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cycling
We woke up early and broke camp. We had taken showers the night before, so after packing the bags we were rearing and ready to go. But first, we really wanted freshly baked, French pastries for breakfast—because when on bicycle on holiday, we definitely do not count calories…
We woke up around 7:30am, ate breakfast then loaded up the bikes. (When we stay at hotels we take off all the panniers and either store our bikes in the hotel room or in somewhere provided by the hotel.) As we made our way over towards the ferry, we took our time riding along the pier, soaking up the crisp seaside air and gawking at beautiful 'White Cliffs of Dover.' When we got to the entrance we coincidently ran into another bike tourist from US; it was fun to ride with him and figure out where we were supposed to go.
We have had a lot of new adventures and changes happening so far this year and we always say we’ll get around to updating the blog but then things get so busy that we never do. Well, I’m setting a new goal for myself to update our family blog AT LEAST once a week. So here goes!
The last grand adventure we went on was our bike tour through Europe. We ended up cycling 546 miles through five different countries, taking several trains and a few ferries along the way. I’ll break the trip down into a day-by-day series of posts over the next few weeks, so you can read about our (mis)adventures, look at the routes we took, and see some of the wonders we saw. I’ll start at the beginning.
We woke up pretty early and it looked like we were going to get a good start on the day… until the adventures began.
We broke camp fairly quickly. Packed up the tent, made breakfast, loaded up the bikes, and figured out what we were going to do with the still-damp clothing from last night (more on that later). While we did this, the girls played with the neighboring tent’s kids (a single mom out with her 5 kids). At some point during our packing, Sophie came over with one of the neighbor kids and asked to go to the playground. The playground was about 50 meters away from our tent, but behind some trees and caravans, so we couldn’t see it. It seemed harmless enough, so I said she could.
We had already attempted to leave several times, but had been held up by my thesis (I needed to get a draft in to my supervisor before we headed out). We also didn’t leave once because of the rain. Finally, however, we decided to give it a go. We had packed the night before (a must do) and were all ready to go (after finishing cleaning the house) around 10:00 AM. The forecast predicted some showers around 11:00 lasting for about an hour, with sunshine for the rest of the day.
As we chatted with the neighbors about the trip, as we finished attaching the last of the panniers on the bikes, it started to lightly rain. Not so bad. The neighbors snapped a pic and we were off. ...
Moving to Cambridge meant leaving a lot of things behind. All the things you accumulate over five years of marriage.
[. . .]
Here are a bunch of pictures of our cycling adventures in Cambridge!
As we finished loading the kids up into the trailer, our neighbor stepped out and we casually chatted with her for a moment before heading off. She asked where we were heading, we told her that we were riding to Audley End for the afternoon. Her reaction is characteristic of many when we tell them where and how far we’re riding—and Audley End is a relatively short ride!
