes there. A massive joke, couldn't even leave our bikes in the corner where nothing was, out of the way! Grrr. So we had to hop back onto our bikes and find somewhere to lock them up. It was incrediable the bikes felt so light, stable and easy to ride (as we had removed all the luggage off them). So we tried to find a bike shop hoping we could store them there, or buy some more subtantial locks. Because if you look at any bike in Barcelona locked up, they have at least three locks and are of higher quality than locks we use for motorbikes. But Mr Joyce not known for his great ideas had one. We went past a mulitstory car park, and you could pay for 24 hour parking. Interesting. So we carried on a bit and saw one down a side street. A little old man came out to us he didn't even know "yes" in English, so hand motions, acting and my dodgy Spanish would have to suffice. So holding up 4 fingers and saying dias (I got dias from looking at a sign they had and it said "dias" on it, this was my queue for remember the word for day!) pointing at our bici's, he worked out what we wanted. And kept saying "trinta", "trinta", "trinta". What is he on about?!? He went off and got some paper and wrote the number 30, ohhhh 30 euros for the 4 days. Got ya! But he wrote down something like 19-22, which was 4 days, but we needed 4 full days if that makes sense. So I pointed at the 2 of the 22 and said "tres." Excellant so this was all sorted we plonked our bikes in the corner of his garage and locked them up. One worry off our minds. Next "worry" was to find some boxes for our bikes to get them home! But we have a few days to do this, so time to chillax!! Picking up a few bits from the nearby supermarket ie big bottles of beer and cakes. And then went off to a restuarant nearby called Inca Burger. Calling it an early night, watched some Barcelona Football TV drank some beer and went to sleep. VIVA BARCELONA. WE HAVE MADE IT!!!

For the next couple of days we had nigh on zero euros... Well about 15 ish euros for each day. McDonalds were doing a 1 euro chicken burger, so we survived on about 5 of these a day. Otherwise we sunbathed on the beach. Andy listened to music, whilst I watched the extremely attractive half-naked Swedish girls wander about. Happy times!! As we had restricted our luggage, we had no swimwear nor at this stage clean towels. So we went swimming in our boxer shorts and let the sun dry us. We had to go into the sea in turns as there are many unscrupulous fellows about... Other activities included walking around A LOT, and in the blistering mid-summer heat of Barcelona this was sweaty! We marvelled at the Sargrada Familia, Gaudi's cathedral and other Gaudi buildings. And sat in an Irish bar to watch football, sipping extremely slowly on a pint to make it last about 2 hours. Times were desperate, but we still did enough to embrace Barcelona and its charm.

Andy in McDonalds, I got a weird look from the worker here. Probably because we had been to this same McDonalds about 20 times in three days...

On the bike side of things, we still needed to get a cardboard box. Eventually we managed this by going to a Decathlon shop in the centre of Barcelona. Here we spoke to a man, he wasn't too sure what we were saying. So before we had left England I had looked up the Spanish for cardboard box... being caja de carton. This sort of helped, and finally we all came to an understanding. He explained a truck comes in the evening about 10pm to deliver new bikes. So we were to meet him behind the shop in the delivery area to get a couple of boxes from him. So at 10 we arrived and found our man, he unpacked a couple of boxes and gave them to us. Right, so cardboard box sorted... But new problem. The boxes were humongous. As they had been containing fully assembled bikes. Nonetheless, we were now in ownership of some boxes, excellent. So we carried these boxes through the heart of Barcelona, though great hoards of Japanese people and other tourists, using our boxes as battering rams to force our way through. Back to our friend with the car park, he greeted us and we explained(ish) that we were leaving the boxes with the bikes. He seemed satisfied by this and returned to his booth to pick his nails again.

Us with our new bags (as we needed to get our stuff home, hence had no bags beforehand) outside our most favouritest shop ever Decathlon!

