DAY 0: HORSHAM - PORTSMOUTH: 83km
FRIDAY 29 MAY

We woke up before the alarm to the sun streaming through the window - we couldn't believe our luck, it was the first nice morning of the summer so far and it also happened to be our departure day. Mum's text said it all "what a lovely day for an adventure". We got up and had a nice big bowl of porridge and the texts started to come in - wishing us well, and marvelling at our luck with the weather. We both felt really relaxed and not at all nervous about the journey ahead.

Although we were not having an official send-off party, as we wanted to keep our departure time flexible, our neighbours were keeping an eye on us and waiting to wave us off. When we were almost ready I rang Ruth who I wanted to be involved in our departure and at 8.30am, after a nice relaxed start to the day and with our neighbours out in the street to wish us well it was time to get going.

After months of preparation we're off

It was so exciting to be on our way after so much planning and Ruth followed on her trike for the 2km. Then, at the end of Robin Hood Lane as Ruth turned back to Horsham we were on our own and on our way to France.

Our first stop came sooner than we had planned - at Broadbridge Heath Post Office! Rob's knee was hurting and we stopped to buy some Nurofen as it was easier to buy some at this early stage than start looking through the neatly packed panniers.

The weight of the trailer wasn't as bad as I was expecting and I was pleasantly surprised how easily (all things considered) we managed our first hill. Rob's knee was troubling him slightly and we stopped at the top so he could stretch and I took the opportunity to read more texts of encouragement that we had received since leaving home 30 minutes earlier.

The West Sussex lanes looked beautiful in the warm early morning sun

I was slightly nervous about the hill to West Chiltington as I could just about manage it on my solo bike and didn't want to think about how difficult it would be to ride the loaded tandem up it but, somehow, we made it and we knew then that there wouldn't be any hills on our route we couldn't conquer - with maybe the exception of the hill to Lacour of course!

West Chiltington suddenly felt so English




Action shot - leaving West Chiltington




Time for a cake stop at Pulborough Brooks

We left Pulborough Brooks feeling refreshed and pleased with our progress and enjoyed a pleasant ride through the wooded lanes to Amberley although we were mindful of the fact that we still had to get over the South Downs.

We felt confident we could climb Houghton Hill and the South Downs




The climb wasn't that bad - and the view was definitely worth it

There wasn't a sensible alternative route and we therefore had to follow the busy A29 and then the A27 for a while. As we passed a couple of teenage boys they watched us go past and then quietly and self-consciously clapped us. The main road turned into a busy stretch of dual-carriageway which wasn't very pleasant.

We also had to negotiate some large and busy roundabouts




However, we were soon back on to quieter roads




We were ready for lunch by the time we reached Chichester




After lunch we negotiated the gated crossing as quickly as we could

Most of the afternoon's ride took us along fairly busy main roads as again there wasn't really any choice.

We were compensated by a lovely view of Chichester Harbour

We were both feeling good, although Rob needed to stop occasionally to stretch his leg, and we really weren't noticing the extra weight of the trailer as the route was mainly flat.

We had a brief stop in Havant

We weren't expecting the hard climb to Bedhampton - but it did give us our first view of Portsmouth

On the outskirts of Portsmouth all the main roads were really busy with fast moving traffic and it got worse towards the city centre. I was terrified as we approached an enormous fast-moving roundabout and just had to put my trust in Rob and hope for the best.

Even the cycle path was full of cycle commuters with road rage

There also constantly seemed to be a lot of glass by the side of the roads which didn't help my nerves and I was pleased that the last big roundabout we came to was blocked with stationary traffic that we managed somehow to weave around.

It was a relief to get to the ferry port in one piece

Someone in the queue looked at us and smiled and said light-heartedly "You look like a pair of Liquorice Allsorts". I hadn't actually thought of it like that before but on looking at us I realised what he meant. I was there in pink and black and Rob was in yellow and black. All I could reply was "Well, it could be worse, I could be a jelly baby".

The hour wait passed quickly




Soon we were invited to board

Once on board we found our way to our cabin and were really pleased that we had paid the £10 upgrade to a twin cabin with a porthole. It felt much more spacious than the normal cabins and not having a bunk bed would mean a much better night's sleep. Plus we had the benefit of a view of course!

After a shower we went up to the beautiful restaurant and were shown to our table (the same one as last year as it happened). We weren't in a hurry to eat as it was still relatively early but we needed to secure a table as they work on a first come first served basis. We spent a bit of time drinking our apero and writing up our diaries. When we did eat, the meal was beautiful - a lovely salad buffet to start and my main course came with an amazing basil sorbet. The cheese and biscuit and dessert buffet was as good as I remembered it.

I enjoyed the freedom of the dessert buffet

We retired to our cosy cabin and I sat up in bed looking at the photos we had taken during the day, writing up my journal and reading all the texts from well-wishers that had arrived. It was lovely to know so many of our family and friends were thinking of us and I was really excited about the journey ahead.

