And so it begins…

One day down on my trip from London to Barcelona.  I left London at 2 PM yesterday and rode for the whole day.  My goal was to make it to the coast on time to catch the 10:30 ferry in Newhaven.  When I got there, they were loading the ferry… sweet.

I over-packed... but I have plenty of clothes for the beach.

The English countryside was quite lovely.  The hills were covered with little lambs and tiny little rabbits by the dozen were eating by the side of the road.  Unfortunately I didn’t really have time to enjoy it since I knew if I missed the ferry I’d be stuck in Newhaven overnight.  Still, it reminded me that the original purpose of this trip was pleasure, not speed, so I’ve decided to take my sweet old time as I bike through France. Ok, back to the day’s events…

After boarding the ferry I had a four hour ride to France.  That gave me a little time to sleep, but not much.  I’d planned on continuing biking when I got off the ferry, but the near absolute darkness and mess of trucks dissuaded me.  I decided to pull my bike up by the sea and get some sleep.

A little chilly, but an excellent view.

So today will be a fairly relaxed day.  I’ll be at Rouen, home to a very famous cathedral, sometime mid-afternoon.  I’ll almost certainly keep going after that, but am not really sure how far I’ll go.  Most likely I’ll just sleep in the woods somewhere and aim for Tours, and a youth hostel, tomorrow.  We’ll see though.  That’s already sounding like too much planning…