Day 9 – Thursday 7 August

Guines to Martin Mill

Campsite

Hawthorn Farm Park, Martin Mill (http://www.keatfarm.co.uk/)

Notes

I was up at six o’clock and away from the campsite by eight in patchy sunshine. Just as I was having my usual bread and cheese for breakfast one of the people I’d been chatting to last evening came over to say how much she had enjoyed talking about my trip and handed me two boiled eggs and a banana to see me on my way. I thanked her and said that she really shouldn’t have. I felt a bit like crying.

I headed into Guines and picked up the route I had followed with the others two months earlier, along the canal into central Calais and then following the signs for car ferries to England. They lead you along a high chain link fence for what seems an age until you double back inside the ferry terminal to the booking office. It was €31.30 for a foot passenger and the bicycle didn’t cost anything. I waited at the front of the queue along with some motorbikes and then rode on ahead of the traffic, right up to the front of the lower boat deck and tied up to a bulkhead with a handy piece of rope. We sailed at quarter to eleven and arrived in Dover at quarter past eleven: that’s one and a half hours with the time difference.

Initially I found myself in the back streets of Dover in the middle of a medical emergency with streets cordoned off and no way through, so I back-tracked and tried again, only this time finding myself on the A2 fly-over that corkscrews its way out of Dover over the docks. That was no good, and eventually I found the road that heaves itself out of Dover in the other direction and doubles back over the A2 towards St Margaret's at Cliffe.

I got to Martin Mill around two o’clock and by the time I was pitched and washed it was raining again. An hour later the sun was out so I stretched my washing line between the hedge and an electric hook-up point and went off to find something to eat. When I returned a Dutch couple had utilised the empty end of my line and it turned out that the husband had thought his wife had put it up, and there was a minor international incident until we sorted out ownership. After that we were the best of friends and I ended up giving them my map of south east England that was a lot better than their Dutch version. The forecast for the next few days was vile in expectation of Hurricane Bertha and I had decided to get the train back to Birmingham.

My route from Martin Mill involved camping near Thurnham on the Pilgrims Way, crossing the Thames on the Gravesend to Tilbury ferry and camping at Kelvedon Hatch, finally camping at Olney and then to Birmingham on the last day. I toyed with the idea of braving the expected rain but in the end went to the station next door to the campsite where the ticket lady made me a cup of coffee with a biscuit while she looked up the train times for me. She even gave me a London tourist map of central London to help me get from Charing Cross to Marylebone. You don't get that everywhere! In London I cycled down the Mall that had been closed to traffic while they put up spectator stands for the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 mile event on Sunday and arrived at Marylebone with three minutes to spare for the train to Birmingham. I was helped through the ticket barrier by an understanding member of staff and actually rode round to the distant platform and got into the bicycle/wheel chair compartment with about 30 seconds to spare.

The following day the organisers of the RideLondon event cut out some of the climbs on the route because of the weather and the riders were deluged. I was glad to be back in Birmingham.