Day 2 - Monday 13th September, 2010
Ditchling to Newhaven
13.4 miles!
13.3 mph moving ave!
A funny nights 'sleep' last night for sure.
The night was a bit odd and it will definitely take a while to get used to the cycle-camping game! I've done a fair bit of camping, but apart from school years, its mainly been for casual weekend things like music festivals, or hanging out with friends, and so not having to actually do anything proper the next day. But today there are things to do! I woke up feeling really dirty and smelly in the sleeping bag this morning (thank you John for deciding to get the sleeping bag liners and getting me one too - it really saved the bag!).
The tent's quite small, and not easy to get comfortable - even on an inflatable Thermarest NeoAir. There's certainly not much room to move inside - which I already knew from reviews and testing it out - but I hadn't really figured in that it's hard to find a comfy position to do basic things like write up the journal in the evening, or plan for the next day, or even make a few phone calls. There's no sitting up comfortably in this baby! That said it did feel very solid, and I am impressed with it.
But the sleep deprivation wasn't all the tents fault. It was mainly due to noise (babies, people, wind, fruit falling from trees, animals, birds, birds, birdsong, more birds - where the hell did all the birds come from?), and a bloody spider that I saw sneak in just as I closed up for the night. I hate spiders, and although small this one looked a bit 'nasty'. It was a fast moover too, and in my haste to get him (or her) out, I flicked it towards the door and it hit the tent next to the door, disappeared somewhere in the tent or sleeping bag! After frantic searching inside the bag, and between the liner, and on the floor, I couldn't find it anywhere - but I was sure it never made it out. I kept thinking I could feel it moving on me, which was really unpleasant. I've camped in Botswana on safari and there really was a big, nasty spider in my tent so I know this one was me just being stupid, but there's not much I could do about it.
Anyway, up and out. John didn't sleep properly either, and he hasn't camped anything like as much as me, so it was a bit of a shock to the system for him too. Amazingly, John had bought along a re-useable proper coffee filter thing that goes on top of a cup, and fresh coffee, and the water was already boiling. Nice! One look at my pans from last night gave me a quick learn-the-hard-way that wood fires and camping pans don't really mix in the sense that mine were totally black. Oops, that'll take some cleaning. For now, a spare plastic carrier bag saves the day.
We're both struggling to pack down and get organised. After just one day everything seems to be in a mess, and all the gear looks like it will never go back into the panniers. Another coffee, a bit more packing. Brush teeth. Nice open-air shower block, for a refreshingly hot shower in a cold surrounding. Tents nearly down. A bit more chatting and packing.
Then a shock realisation. The ferry! We're well over an hour behind schedule! Who knows how it happened - we were up at the crack of dawn but the dallying and sleepless state has made us totally useless. We had a bit of a margin, and thanks to the GPS showing us it's closer, a bit more margin, but this is still going to be tight. The South Downs are involved and we know it's a hilly route to Newhaven from here. And we're tired.
We throw everything together, and get on the bikes.
We instantly realise that it really is hilly. Not massive hills - we're skirting along the bottom of the Downs - but it's constantly up and down and its quite draining. A check on the GPS, we're way behind schedule. There's also another shock realisation. As it turns out, the GPS distance last night was as the crow flies. Now we've got the track programmed in the route's just as long as we planned in London (no surprise really), so although it's the shortest leg, we're in real risk of missing the ferry. We give it everything we've got and go flat out.
The hillyness, and the tired legs aren't a good mix. Pretty quickly we're exhausted and have to dig really deep to keep up the pace. Hill, after hill, after hill. And it seems like it's more up than down!
The GPS updates aren't reassuring, and although we routed around the Downs, you can't get out of it entirely and we're hitting more hills. Urgh.
"We're so stupid" - is all we keep saying to each other as we push on.
Having slogged it up through Lewes, and coming over the last big hills we can see Newhaven, and we can also see a big ferry which we know is ours as we've done the ferry journey before. There's hope! We dig deeper and go for it. Newhaven seems to be deceptively far away, but eventually we round the corner into the ferry terminal carpark. We speed to the security but there's no one there. The ferry's still there though so we should make it, and we can honestly say we've never cycled so hard to get to it. We rush into the ticket office, and say we're sorry we're late but where do we go.