The next day we went about getting some parcel tape. We found a stationary type store and Andy asked if they had parcel tape, to people that could barely speak English. So that didn't go far, in the mean time I found the parcel tape and we were set to obliterate our boxes. Back to the car park, armed with tools and tape. Cutting the boxes to size and dismantling the bikes so they would become smaller. And then taping the holy crap out of the boxes. We took our remaining cardboard out of the car park and after some time found a bin. It was now quite late and we were stopped by some raucous scenes. Massive explosions and a mob type atmosphere. We joined a crowd watching some crazed pyromaniacs prancing the roads eating, breathing and making fire - everywhere. They were firing the fire at us and anyone nearby - im sure it was safe and city approved, but it was pretty scary and very crazy. We decided we should escape this madness and try and get back to our hotel. I should explain we were pretty tired at this stage, normally I would be all over this sort of thing. But the side roads and adjacent roads all had these people parading up and down completely trapping us into this area. Fireworks with huge explosions were being fired down the streets - it was almost like a strange version of safe-ish street warfare!

I didn't take many photos this trip, but there are a few of the Sagrada Familia. Though all terrible, this was about the best one! 

Back at the hotel we booked a disabled taxi, as I figured this would be best to fit our bikes in. The taxi driver turned up and pretty much spoke no language anyone speaks in the world - Flemish... So that was no French, no English and not really any Spanish I know... Anyway we jabbered away and ended up at the airport. I was getting frustrated because I understood he was asking which terminal. So I kept saying to him "2" or "dos". But he wasn't listening and eventually goes "easyJet, Oh okay.. terminal 2!" OH MY GOD YES, AS I HAVE JUST BEEN SAYING FOR THE LAST 20 MINUTES!!! Anyway here very early (maybe 6/8 hours early) just in case something wrong happened regarding our boxes. And guess what something did go wrong! Obviously we couldn't put them on the normally baggage travelator, but then we couldn't put them through her large luggage scanner - travelator. So she made a phone call to someone, we watched on nervously. Eventually she goes okay, take your boxes to the other terminal and go to Gate 22 and a man will meet you there... So off we plod to this other terminal with our boxes and waited at the gate. After what seemed like an age a man found us and took us through - pretty much to the runway. Here there were soldiers waiting by a large luggage scanner, they told us to put our boxes through. BUT. Guess what? Yup, this scanner was too small as well... So they told us to cut open our boxes. Errm with what exactly? I had my passport in my pocket and about 5 euros.. It might take me a while to break in to be brutally honest. Ah no problem, Manuel had a flick knife and proceeded in butchering our boxes up, chucked our bikes through the scanners. Surprisingly no problems. And then set about forcing the bikes back into the boxes... Nightmare. They weren't being successful in putting the bikes back in and then told us it'll be fine, you can go now... Andy I'll be honest was not being very optimistic about either the return of his bike, nor if the bikes did make it, the quality of his bike... After finally landing back into Luton Airport, the first things we see are our boxes waiting next to baggage collection. We had successfully cycled to Barcelona, made it back with everything in one piece!  

And it's all downhill from here... Porte-Puymorens to Vic

Waking up decidedly freezing cold, at a very early time. We changed very quickly because if you have your nipples out in subzero temperatures you know about it... When packing the tent up, we found loads of cold-coma-induced insects laden on the tent surface. Such a nasty place, wet, cold, damp, insects, annoying looking brats, looking forward to cracking on with the day!

