La Manche Day 2 - Cherbourg to Carentan

 Off the ferry first thing (w/ only one cup of coffee!).  Made our way through the port and immediately found our route - thanks Komoot!  Everything was clearly sign posted and easy to find (except more coffee!).  Hit the hill out of Cherbourg at about mile 4.

On the ferry, down on the car deck

Coming into Cherbourg Harbour

We were fueled by croissants and coffee!

A car only every 15 minutes and otherwise it was just us and the countryside.  Made our way over the hills on quiet lanes, by lovely French stone houses.  At first it was so quiet, we thought there was a national holiday, but, no, it’s just quiet. And a perfect day for cycling, sunny and in the 60’s.

Followed the Voie Vert (Green Way) for somewhere between 35 to 40 miles.  A gravelled rail trail, we’ve never been on one so long.  Felt a little like being back on LEJOG.  Steve’s comments, ‘Best route ever!’ and ‘These tracks are in better nick than the roads in England.’ 

Last week was the 80th anniversary of D-Day here in Normandy and it was heartwarming to see all of the American flags, the signs of the celebrations held here and the regard for the US servicemen even 80 years later.  

We were here a few years ago with Mom and Dad and visited the beaches so Dad could see where Uncle Karol had landed.  We stayed in a French farmhouse and visited Utah and Omaha beaches, along w/ partaking of some lovely French food and wine!

Stayed tonight in Carentan, a good sized village / small town in Normandy.  The Hotel le Vauban was right in the centre and an easy walk from the port.  We had dinner at Contoir des Marais which was waterfront at the marina, recommended by the hotel.  Note to self, always check out the menu before sitting down and ordering wine.  We found things that we liked though and the place was very cozy - the wine was very good! 

https://restaurant-carentan-lecontoir.com/

Carentan church

52 miles in total today, 1925 feet climbed.  Mainly (very good) gravel tracks.

 

Le Manche, France

Today begins the Le Manche Tour.  A shorter one this time, only 200 miles over four days - from Cherbourg to Saint Malo.  A bit of Normandy and a bit of Brittany.  Day 1 is 50 miles, day 2 is 42 miles, day 3 is 59 miles (w/ some hills) and day 4 is 50 mile w/ a current forecast for rain.  We’re staying in Carentan, Tessy-sur-Vire, Ducey and the last night in Saint Malo.  Didn’t have as much time to train for this after our little fall in Florida, so should be interesting!

5+ hours down to Portsmouth

This is a good chunk of a ride called the Petit Tour de Manche.  The full Tour de Manche covers coastal Dorset and Devon in the U.K. and Brittany / Normandy in France from Cherbourg to Roscoff in France.  It also can include Jersey and Guernsey Islands.  We’ve opted to start in Cherbourg and finish in Saint Malo because we want to stay in the Saint Malo walled city on our last night.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Malo

https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/where-to-go/the-tour-de-manche-bike-route.html

We drove from Blackburn to Portsmouth, roof bars woo-woo’ing all the way.  Sounded like the wind in the rigging on the boat.  Had to keep the speed down to 60mph due to the tandem being on top (which added to the woo-woo’ing) so it took a bit longer than it normally would.  We arrived 5 hours early - oops!

The ferry from Portsmouth is a Brittany Ferry, we quite like those - very French.  Departure time is 10:30pm so no 3-course meal on the way out, but since it’s a day sail we’re planning on one on the way back!

Ended up waiting for a couple hours on the dock before we could get on the ferry, a tad chilly out there, but eventually we got on.  Very interesting entering the boat, can only pedal so far and then you have to get off and walk.  They have a section for cycles, you lean them against the wall and then the crew tie them down.  Bearing all the panniers, we clackity-clacked in our cycling shoes up eight flights of stairs to get from the car deck to our cabin.  As the ferry left at 10pm, we had a boat picnic w/ our bbq chicken and a bottle of wine we’d picked up in Portsmouth - nice way to end the day watching as we headed out of the port and into the channel!

Patiently waiting in the port

And waiting

Bunk beds!

A restorative!

Heading out of the port to France!

LEJOG Day 36 - Inverness to Home

We didn’t understand the scale of the trip until we drove past some of the places we went!  

Got the van

Got the tandem!

347 (more) miles to go!

Onward

Passing by places we pedalled

Castles

Stirling Castle

Scotland is flooded.  If we had been a few days later, we wouldn’t have been able to get through!

Inverness

The River Ness hadn’t flooded its banks 

Whole flooded valleys

We pedalled by this castle, think we would have paddled now

Right over the banks

Even south of Glasgow, flooding

And finally, home!

Cheers!

A celebratory Negroni

Misty evening

Already getting ready for Thanksgiving 

Commemorative!  A bit peaty, but good!

Ahhhh, a home-cooked meal!