It's hard to describe how we feel when the lady behind the counter tells us the ramp is up, we should have been here over half an hour ago, and even though the ferry's still there we can't get on it. Begging doesn't help. Thank you LD lines.
Unbelievably, on only day two, we've missed our ferry and are behind schedule. But it's OK, it's 11am and we'll get the next one. What time ?????? 11pm??? Surely there must be an earlier one or another way to get to Dieppe?
Nope. That's it. We've missed it, and we're a day behind. Stupid.
Exhausted and in a daze, we sit in the truckers style cafe and order the worst looking breakfasts we've ever seen. They don't taste any better than they look, my veggie breakfast being a tin of cheap, flavourless plum tomatoes, some powdered eggs, and barely toasted bread. But in this circumstance they go down a treat. We get the iPhones out and look at 'all' the alternatives. We can train it to Dover, but that takes ages and will make the France leg much longer to get back on to track. It would add well over a day. We consider if we could hire a boat to take us over privately but there's nothing else here. Portsmouth is also a long train ride and it takes us off track in France again.
No, we'll have to suck it up and so we decide to have a day off in Brighton instead. The manager offers to lock our bikes in an office so we change into civvies and get the bus into Brighton, sleep deprived and not quite sure how we managed to miss it!
We've got an entire day to fill, so we wander Brighton, get a few extra camping bits (like a proper general night light for the camp area for cooking etc, and some dry bags for food storage), have lunch at Jamie Oliver's Italian, coffees, wander some more, more coffees, have dinner, and then head back to Newhaven at around 8:30pm on the no. 12 bus in the dark, and rain (glad not on bike now). We add a big buffer in the timings this time - getting there at 9:30 latest will be an hour and a half early!
On the bus, a couple of French girls with their shopping bags talk among themselves in French about their day out in brighton. We guessed correctly that they're also getting the ferry.
Back in the terminal it's busy, and we sort out the bikes. The lady at the reception assures us that the passenger waiting area both ends is open 24 hrs, so once we arrive in Dieppe at 3am, we can wait there until daylight. At least that's something as am now really tired, and after a night of limited sleep I really need somewhere to kip down for a few hours.
Ride onto the ferry at around 11pm, having met another cyclist who's riding down to stay at a friends house about 80 miles from Dieppe. He looks at our bikes and says that he likes to travel a bit lighter. When we tell him what they weigh he laughs.
Next Day
The night was a bit odd and it will definitely take a while to get used to the cycle-camping game! I've done a fair bit of camping, but apart from school years, its mainly been for casual weekend things like music festivals, or hanging out with friends, and so not having to actually do anything proper the next day. But today there are things to do! I woke up feeling really dirty and smelly in the sleeping bag this morning (thank you John for deciding to get the sleeping bag liners and getting me one too - it really saved the bag!).
The tent's quite small, and not easy to get comfortable - even on an inflatable Thermarest NeoAir. There's certainly not much room to move inside - which I already knew from reviews and testing it out - but I hadn't really figured in that it's hard to find a comfy position to do basic things like write up the journal in the evening, or plan for the next day, or even make a few phone calls. There's no sitting up comfortably in this baby! That said it did feel very solid, and I am impressed with it.
Anyway, up and out. John didn't sleep properly either, and he hasn't camped anything like as much as me, so it was a bit of a shock to the system for him too. Amazingly, John had bought along a re-useable proper coffee filter thing that goes on top of a cup, and fresh coffee, and the water was already boiling. Nice! One look at my pans from last night gave me a quick learn-the-hard-way that wood fires and camping pans don't really mix in the sense that mine were totally black. Oops, that'll take some cleaning. For now, a spare plastic carrier bag saves the day.
'Breakfast'... coffee... relaxed....