Andy caught in the act... of applying chaff cream to his gentlemen parts

The sun not yet high enough to breach the mountain tops (in the valley I realise the photo above indicate sunlight, but the roads were in shadow!), we cycled off in the frozen shadows, down the twisting roads. And ohhhh yes it was downhill! Now just pedalling for speed not for momentum we twisted around hairpin corners sped through towns, bliss. Using the brake handle more than the pedal filled us with jubilation. We then sort of popped out into some plateau, presumably the end of the Pyrenees. Still though we are in France. We got to a town called Bourg-Madame, and there it was a bridge and on the other side SPAIN. We had made the country of final destination! Amusingly now the first thing we managed to do in Puigcerda was get lost. But once back on track, we passed some odd police barricade, they had machine guns, shotguns, and seemed to be stopping cars at random, just before a round-a-bout. We wearily cycled through the cars waiting, and sort of just sauntered past, hoping they weren't going to open fire at us "fleeing." Unscathed, we then got our next shock. We were actually about in the middle of the Pyrenees and there was a little more uphill to do. No not a little, a lot of uphill. We would look ahead a see the road winding around the mountainside, where we would be next. Once to that point, we could see the road still winding around the mountainside. Once to that point... You get the picture. As the cycling was slow I took some pictures.

Andy pondering up the hill

Me vainly taking a photo of myself taken just after the one of Andy above

This seemed to be a popular cycle route however, and some chaps past us (please bare in mind they had no luggage, so they should be going faster). Anyway one was a bit chirpy and shouted "campeones" (Spanish for champions). Now, I thought he was calling us champions, in which im in agreement with. So shouted back "campeones." It was only a bit later on our million mile slog, that it occurred to me, World Cup. As we were wearing bright orange tops, I think he was making reference to Spain beating The Netherlands (i.e. thinking we were Dutch).

Clouds pouring over the mountain tops across the valley

And now it was Joyce's turn to have a good moan. As I had my fair share through the latter stages of France, because of my knee, I let a lot of it slip. But it didn't exactly make the cycle any quicker! We hadn't past much, the scenery was nice, cows will bells filling the air with noise and clouds pouring over the mountains along side us, and then we found a random hotel. So stopping at Hotel Collada de Toses to get some food, drink and rest. I went to order some more coke at one stage and said to the bloke "dos cola" in a dodgy Spanish accent. He then returned with two bottles of cold chocolate milkshake... Cola - coca, in a rubbish Spanish accent I can see how they sound the same... Anyway they were quite nice.

So with Andy pretty reluctant to go on, and me not too far behind him on that matter, though he was moaning intently about how if it was still going to be uphill he would, like, castrating a large bull and beating it about the head until even the toughest of men would fall down weeping. (OK he didn't actually say that, but along those sorts of lines). So setting off on our bikes we set off uphill out of the Hotels grounds. To a gap carved between two rocks. We could see a valley between these rocks. And. Gravity! It was there to make us smile and give us a nice hand. A downhill section! With a huge amount of jubilation I bombed off, pedalling hard, trying to get to the highest speed I possibly could! Caning into corners, braking hard, scrubbing out wide to the other side of the road. Taking racing lines, ignoring cars struggling to pass, completely zoned into being part of the road. After a while of shear exhilaration, I looked back behind me expecting to see the beaming smile of Andy, sitting just behind me. But no, no Andy. F**K, he's bloody crashed somewhere. It was a good 5-10mins since I last looked back. And since I was going over 50 kph he could be miles back. I slowed and looked behind me for a bit. Then looking across the valley, through the pine trees, I could see a bright orange flicker between each tree. He was miles back! So at least he was okay, meant I could pick up my speed again and enjoy the rest of the road.

Now absolutely flying along I started to catch a car, desperately trying to catch it. Taking a few risks, doing a racing line and finding cars were coming head on... I was determined to catch that car. Alas, I got to the end right behind the car, mainly because it slowed up for the 50 kph limit and I went through at 58 kph, yey, first time I've been speeding the whole trip! But as I came into the town, I just could not help celebrating! Both hands off the handle bar, fisting the air, shouting at the top of my voice "whhhoooaaaa" "come on". My buzz, adrenaline rush, pure euphoria, ecstasy was just immense. Im smiling away like a trooper at the moment just thinking about it. I really felt like I had just won Tour de France, and the tourists standing around on the streets were there to welcome me and cheer me on... Eventually Andy came into the town. He claimed he felt his bike would fall apart or his brakes would fail, thus did not go as fast as me. As our Ozzy friends would say "what a pom." For me part of the buzz was the fear I was on the edge of imminent death! Steep mountain edges one side, on coming cars on the other, bikes that hadn't been maintained since leaving England! What a danger cycle. We both instantly agreed at the bottom if we could we would pay a stupid amount to get a lift back to the top and blast back down again. To summarise in the voice and style of my favourite TV presenter, it was the greatest road........ in the woooooooorrrrllldd.

