England is really a brutal country: But I made it around the world!!!

August 2, 2016

I slept very badly. Maybe I'd spent too much time in that big comfy bed on the ship, but the cold hard ground just wasn't doing it for me anymore. To make matters worse all night long rain pounded on my tent. With all the noise I just tossed and turned and had fitful dreams of being in a flood. Morning came and I got up early, feeling weary and tired, but grateful that the rain had at least downgraded from torrential downpour to light drizzle. Summertime in England.

I cycled on small roads for another twenty kilometres to Basingstoke. Still following the Sustrans bike route I followed the trusty blue arrows into a park. The next sign told me to turn right, but as I did so my front wheel slipped out from beneath me. I knew I was going down, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. I once broke my arm by putting my hand out in a fall, so I remembered in a spilt second to reverse my instinct and pull it back, and instead took the impact with my shoulder. A woman walking in the park stopped to see if I was alright. It was a hard fall but other than a sore shoulder, hip and thumb, plus being a little shaken, I seemed to be okay. The woman told me she'd slipped in the same spot the other day. Then as I walked around to take a photo of my fallen bike I skidded and slipped around some more. These paving slabs at the entrance to the park were like ice. It was extraordinarily dangerous. I thought it very irresponsible that a public path should have paving that becomes so incredibly slippery when wet, particularly in a country where it rains so much, and I resolved to write a stern letter to Basingstoke City Council saying as much. (I still haven't got around to this.)

Dear Basingstoke City Council, if you're reading this, please do something about this. Thanks

I continued out of Basingstoke on more small roads. At one point the rain came down much harder and I hid under a big oak tree. By luck I was next to a fantastic old Roman wall at that point, and it even had a stone sticking out that I could sit on while I waited for the rain to pass. Remarkable to think about how old that wall was, especially considering how very sturdy it still was.

Sturdy enough to hold my bike up and everything!

Another twenty kilometres and I was in the town of Reading. I went to the library and spoke a little with Dea. She was now on her way from Denmark, cycling towards me, and our reunion in the Netherlands was getting close. In fact I booked my ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland from the library. It was all so real and I could not wait to see her again.

In this park I sat and took a break and was amazed that everyone else in the park was looking at their phones. Seriously. There are 13 adults in this photo and they are all looking at their phones. They missed out on looking at the big lion. It's a shame for them.

But Reading also had a special meaning for my bike ride around the world. You see, although I made Paris the official start point for the trip, and is therefore where I started this journal from, I actually cycled from Edinburgh, where I had been living, to Paris, beforehand. It was kind of a warm-up ride. But that meant that at some point, either in Winchester or in Reading or some point in between (I cannot remember exactly which way I cycled three years ago) I connected with my route down to Paris and had therefore actually now circumnavigated the entire planet, using nothing but my bicycle, boats, and a pick-up truck driven by a relatively attractive Mongolian woman. Because I'd not recorded the cycle down to Paris I couldn't work out the exact point when I completed this feat, but when I reached Sustrans route 5, I knew that I must have crossed it somewhere, and I took a photo to commemorate the moment.

The moment when I knew I had definitely gone around the entire world by bicycle and boats (and a pick-up truck driven by a relatively attractive Mongolian woman, who, by the way, I've decided probably wasn't actually attractive at all)

I followed route 5 north towards Oxford, taking the same roads that I'd followed on my first days out of London on my earlier, ill-fated trip, when I'd set off to cycle around the world the first time back in 2010. How strange it was to see the same 'quiet lane' signs, the same paths, to recognise things from then, from when I had been just setting out, with anticipation of the world but no real clue of what I was doing, knowing nothing about bikes and not even a proper plan for where I would go, what I would see. And to be back now, more than 100,000 kilometres of cycling later, having actually done the thing, having been around the world and seen so much and to still, essentially, have no real clue of what I was doing. It was special.

Day Two of my first trip, the 2nd of May 2010, I took this same photo.

An interesting path that the cycle route took me down at one point

I was feeling much better about England. The familiar roads began to feel like home again. Frustrating then, to lose my way. The Sustrans routes are great, but miss one sign and you're lost. I missed one sign, and began to wish I had a plan B, like a map, or a gps, or a compass. All I had was my wits, and blind luck, a combination of which had me spotting Didcot power station over the fields and far away. I knew from six years ago that the bike route went right past the cooling towers, so I just cycled towards them until I was reunited with the cycle route again. I was tired, and I was tired of the English country lanes which were far too hilly and had many drivers on who drove too fast for the narrow, winding roads.

Ah, yes, at least a nice cycle path beside Didcot power plant. I remembered it well

Luckily there were sections of paths, like the one past the power station, and on to Abingdon. I found my way through there and out to a nice private campsite. Now that I was away from Canada one very good thing was that I no longer had to worry about mosquitoes and I thought I might even be able to sit outside and eat dinner. But then it started to rain again and I had no choice but to retreat to the tent. I felt bruised from the fall, exhausted from the hills, and fed-up with the rain. I'd made it around the world but for all that I'd been through, everywhere I'd travelled, I had rarely felt so exhausted and battered by the end of a day on the bike. England is really a brutal country.

Today's ride: 124 km (77 miles)
Total: 55,874 km (34,698 miles)

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