First Day on the Road

London to Rochester 33 miles 1400 ft climb

Leave London 7 am

Arrive Rochester 4:30 pm


We knew that the first day would be hard.  

We had not been on our bikes for a while

It was a long 36 mile route, our longest of this trip

And we had to get out of the centre of London



We were on the road at 7am and crossed the Tower Bridge a few minutes later.  Getting through the first six miles or so was easy


Our first stop about two hours out for something to drink. The first ten miles was pretty much flat and then went into steep hill climbs.  Part way the hills the road came to a sudden end and there was a burned out car straight from a crime scene.  No corpse or crime scene tape.



It was a grinding day where we walked half the hills and got to the hotel exhausted.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arriving in Brussels

Image
Like the last two days we woke up to rain.  Had breakfast and by the time we were ready to leave it had clears up so we decided to forge onto Brussels.  The start was a slow uphill that ended (almost) in a two mile downhill.  Partway through the downhill in Brussels was the Heart of Brussels sculpture  There was a half mile hill at the end of the two mile downhill that we decided to walk.  But fortunately the last 1/4 mile was flat so we managed to pedal to our destination.  Covered about 250 miles over about 10 days. Brussels is the largest town we arrived aft since leaving London.   What trip is complete without a relic from a Saint.  This is what is left is St Elizabeth.  I can’t tell you how many pieces of the true cross we saw.  It must have been a big tree. Our boxes arrived from Amazon and we got Sandy’s bike packed up.
Read more

Canterbury Cathedral

Image
 Today was a long walking tour of Canterbury Cathedral.   On the way to Canterbury Cathedral we stopped at St Thomas Catholic Church.  A small church but with relics of Thomas Becket For history buffs Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas Becket was killed.  “Who shall rid me of this meddlesome priest” Going back to 1070 the cathedral has undergone construction and renovation for over 900 years.  Overall we preferred this to Westminster Abbey. Inside the Choir Stall Stone Pulpit Roof Detail of the Spire After lunch we went to St Augustine’s Abbey.  This is the oldest church property in the UK and goes back to 600AD  in use until the dissolution of the church by Henry VIII Abbey Ruins
Read more

Aalst

Image
 This morning she woke up to cold and rain.  Walking out to breakfast we got wet, we decided that a train wouldn’t be a bad idea.  Got back, packed, and left for the train station.   Along the way we got wetter, but when we go to the train station it stopped raining and looked sunny.  Checking the weather app showed no rain for the next four hours so we decided to make a run for it. We quickly made a route from the train station and pushed off. The ride was pretty uneventful.  The possible exception would be the airplane on top of the house. By 2:30 we reached our destination for the day. Our speed Was about 3x what we did in the UK. The Belfry in Aalst.  Pretty town but much larger than i expected. Wandering around town we found a church alter that was painted by Rubens.  Painted in 1630, stolen by the French and put in the louvre in 1789 and returned in 1813
Read more