The town we made at the end of the "hill," banners already set up to congratulate us...

With a slightly more relaxed cycle we cruised into the next town, Ripoll. Here we stopped at a nice looking restaurant and had some pizza. I had a pizza with orange and ham, was really really good, orange on a pizza is a must try, damn good! Again as we are good at, we lost our ways a bit trying to leave the town. And ended up on some of the worst roads we have had on the trip. They were repairing/ making new roads, so they were dug up, machinery creating loads of dust and crud on the roads. Wasn't really that nice. And then we had to go through tunnels... With no lights and the pretty dark tunnels wasn't too pleasant. The roads were fairly quiet, but were reminiscent of the motorway roads of France, which didn't fill me with much joy. So finding a route off this road was my priority. And we did find a road pretty much went along side. Following it down towards Vic, went well, until we got to a round-a-bout. And we found the road we needed to take was blocked off by a overturned pig lorry... Crap. Everywhere. Nice. We asked a policeman standing nearby how we should get to Vic. Well the conversation did not go like that, more like. Point down the road, he says no, we say Vic, Vic?, Si, OK... lala lallal lalal lalla dos lalalala dos lallala, pointed at the road and said no and then pointed at some gravel on the side of the road and said si... (the llalal is Spanish words we had no clue what they meant, I could only pick out "dos") anyway he was pointing down a tiny little farm track (the road thing was we wouldn't be cycling on tarmac, but gravelly crap), so we followed this road took the second exit and came back onto the road around the lorry.

Pig lorry in the process of being lifted up

We got into Vic and saw a Decathlon which is a shop a bit like Halfords, we stopped by and decided they might be able to pump our tyres up as they were incredibly flat. I went in because I "know" more Spanish, to find someone to help. So I wondered about a bit, there were loads of workers, but decided I should as ask the attractive girl. So went up to her "Pardon, senorita", "Si", "errm, do you speak English...", "a little" (normally when they say this they are very good, not this one, she was telling the truth!), "bici..", "si", "Ok, our bici (me doing some weird pedalling motion with my hands), tyres (stupid tyre shape motions), I get a blank look... So I find a bike, point to its tyres, "si", I point to a pump, "si", I make pumping up tyre motions, "OK un moment por favor". She goes off to find a bloke, he comes back and starts noshing away in Spanish to me, I say "No espanol." He goes off and finds someone else, he speaks a bit more English and explain it all again, he asks to see our bikes. Runs off and comes back with inner tubes! NO PEDRO. We want our chuffing tyres pumping up! (all said in the head by the way). Andy said which I had been saying all along, we need our tyres pumping up. He goes "ahh you need your tyres pumping up, follow me." Whaaaat, Ive been saying that for ages, to about 40 people, why when Andy says it in English no attempt at Spanish its suddenly easily and quickly understood! GOSH. So we get taken to a new bloke, in one of those sections you see in PC world where the geeks hang out, but this one had bikes. This bloke spoke near on perfect English. Chatted to us about his cycling (he was a mountain biker), how we should get to Barcelona from there, that we should have mats to sleep on in our tent... A top bloke. He pumped Andy's tyres up first and struggled because Andy's bike is rubbish and then did mine and found it a lot easier. And said to me this bike is better and I said the same as the rider, he laughed loudly, "hahaha aaa yeeees, the bike is good and the rider is good" hahaha, my hero.