Loved it all and glad to be home!

LEJOG Day 35 - Wick to Inverness

I think we’re even more excited about competing the trip today than we were yesterday!  Yesterday was a bit of a flurry with getting to JOG, dropping the bikes off, taxiing to Wick, etc., today there is a more relaxed feeling of accomplishment!  So happy to have done it!!!

The pedalling is done, but the trip anctually isn’t over until we get home!  Today we take the train from Wick to Inverness.  It’s the only train today and there’s flooding all over Scotland so I think we’ll get there early so we don’t miss it (and 🤞🤞🤞 that it runs!)!  Besides there’s not an over abundance of things to do in Wick - we walked back to the B&B last night (Saturday night) and didn’t see a soul!l

We’re staying at the Royal Highland Hotel in Inverness tonight, right next to the train station.  Train station hotels have been an ongoing joke throughout our marriage since Steve booked one early on and we admired the view…of the tracks 😂.  Actually hotels next to train stations have proved to be quite good over the years as they’re almost always a short walk to the Old Town restaurants wherever we are visiting.  We’ll see how this one is.

Post: Edit  

Wick to Inverness

To get there, a mere 104 miles, we have a 4.5 hour train journey with 22 stops!  We will, however, be going much faster than our recent average of 8-9mph!

Heading to Inverness from Wick

Before we realised that due to covid, alcohol is banned on Scotsrail trains

Today’s farm, best view we could get

One of the clearest views we had today 😂

It is spectacularly miserable out and I am so glad we’re not pedalling in it!  Getting a glimpse into what Scotland is like in the winter when it never really gets light.  Nice when we got to Inverness though.

Lovely to arrive here!

Even with a train station view

A real old style hotel

Found a new brewery 

We pedalled over the Black Isle so had to stop here for drinks!

The beers list

Black Isle IPA and a Black Isle Porter were had

Spanish tonight

Tapas

Inverness at night

Royal Highland Hotel

Great to be back in Inverness, this may be our new favourite small city!  Everything w/in walking distance, great foo, a very European vibe - loved it!

Some statistics from the trip:

1158.2 miles pedalled

57,750 feet climbed

??? pictures taken (still counting)

35 blog posts

37 hills pushed up

27mph highest speed noted

11.5 highest average speed

7.6 lowest average speed

3 bikes ridden

3 flights of stairs carrying bikes

29 hotels

28 great, good or okay hotels

2 tumbles off bikes

(Thousands) of farms, cows and sheep seen

(Est 120) pints of beer 

(Classified) glasses of wine

3 points where we thought about giving up (Cornwall, broke tandem, Tongue to Thurso windiest day)

2 vans hired

1 train ride

1 tandem wheel broken

1 number of takeaways

0 punctures

0 cheats (transport other than bicycles taken)

0 harsh words spoken

Would we do LEJOG again?  Spoke about this earlier and the answer still stands.  No, not because it wasn’t fabulous and one of the best trips we’ve ever done, but because we liked it so much, we’d like to do more!  

Steve’s Letters From…

Hello avid LFA’s and welcome to this week’s edition which is the last one from Scotland for a while. Most will have been following events on the Blog, expertly and diligently maintained by Katherine. 

So the big news is we finished LEJOG.  No records were broken and by many standards it was a leisurely wander up through the UK, but for two 60 something year olds it was a pretty big deal and we are pleased and blessed that we are fit enough to do it.

The last section has in many ways been the most challenging and the most rewarding. The tandem breaking on the run from Aviemore to Inverness was a bad break, but that could have been worse. We took a brake block off the back rim brakes and limped into Inverness which was probably the last place big enough to have a bike shop and access to rental bikes so we were able to craft a solution to the problem. 

The weather has been the other obvious challenge.  Not much you can do about that, just “keep on keeping on”. On the upside, the scenery is spectacular.  It’s hard to grasp the remoteness of it all until you ride all day without passing through any villages and with so few amenities. North of Lairg even the A roads are single track with passing places.  In places electricity is provided by generators most noticeable on communication tower installations.  After you pass a few with generators running, you realise these aren’t “standby generators”, that’s how the telephone network is provided!! 

Looking forward into next week.  First challenge is to get home.  There are weather warnings in place for heavy rain in Scotland, the rivers are already in flood in some places so that might not be straightforward. 

Going to be strange not going back to work and a million emails!! 

Once we are back then it’s time to prepare for the “migration” to warmer climes for the winter.  We leave from home on the 16th October for Florida and we have been “on the road” for the past five weeks. 

There is also the small matter of UK Thanksgiving.  This will be the first one since before COVID and I think I am the only “Kitchen Slave” in attendance so there are a few potatoes to be peeled!! 😳. Looking forward to it though.

Well, that’s it for this week,  have a great week. 

Steve & Katherine.