Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Start of our three week cycle trip through south-east England and, most importantly, our visit to Jackie in London. We didn’t have much choice when booking the ferry from Hoek Van Holland at this late stage so we had to take the afternoon trip. This made it difficult to reach in time by bicycle, fortunately Jan agreed to take us there by car with the bikes on the carrier even though he was still uncomfortable after a hernia operation. So here we are again, all packed and ready to board.
The boat is less than a year old and very modern, not quite a cruise ship but quite close. At sea you hardly notice you are on a boat, so smooth and silent is the motion. Near our destination, Harwich, it started raining so hard you couldn’t see out of the front windows so we thought ‘Welcome to England’. Fortunately it had slowed to a drizzle when we finally made it through customs and had to find our way to Farm Cottage B&B I had booked. We hadn’t counted on it being so dark already so we had to hurry as we have no lights on the bike.
We were made to feel very welcome by Andy, Robert and Haley and we were offered the use of one of the fixed tents in his small garden so we didn’t have to pitch our own. There were quite a few people there so a bit chaotic, especially as one grumpy motor bike family insisted on putting their big teepee up.
This is the morning after and, thankfully, quite sunny.