Boats and Bikes!

Lots of rain in the forecast and dodging rain is going to be the theme over the next few days until I get well into Spain.

Riding getting more interesting as small hill and winding roads replace the straight roads between trees. Faster ride today with a tail wind at the end.
Tomorrow, I say goodbye to France as I cross the border and spend  the night at Elizondo,
I deliberately adjusted the route in the Landes region to avoid some of the rough roads I used last year. Unfortunately, I still encountered about 20 miles of rough surface!
Picking up the first signs of the well known pilgrim route. Spotted my first pilgrim today. There will be plenty more over the next few days. Some make quite a noise due to the tapping from the hiking sticks.

The Medoc is very flat and whilst the forest routes have traffic free routes on former railways tracks. The view was just about the same along most of the route. Trees, Trees and more trees!

So far – 444 Miles complete for this tour !

In the past, I have cycled to Lege and then down the Cap Feret strip. Generally not a nice route. This time I headed inland as the old rail route continued. Basically this is a 40 mile traffic free route that still goes on further.

First stop is Soulac Plage for a coffee and Almond Croissant.

The Forrest in the Medoc areas is a huge fire risk! Towers like this all over the place to spot fires. Frustrating to see a walker having a smoke and the flicking his butt into dry grass!

The cycle track is well funded and mostly maintained. Only a few spots where tree roots make the surface bumpy.

An opportunity to give the tires some wind!

I had wanted to go to Soulac-Sur-Mer where I have had some amazing holidays in the 80s. On this occasion, all the hotels were booked, but I did manage to find a nice spot in Le Verdon just up the road.

A nice dry ride today through Vendee. For those that know this area, its very flat, but interesting as terrain changes from Vineyards to coastal inlets where oysters are farmed.

And here area few pictures from the ride!
This bridge is the biggest climb of the day (See KM 74 where there is a single peak). Since I crossed this bridge last year, the cycle route has been moved to East side. This has improved the route into the bridge. The surface is really good with excellent separation from traffic. In 10 years, this is my fourth time across the bridge.

Here is a view of a hanging bridge from the bridge I was crossing. I had always thought that this was redundant structure from a lifting bridge. I was quite amazed to see a suspended platform move across the river.

Gosport is my home town, so here is a mugshot to prove that I was there. I was trying to Scowl like Donald Trump who also had a mug shot published today. Think I need more practice to imitate the Donald Grump.

Random picture of my bike posing with some rustic village stuff.

So this is the ferry to Pointe De Grave. Standard design where cars roll on and roll off.
This is one of the older ferries from the 1970s where  the sides would drop down and cars would enter from the side.

Weather have been challenging today. I decided on later start (1100 ish) as weather was due to be very wet until 1200. I got 4 miles into the trip and the heavens opened up!  Luckily I was passing a cafe, so dropped in for coffee.

So this is the view from the hotel!  The rain stopped a hour later so I set off, and still got wet!
Lots of rain around and chasing me very hard. After the first drenching, I managed to miss most of the storms.

Eventually, it dried up and a very nice end to the day. Downside was that the hotel for the night was in a small village where the only Restaurant had closed for good.

Good progress today as I continue South towards Spain. It was a bit overcast to start with, then the sun came out where it got to a very humid 32 degrees. Here is the route map.
Weather forcast is for storms in the morning so its going to be a late start. Just as well as I cannot get into the hotel at the destination until after 1800.

Todays route was a mile longer due to a detour I had to take as a rail crossing was closed.

Just under 10 miles from the Hotel and its time for the first coffee of the day in Redon Port. 

The rather odd looking plane flew over me during the ride. It belongs to Airbus and used to transport wings.

At mile 50 its the Loire crossing. Free of charge. During my last visit, there were bars on each side- both now closed – victim of Covid 19 lockdowns?

Mile 55 and I am about to pass through a village full of very clever people.

Calm crossing last night. Restaurant on the MV Bretange was up to the normal high standard with nice wine to help the food go down.

Weather was really good today and 72 miles complete. Going to keep the distance at the 70 Mile range for now as I get used to the bike again. Its different to the one I normally (as I did for Leg 1.
So here is today’s map.
  It was a bit hilly, and tomorrow will start off with hills and then flatten out.

So here are some pictures. For some reason, the bulk import put them in reverse order and I cannot not be bothered to sort it! Beer pending!

About 12 miles from my destination for the day. Had to detour. Just as well as I hate riding on grit.

Coffee at mile 20. Café owner explained that he had a water filter system and the coffee came from PNG. His aim was to make the best coffee in France. To be fair, it was nice, but not as good as the Portuguese place next to my office in London!

Rough Riding!  But road improved after a mile.

La Rance seen from the East. On previous trip I followed a different route down the est side.

The morning approach to St Malo seen from the deck. This was about 20 mins after the wake up music which was an amazing Celtic style piece.

We here we go!  Its the 2023 tour and a great send off from the team at the RUH. Also a nice card from the team at Save the Children UK.

The first short leg was to the Charmbury Arms for a couple of beers and then an evening with my Mum just up the road. The next day the real long distance riding started with the main part of Leg 1 down to Gosport.The weather was not so good. Plenty of rain and drizzle in the weather forecast. I managed to get quite wet between Norton-St-Phillip and Warminster. For the rest of the ride, I managed to dodge most of the rain.

Here are some pictures from the first leg.

The easiest way out of Bath is via the Linear Park where you can enter the Two Tunnels route which avoids a large hill. Despite taking the easy route at the start, I still had to tackle a nice climb out of Midford. By then I had warmed up.
This is a cycle track just to the north of Warminster. Its very grey and I am very wet. This is the point where the weather started to dry up.
2o miles down the road from Warminster and its still dry on Salisbury.  This is about the half-way point. Just down the road its time for a coffee and cake stop which is a mandatory part of any ride!

after just over 7 hours of riding, and 84.5 miles, I can see the sea!  So for now, its a pause for just over a week as I need to go back to work for a few days before setting off on the main part of the ride. Leg 2 will start on the Tues 22nd August from St Malo, France. Hoping for good weather!

Save the Children is one of the Charities I am raising money for during this road trip. Earlier this year, Turkey and Syria suffered from a massive Earthquake. In both countries, Save the Children was already active before the crisis and was able to swing into action.

From my team, I was able to deploy a technician who assisted with the set up of telecoms for our teams. This technician then joined me in Nepal to assist me in running Disaster Response and Preparedness Training. Here we had around 14 staff attending from across the Asia region.

Here is a short video about our response work in Turkey.

My first mega-tour was in 2013, so we are ten years on and its time to raise more cash for charity. This year I am doing this ride in the memory of my late father “Colin Hawkins” who was always supporting my adventures. It would be amazing if you could support one of my charities via JustGiving.

1. Bath Royal United Hospital (RUHX)  – This is where my late father was looked after when he was taken ill by an amazing team of Nurses and Doctors and other staff. To donate please visit Mark Hawkins is fundraising for RUHX (justgiving.com)

2. Save the Children UK – For my international friends, I am also raising money for Save the Children who I have had the pleasure to work for for the past 9 years. Save the Children maintains a disaster response fund. Money raised enable us to respond immediately to disasters around the world. I have personally been to quite a few in my time and recently my team have deployed to Turkey and Ukraine. To donate, please visit  Mark Hawkins is fundraising for Save the Children (justgiving.com

I will be setting off from the RUH in Bath on the 11th August on my first leg to Portsmouth Harbour. A week later I will start the main ride to Malaga.