Day 23: Down the coastline to Calais

August 5, 2024

Bray-Dunes, FR to Calais, FR

Today I woke up and rolled out by 830. I only woke up to a couple snails on the outside of my tent, no slugs. Variety is the spice of life!

The days plan was pretty short, take a peek at Dunkirk, fix my chain, then head off to the French port city of Calais. I had bought my Tuesday morning ferry ticket yesterday at the beach.

The ride to Dunkirk took about an hour. I spent some time sitting at the beach and reading about the events leading up to and during the evacuation. Part of why I like this trip is it sparks my curiosity to learn and also refresh on the things I’d read before.

This is the WRONG way - it works but extra friction and will much more quickly wear down your chain. Bad!

I then headed off to the nearby Decathlon who assured me quick links even if single use should be fine to undo and relink so the re route was pretty quick and everything was tip top. Bike shop folks are heroes. I also resolved to practice even more with the mechanical stuff that I don’t do as often, my main weaknesses right now is the derailleur related things or spoke issues.

Finally the ride to Calais. This ended up being over a flat farmland / plains type of area and boy was it windy. It seemed like no matter which direction I went it was constantly headwind. It was probably the slowest 15km I’ve ridden besides the Alps climb. I’m glad this trip hasn’t been windy but it gives me more respect for how hard it must be to do go to particularly windy regions.

Gravelines was a pretty cool detour with two long arms of beach land extending out into the sea.

Gravelines west side (no bike indication either way)

That’s not me - but if I had a tripod I’d take photos like this

I reached the Calais campgrounds closer to 1700 and quickly set up and relaxed. I planned to wake quite early tomorrow (545) just to avoid any stress about being late to the Ferry or any delays in the controls.

I spent some of the evening sitting on a sandy lookout over the beach. The campsite is nice one

Beach within walking distance from campground. The sandbars are interesting there’s pockets of water interspersed by sand.

Irish Ferries happened by while I was watching. I’ll be taking DFDS but still neat.

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,714 km (1,064 miles)

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