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.
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