We left a good hour later, and it was getting darkish. Problem was though it was getting dark because the build up of clouds. Real, proper menacing clouds, deep black, thick. We made it to a bus station, and the heavens opened out, the most torrential rain we have seen on our trip and the worst rain I have seen in a while anywhere. And to top it off there was lighting bolts flying around everywhere, was very close to Armageddon. But the bus station had a bar, so we sat on some benches outside (under a shelter) and had a nice drink. A bloke then came up to us and jibbered away constantly, literally no clue for quite a while. Then we figured out he was trying to tell us to go to the supermarket to buy beer from because it was cheaper! We must have either looked; very poor, alcoholics, both... im going for the stench that was emitting from us, must have looked like tramps. Realising we would never make our campsite about 20 miles on, we resorted to phoning my dad to find out where we could stay for the night. No campsites about, so found a youth hostel.

Andy and I enjoying some beers during the storm (though it looks surprisingly light, was a nasty old storm)

Once the rain had stopped a few hours later. We made our way to the youth hostel, and somehow communicated with the workers we wanted one night and if we could take our expensive bikes to our room. (Andy did this by pointing at his bike and doing that rub with the thumb against the fingers, like Egyptian taxi drivers do when they want cash). We got some food in a nearby supermarket, something amusing happened at the till, but I can't quite remember what it was about, it basically involved me not having a clue what was going on... All I remember was I thought she was trying to charge me about £7 for a peach. I'll ask Andy for details. So we had a very pleasant nights sleep, first time in a bed for many days, had a shower and room to move about and we weren't about 4inches away from each other, instead, a good 8 foot gap!

Enjoying my massive lump of meat, Turkey if you are wondering!

The Two VERY Hungry Caterpillars

The Short Story
The story begins with two young men embarking on a trip fuelled by food and fuelled by the desire to need food. You maybe well acquainted with The Very Hungry Caterpillar story, and this story is very much synonymous with our own. 
Our trip as a short story would read;
Day 1 - Burger King, Indian curry
Day 2 - Massive steak, and junk food
Day 3 - French Breakfast, Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon
Day 4 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3
Day 5 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3
Day 6 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3

                                  Andy with The Very Hungry Caterpillar


Day 7 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3
Day 8 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3
Day 9 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 3 - Much like the hungry caterpillar we got stomachache as we physically could not eat the amount of food we needed
Day 10 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 2, Hot Dog at Inca Burger 
Day 11 - McDonalds € 1 chicken burger x 3
Day 12 - McDonalds € 1 chicken burger x 3
Day 13 - McDonalds € 1 chicken burger x 3
Day 14 - Pain-au-chocolat, Baguette with fromage and jambon x 2 - we then sat in a chrysalis state until our butterfly flew us back to England

How it began

Prologue 

During a period when we both should have been revising hard, we were chatting on Facebook and Andy came up with the idea of doing a bike ride for charity. We decided Barcelona sounded like a plausible distance and we would discuss it after we came back from university. With exams done the "planning" started guessing we may cycle an average of 12-15 mph it was calculated we could get there in 10 days, just in case we were wrong (a strong likelihood) we gave ourselves 14 days.

The training began and a short cycle pretty much around the block left me quite tired but not deterred. And after seemingly persuading Andy's dad that we could endeavour on such a task we booked up the ferry and flights. We both then went on holiday shortly before we left which, kind of, left us in doubt whether we would be fit enough or not. By the time it came around to leaving we had only practised cycling about 60 miles and with no added weight (considering we would have to do at least 100 miles per day and an extra two stone in luggage). So it would seem we were inadequately prepared but none the less we felt ready!

Flitton/Greenfield to Oxford

So weary eyed and bushy tailed, I set off from my house to Andy's with dad, leaving mum looking worried, concerned and nervous. Got to Andy's and he was trying to phone the bank... if his organisational skills and timing are this mistimed then it would be a surprise if there would be a ferry waiting for us in Portsmouth!

Anyway with the photo opportunity done, it was time to set off, and jeez the bikes felt completely unbalanced - the front light and manoeuvrable - the back clumsy and wobbly. Laughing at our stupidity at not trying out the weight beforehand stopped quickly, as I noticed how out of breathe I had become, and this was only a mile into the trip up a relatively shallow short gradient hill! In my head all I could think was how Barcelona seemed an immeasurable distance away.