DAY 1: ST. MALO - RENNES: 90km
SATURDAY 30 MAY



What a lovely view to wake up to

I woke up feeling very tired. I hadn't slept ever so well as I had woken up a few times in the night as I was thirsty. Annoyingly it was only in the morning light that I noticed we had put our bidons by the bed in case we needed a drink in the night. My knees felt a bit sore from the day before and I had forgotten to put Biofreeze on them before I went to sleep. I vowed to make sure I did that as a preventative measure in future along with a daily dose of Nurofen.

I soon perked up as I watched our approach to St. Malo

We thought we would have breakfast on the boat but unfortunately just as we got to the till the computers crashed and they were unable to serve us and while we waited to see if the problem was going to be fixed easily the announcement came for passengers to return to the car decks. As the bike shed was at the front of the boat we thought we ought to get down there as soon as we could in case they wanted the bikes to go first. As it turned out we did not have priority and were told to push the bike off the ferry at the same time as the cars were exiting.

A loaded tandem and trailer is not the easiest thing to manoeuvre

It was lovely to arrive in St. Malo and, although there was a bit of a chill in the air, it promised to be a beautiful sunny day. After spending a bit of time setting the Garmin we were ready and cycled out of the ferry port and through the suburbs and an industrial area.

It wasn't long before we were on the open road




It was a bit of a climb to Chateau Malo




where we found our first coffee stop - shame it didn't have seats outside

We were feeling hungry by this point and couldn't see a bakery in the village but luckily we had cereal bars with us and so ate one of those with our drinks before setting off again on a fairly busy D road and then onto quieter D roads.

We cycled through wonderful countryside




and pretty dark-stoned villages




Everything looked so fresh - they must've had a lot of rain recently

I took the opportunity to apply more chamois cream in a village WC as the seam of my shorts was rubbing

What a pretty leafy lane




Rob had a "I need one of the emergency biscuits" moment

We stopped to check what felt like play in the bottom bracket to the amusement of the cows

Just one more straight, fast road until lunch

After 41km I felt ready for a break. The scenery had been beautiful - lots of parkland, pasture and potato fields, together with some lovely ponds and watercourses but it had been quite hard work as we had spent a lot of the time cycling into a headwind.

We had discovered Combourg's town website when researching the route and decided to make that our lunch stop as it looked really nice - although it's hard to tell from the internet whether somewhere is really nice or whether they just have a good publicist. It turned out to be a really lovely town and somewhere we would like to return to on another occasion.

What a perfect spot - the goats cheese pie was amazing but the wind was so strong I had to hold on to my salad while I ate

To keep costs down we bought our pudding at the baker's and took it by the river

Before setting off again after lunch we checked the front pedals as they hadn't felt quite right earlier and discovered that we needed to tighten the cranks. At least it was a simple thing to fix and not the bottom bracket playing up.

We reluctantly left Combourg at 3pm and promptly had a long drag up a hill - I was glad I had only had a light lunch and a 25cl pichet. We continued to pass fields of cows who stopped chewing to watch us go by and you could almost hear them say "What the **** is that?".

We had a bar stop in Dinge

There was a group of English cyclists sitting outside the bar and we joined them. They were a real mixture of characters and ages and we had a bit of banter and cycle chat with them. As we discussed routes one of them said "It's about 70km, I measured it on my credit card". This really made me laugh and I told him that I would have to include his quote in my blog. He retorted that he would have to include the fact that we got out our small lightweight fold up stools (from Poundland) to sit on from a heavily laden tandem (they had someone to carry their luggage). However we had the last laugh as we were the ones with a seat - and he was having to stand.

We left the bar shortly after the other group as we needed to get going as we still had a way to go before we got to Rennes.

This cross looked like it had been made from wood from a house




We reached the Ille et Rance Canal




This would take us all the way to Rennes




An idyllic rural scene at one of the road crossings




The reflections were beautiful

Although our progress wasn't as quick as it would have been on the road the surface was good and the view certainly made up for it. It was a lovely summer late afternoon and the daisies and yellow irises looked beautiful. However, I was pleased when Rennes came into view as I was ready to arrive.

As we approached the town centre we stopped by the side of the road and stood astride the bike while we worked out which direction our hotel was in. The next thing we noticed a car reversing, not very quickly, but certainly in our direction. We were unable to move out of the way and if Rob hadn't banged the back of the car with his fist to alert the driver to stop we we would have been run over. The passenger was extremely apologetic and we rode off feeling a bit shaken.

We had pre-booked a hotel on the basis that there weren't any campsites in Rennes and received a warm welcome from the staff at the Kyriad Hotel.