We're both struggling to pack down and get organised. After just one day everything seems to be in a mess, and all the gear looks like it will never go back into the panniers. Another coffee, a bit more packing. Brush teeth. Nice open-air shower block, for a refreshingly hot shower in a cold surrounding. Tents nearly down. A bit more chatting and packing.
Then a shock realisation. The ferry! We're well over an hour behind schedule! Who knows how it happened - we were up at the crack of dawn but the dallying and sleepless state has made us totally useless. We had a bit of a margin, and thanks to the GPS showing us it's closer, a bit more margin, but this is still going to be tight. The South Downs are involved and we know it's a hilly route to Newhaven from here. And we're tired.
We throw everything together, and get on the bikes.
We instantly realise that it really is hilly. Not massive hills - we're skirting along the bottom of the Downs - but it's constantly up and down and its quite draining. A check on the GPS, we're way behind schedule. There's also another shock realisation. As it turns out, the GPS distance last night was as the crow flies. Now we've got the track programmed in the route's just as long as we planned in London (no surprise really), so although it's the shortest leg, we're in real risk of missing the ferry. We give it everything we've got and go flat out.
The hillyness, and the tired legs aren't a good mix. Pretty quickly we're exhausted and have to dig really deep to keep up the pace. Hill, after hill, after hill. And it seems like it's more up than down!
The GPS updates aren't reassuring, and although we routed around the Downs, you can't get out of it entirely and we're hitting more hills. Urgh.
"We're so stupid" - is all we keep saying to each other as we push on.
Having slogged it up through Lewes, and coming over the last big hills we can see Newhaven, and we can also see a big ferry which we know is ours as we've done the ferry journey before. There's hope! We dig deeper and go for it. Newhaven seems to be deceptively far away, but eventually we round the corner into the ferry terminal carpark. We speed to the security but there's no one there. The ferry's still there though so we should make it, and we can honestly say we've never cycled so hard to get to it. We rush into the ticket office, and say we're sorry we're late but where do we go.
It's hard to describe how we feel when the lady behind the counter tells us the ramp is up, we should have been here over half an hour ago, and even though the ferry's still there we can't get on it. Begging doesn't help. Thank you LD lines.
Unbelievably, on only day two, we've missed our ferry and are behind schedule. But it's OK, it's 11am and we'll get the next one. What time ?????? 11pm??? Surely there must be an earlier one or another way to get to Dieppe?
Nope. That's it. We've missed it, and we're a day behind. Stupid.
Exhausted and in a daze, we sit in the truckers style cafe and order the worst looking breakfasts we've ever seen. They don't taste any better than they look, my veggie breakfast being a tin of cheap, flavourless plum tomatoes, some powdered eggs, and barely toasted bread. But in this circumstance they go down a treat. We get the iPhones out and look at 'all' the alternatives. We can train it to Dover, but that takes ages and will make the France leg much longer to get back on to track. It would add well over a day. We consider if we could hire a boat to take us over privately but there's nothing else here. Portsmouth is also a long train ride and it takes us off track in France again.
The reality of the missed ferry sets in for John
We've got an entire day to fill, so we wander Brighton, get a few extra camping bits (like a proper general night light for the camp area for cooking etc, and some dry bags for food storage), have lunch at Jamie Oliver's Italian, coffees, wander some more, more coffees, have dinner, and then head back to Newhaven at around 8:30pm on the no. 12 bus in the dark, and rain (glad not on bike now). We add a big buffer in the timings this time - getting there at 9:30 latest will be an hour and a half early!
On the bus, a couple of French girls with their shopping bags talk among themselves in French about their day out in brighton. We guessed correctly that they're also getting the ferry.
Back in the terminal it's busy, and we sort out the bikes. The lady at the reception assures us that the passenger waiting area both ends is open 24 hrs, so once we arrive in Dieppe at 3am, we can wait there until daylight. At least that's something as am now really tired, and after a night of limited sleep I really need somewhere to kip down for a few hours.
Ride onto the ferry at around 11pm, having met another cyclist who's riding down to stay at a friends house about 80 miles from Dieppe. He looks at our bikes and says that he likes to travel a bit lighter. When we tell him what they weigh he laughs.
Next Day
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