Now its time to get lost, not you, us. Not even leaving our own county, in Leighton Buzzard, we ended up cycling  down a one-way, dead end street... This I fear may have been me directing, but a little old dear was walking by and she pointed us in the right direction. So now feeling fairly tired and in the knowledge we could get lost anywhere our Barcelona trip felt futile.

Now on roads I recognised from trips to my Aunties house we thundered through Aylesbury stopping at Thame for a well deserved Burger King. This I promised to Andy would be our staple diet throughout the trip, which no doubt got a mixed response. The attack of the wasps! I strongly recommend NOT drinking fizzy orange drinks as the little vespa buggers blooming love it and along with this we were wearing our fluorescent orange shirts. So spent most of the time running away from thousands of wasps determined to have my drink.

                    Before the wasps smelt the nectar of sugary drinks 

Cracking on with the rest of the journey we got to my Aunties house much more promptly than we had anticipated. Even whilst encountering some random girl driver very irk because I was too busy ringing my bell shouting "get out of my way I'm king of my bike" and had drifted across the road. We finished the night by eating an Indian curry, watching some family guy and having a lovely warm shower, nice. Though we knew this would be the end of the luxury, so we have to give many thanks to my Aunt Jilly and Uncle Tony for looking after us this night.

Route taken, through Leighton Buzzard, Aylesbury, Thame, to North Moreton 

The Worst Day EVER - Oxford to Portsmouth

"Welcome them to cycling hell", was clearly the message that was sent by a messenger to Zeus and Thor.

The day started off wet, cold and windy, but nothing "major." And after just watching some ridiculous film about Greek monsters or something that Andy likes, with a main character that was a skeleton and could only say brrrrrrrrrrrr, we were in good spirits.

It rained

It was windy

It was cold

There may be a common theme with this day....

and the same three elements repeated themselves throughout the day.

We finally made Basingstoke, and took a left turn onto a dual carriageway, exited at a junction and then found ourselves to be completely lost. After aimlessly cycling around some suburban part of Basingstoke asking numerous people, some builders gave us fairly decent instructions. But they said them with that look, which makes you think "are you just trying to have us on", but we knew no better and finally found our way to the other side of Basingstoke. Looking at the map now I realise I took us the wrong direction initially, I can only attribute this to not having a clear head, due to the fact (anonymous person I probably shouldn't mention in name so a pseudonym in anagram form Balm Gleamy will have to suffice) lives here and I was thinking about how I hated her.

The weather surprise surprise had not improved and continued to be a menace, at this stage we still hadn't eaten so were pretty desperate for some food. Sign read "Good Food, Next Left" Ahhh The Pheasant Inn, brilliant we can eat and dry and be warm go to the toilet everything a normal person would like. Ohh you're closed, you should see my face now I'm still not impressed.

Now we were desperate and found a garden centre near Alton which promised food, but could not deliver. Now in Alton a pub with a sign - All Day Food, "sorry we are not serving till 6" but she was attractive and considering we had spent most of the day looking at each others bums we settled down with a coke and crisps.

Continued on with our journey and went down a fairly steep hill, and noticed we were slowing down due to the severity of the wind, so had to pedal downhill! At the bottom was a pub called The West Meon, and hip hip hooray it was serving food! And with lovely bar staff and a decent sized piece of steak and chips we relaxed in relative style.

Final push to Portsmouth, the light had dropped and it was dusk, using the last ounces of strength we made it first to Waterlooville and then by the saving grace to Portsmouth harbour, with about 30 mins until the ferry departed.

Whilst waiting in the queue we met one other cyclist and he was going to Barcelona too, he was 22 (can't remember his name it was something posh like Tarquin or Rupert). He, like us, was planning on getting there in 10 days but was going along the coast which was much further, good luck to him (I think he definitely needed it judging by his bike). After a swift beer in the ferries bar, we went to our cabin and got some much needed sleep.          