The patient staff helped us sort out our luggage

We were shown to a lovely spacious room with a little balcony overlooking the station. We strung up our washing line in the bathroom and got our washing up-to-date while we showered and the bathroom soon resembled an Italian slum. By the time we were ready to go out it was gone 8.30pm and we walked up into the old town.

We enjoyed walking around soaking up the atmosphere of a summer's evening

We looked at various restaurants and decided that we would find the Italian the hotel receptionist had recommended.

Villa d'Este certainly lived up to our expectations

We had a very good meal sitting out on the little terrace and for our main course had a trio of pasta dishes - just the thing to set us up for the following day.

We had a lovely view from our table

It was late by the time we got back to our hotel - but we had had a lovely relaxed evening

DAY 2: RENNES - BLAIN: 101km
SUNDAY 31 MAY

Despite our late night we woke up before our 7am alarm and were keen to get up and get going. We had considered having the hotel's breakfast buffet but it looked very disappointing so we decided to get a coffee in a cafe on our way out of town instead.

We found a friendly bar in the sun

An elderly customer asked me to help him with his mobile phone as he was going to mass and wanted to turn it on to silent. After chatting to him it transpired he was an artist and he told us that his work, together with others, was being exhibited at a forthcoming exhibition in St. Malo. He did a sketch of me on the back of our bar bill and I asked him to sign it (just in case he did turn out to be famous).

Luckily the roads around Rennes were quiet as it was a Sunday as it took us a bit of time to find the start of the cycle path that followed the Vilaine as we were not sure what side of the river we should be on.

At last we found the cycle path




What a perfect picnic spot for breakfast

We didn't leave our breakfast stop until nearly 11am and we had only cycled 8km! We had had a very slow start to the morning what with the coffee stop and looking for the canal path and we really had to start making some progress.

The path suddenly became very narrow which slowed us up even more

The route was worth it for the view though

We met a cyclist coming the other way who advised us that the path ahead was very narrow and rough and he didn't think it would be suitable for the trailer. He very kindly took us on a road route which would avoid the worst of it and we rode together to Pont-Rean where we could re-join the river path. As we rode we chatted about cycling and it transpired that he too had a tandem and trailer.

We would have to visit Pont Rean on another occasion - at midday we still hadn't reached our half way point

The river path was beautiful




The weather was perfect




However, the path surface was variable




In places it was too bad to cycle on

It was a beautiful route but because of the surface our speed was greatly reduced. At one point we hit deep fine gravel and came to an abrupt stop and somehow managed not to fall off. We also stopped a few times as we could hear a noise coming from the back wheel but couldn't work out what it was. After stopping for the third or fourth time we realised that the stand had come loose and was rubbing the wheel. We tried to tighten it the best we could but didn't have the right tool to get into such an awkward spot. We were ready for our lunch when we arrived at Port du Guipry at 2.30pm.

Luckily the Creperie du Port was still serving

It was nice to sit down and relax over our pancakes and look at the view of the river, but we didn't get going again until almost 4pm and we were only half way through our day's distance.

We continued to follow the Vilaine

It was such a scenic ride and we made better progress after lunch although it was very hot and my bum was beginning to feel a bit numb. We passed a group of walkers who wished us "bon courage" and clapped and commented on Rob's "maillot jaune". I was looking forward to camping that evening as it was such a beautiful day.

It was nice to get back on to the tarmac

We had a bar stop at Besle where there was a campsite right by the river which was very tempting. It was 6pm by this time and still very hot - and we still had 30km to do. However, we decided that we should stick to our original route as it would put more pressure on us the next day and the only place to eat in Besle was the bar we had stopped at and the menu didn't look very good. Although it was the right decision to continue I was beginning to struggle as my bum was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and I came to the conclusion that 80km is my comfortable limit for a day's cycling. This was unfortunate as most days would be longer than that!

We had a long, albeit gentle, climb

We passed through Guemene Penfao which had some nice looking bars with inviting terraces but didn't stop as it was getting late and we needed to get to our campsite and, more importantly, out to eat before the restaurant stopped serving.

We arrived at Camping du Chateau, Blain at 7.45pm

During the planning stages I had researched restaurants at each of our destinations and had found a restaurant within walking (not cycling!) distance of the campsite and on our arrival gave them a ring to book a table and enquire what time they stopped serving to be told 8.45pm sharp. That really did not give us much time which was a shame as it would've been nice to sit for 5 minutes and enjoy the evening sun. Instead we had a frantic rush to pitch the tent, shower, do our washing and get ourselves ready to go out.

We didn't have far to walk




The Auberge du Canal was in a lovely riverside position

I upset the waiter by asking to move from inside to a table on the terrace when it became free

It was lovely looking at the boats moored along the river bank

We ate quite a nice meal of kangaroo, which made a change from the usual steak and felt satisfied as we walked back to our tent. It was a lovely warm evening and perfect for camping.