France

Julien again faced bad weather and useless maps as he continued his cycle to the coast. Much like yesterday Julien had to make a 30 mile detour off the planned route to get back on track. This meant that he only just made the 2 o’clock ferry to Dunkirk. The rain died down as he crossed the channel but sadly picked up again as he set foot in Dunkirk.

Julien got off at Dunkirk along with a large number of trucks which he had to cycle alongside until he found an alternative route. Eventually he ended up getting a bit lost again and kept ending up back on the motorway leading out of Dunkirk. After a while, Julien decided to pull into a shop where he used his best French to communicate with the locals – one of whom cycled ahead of Julien for around 6 miles to the main road into De Panne!

After around 20km Julien made it to the town of De Panne. As the bad weather persisted he decided to spend the night in a local hotel. Julien is hoping for better weather and the chance to camp out in the open tommorrow. The good news is that Belgium has great cycle ways, so from here on in, progress should be a bit quicker!

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Google Map Day Two

Time is ticking away as the ensuing departure date is now less than a week away. Even though I have been preparing for this trip for ages, I am stick racked with anticipation. Concerns of the overall requirements of the ride interlaced with daily issues such as shopping, whilst not having my kit stolen or finding somewhere to camp. All in all, there are many issues to contend with.

In the grander scheme of things, I hope that this ride is a success. By this, not only do I mean achieving the loft target of cycling 2800 miles to a vary sparsely populated are of the world but I also mean raise finds for the charity I have dedicated this ride to, Child’s I Foundation. So far, I have raised just under £350 on my Just Giving page, which is a good start. I hope that as I continue, people read about the various adventures I am likely to have en route as my blog will be maintained by Tom from Child’s I, in my absence. I would love to hit my target amount of £2,500, so please keep reading this blog and make a donation if possible. All of the money is destined to help kids in Uganda. I am paying for all of my own expenses on this trip!

I have been testing all of my kit prior to my departure and so far, so good. I have to make sure I can maintain my MSR stove as I know occasionally they can gunk up. The biggest challenge will be to decide how much stuff to take along with me. In the first couple of weeks, the temperature will hopefully remain in the warm twenties. However, the further I travel up the spin of Sweden, the cool the weather will become. Indeed, the figures I have seen for night time temperatures for Nordkapp and the north coast of Norway, even in mid summer, are around 4 degrees Celsius. The weather is also likely to me inclement but that should only add to the drama of the journey.

It would be great to hear from any one if they have experience of travelling in this part of the world as so little has been written about it. That said, hopefully my blog will be a useful place for other people considering this journey as a portal of information in due course.