Wednesday 17 August 2011

Stage One: Calais to Chateau Thierry

Well, stage one is complete! The first six days were grueling due to the constant rain and persistent headwinds. The population of the area seems to have halved and the traffic doubled since I was last here, but everyone I've met has been friendly and helpful.













The terrain is characterised by endless sugarbeet feilds and long straight, undulating roads. I took one rest day at a proper municipal campsite in the lovely little town of Perrone and met a very friendly bunch of Aussies doing the Somme cemetry tour, big business around that area, and several Brits doing the camper van thing.



The legs are holding up fine but getting provisions has been harder than last time as most of the roadside shops have closed and been replaced with supermarkets on out-of-town retail parks or, would you beleive it, potato vending machines! But I just don't need 2.5kg of spuds or 1kg of challotes!


Last night I camped in the garden of Celine and Cedric just south of Chateau Thierry which has enabled me to post this. It seems in the last few years internet cafes have become extinct so it has not been possible to post. I had to send the laptop home as it was just too damn heavy, and still struggle with the French format keyboard.



In a while it's on to stage two under clear blue skies and on a warm sunny day. Love to you all :)

4 comments:

  1. Good luck & don't look back till Thursday.

    IMC

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  2. Gregory and i have had an interesting and enjoyable time reading about your travels and your routes on the maps. Take care, love Mum

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  4. hi i met you near dawlish in august. i was attempting to ride to mozambiue solo.. hows it going ? my adventure was a epic introduction into the world of cycle touring, i managed to get the pyrenees in the south of france, but then i had to return to england due to unforesceen circumstances like the unplanned wet season . it was cold and rainy but still it was a great cyclo adventure have great tales to tell

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