Route through Basingstoke, Alton, Waterlooville and finally to Portsmouth Harbour

First day in France - Caen to Mayenne

Courtesy of the ferry company Andy had chosen we were awoken by the most terrible racket I have come across in my life, not only was the alarm tediously annoying (playing some Irish-cum-Zelda music) it went on for around 10 minutes! Yes alright we are up! So with around 3 hours of pretty poor sleep, with our cabin decimated by wet muddy clothes we wearily got up.

The brisk morning (7am) air of Caen (or technically Ouistreham) met us as we disembarked from the ferry, and the excitement of being on the continent could begin. The first concerns was food, but this was shorty changed when the first argument came about. I had looked online and had found a cycle route that went along the river into the centre of Caen, but all the other cyclists (it was apparent there were a few more on board) had followed the flow of motor traffic. Andy said we should do what they are, like sheep. Luckily I won this round and we had a non-traffic, flat and relatively tranquil cycle to the centre of Caen.

Now for the first incident, which could prove fatal (in bike terms). A group of elderly people crossing a zebra crossing, I slammed on the brakes, Andy close behind me does the same but his panniers swing into his spokes causing a dramatic skid (on closer inspection his spokes were bent, hopefully they'll be alright!). Hunger now becoming the best of us we managed to find a newsagents/cafe and had our first piece of ham of the trip - a luxury I hear you ask? - later instalments will tell you otherwise!

Now using a map that we were using the whole trip (showed Portsmouth to Barcelona i.e. not particularly detailed) we skipped off pavements in order to go the way we needed avoiding one-way systems and getting pretty much completely lost. A stop at a supermarket revealed to me how difficult it was going to be for me to walk around hard, shiny floors. As the shoes I had were clip-in shoes for the bikes pedals and they stuck out meaning I had no grip when walking and made a very conspicuous clunking noise - oh joy. Eventually and probably more fortuitously a directional sign read Evrecy. Looking on the map it was south of Caen it wasn't Clecy (a more direct southern route out of Caen) but it'll do!

Now we practised on hills, but this has to be one of the longest gradual gradient hills I've ever come across. At Evrecy the joke about Andy needing l'infirmerie (the old joke being "I need the krankenhaus") seemed evident as we stopped for some cough medicine. Our journey carried on smoothly and we stopped again in a town called Aunay-sur-odon to get some directions from the Tourism Office just to make sure we were going the correct way. This town was at the foot of a very steep hill that went up and up and up, part way just outside a farm my clip-in shoes got stuck and I had to wrench it out. After a bodge job fix on one of my shoes we carried on until we reached such a height telecoms towers were along side us! With views looking across what seemed the whole of France.

Now finally for some downhill action, being about 1pm and many hard hours of cycling behind us, we were starving. Pulling up into a town Conde-sur-Noireau we scoured it for food places, finding an Pizzeria that was open everyday except Wednesday... the day of course being Wednesday. But there was a bakery nearby where we got a baguette et fromage et jambon sandwich and some coke. We sat on a churches steps eating the much needed food and due to it being nice and hot and sunny, we laid down and kipped in the sun.

The journey continued with the town of Domfront being a highlight. A medieval town built on a stand-out hill with high defensive walls, the road travelled through the centre of the town under castle bridges, very exquisite.

          Cycling through Domfront - castle walls can be seen in the background


We now encountered our first straight road, and we couldn't believe it. It wasn't just how straight it was, it was the fact once we made a peak of the undulating road you could then see three more peaks. This seemed to go on and on, like an elongated sound wave. Finally however we made the outskirts of the town Mayenne, found a small campsite charging about 7 euros per night. After setting up the tent I fell asleep outside and apparently snored for a good hour, something Andy would have to get used to!! And after settling down inside the tent we eventually drifted off to the chatter of some boozed up French builder-esc men.

          Route taken through Aunay-sur-odon, Flers, Domfront to Mayenne