Cycling to Paris - Day 1 Part 2

Leaving the second water stop at Stelling Minnis, Matt, Alex and myself headed for the Port of Dover via a short, steep climb reaching a peak at just on the other side of Swingfield Minnis.  Keeping me going was Matt's suggestion of fish and chips in Dover.  At the water stop, Matt had sounded out Mark, the mechanic, for advice on decent watering holes along the way into Dover but after cycling past some unappealing places we just ploughed ahead and into Dover.  None of us fancied eating ferry food.

The castle was on the hill above us to our left and the orange arrows continued to show the way to our destination.  A quick stop at Morrison's for cash and cold spray for Matt's knee and then a right turn and another right at the roundabout and up a short hill and we found a decent looking cafe to sit down for a meal.  We ordered large fish and chips and a beer and what arrived was truly magnificent.  Freshly cooked, beautifully prepared cod and chips that were clearly cooked in some very fresh oil.  Along with a cool glass of lager, you couldn't ask for more.  Even if I drove down for the day, it wouldn't taste that good.
Back on the bikes and we started following more orange arrows which we'd noticed from the sidewalk whilst watching other charity riders go by.  Down the hill, left at the roundabout and then into a car park to find ourselves amongst a complete group of strangers and, more importantly, no Discover Adventure banner and no sign of the Tourist Centre that we were supposed to stop at.  Matt just kept going and we headed straight through the car park and found ourselves on the right road with the right orange signs to guide us.  We arrived after about two thirds of the group had already parked up, which meant time for a few snaps of us standing outside the port and then we headed round the cycle paths to get our tickets.

Parking lane139 at 18:40 said our tickets.  Given that it was about quarter past 5, which meant a long stay hanging around in the port getting cold.  We even had a curmudgeonly dock worker tell us how dangerous it was to ride around in our high viz gear with all the heavy trucks charging to and from the ferries.  There was a collective debunking of walking to our destination, so back on the bikes and a 5 minute cycle to reach our departure point.  This turned out to be literally a line numbered 139 in the car park.  Offering no shelter from the nagging wind, someone pointed to the services and we all scurried to it in the hope of warmth, a loo stop and a nice cup of hot fresh tea.

Inside there was Costa Coffee and a WH Smith and some horrible smelling fast food place.  If you've ever travelled in the UK you'll know that all motorway stops, ferry ports and the Channel Tunnel offer exactly the same formula.  Overpriced food that you would only buy if you had nowhere else to go that's served by teenagers with, judging by the state of their nails, questionable personal hygiene.  With everyone inside the building, there was still the excited buzz of first day chatter as the little groups who'd travelled together sat down to recap what had happened.  Lots of talk about punctures and falling off (mostly those new to wearing clip-ins) and looking forward to reaching Calais.  I also met Rachel and Angus from the Alzheimer's team who were doing the whole ride, which I thought was quite impressive and I later found that the DA team thought the same as they normally end up ferrying charity reps between the stops.

Another briefing from Jo, telling us about having to walk onto the ferry due to the metallic nature of the ramp and the risk of falling off and hurting ourselves, and we were off to get our bikes.  And stand in the wind waiting to board.  We walked over the ramp and had our bikes stacked at the end of the ferry by some churlish French stevedores who seemed affronted by our temerity to bring so many bikes onto their boat.  With bikes safely chained up we made our way into the seating on the boat and waited for the bars and restaurants to open.  By this stage, I was smugly thinking how great it was to have had a proper meal before leaving.  Ferry food is, by all accounts, even less appetising then ferry services food.  Still, the lager was cold and wet and that was good.

At Calais we were the last off the ferry, which seemed to take ages to unload the trucks in a pattern designed to stop it from overturning, while we waited in the diesel fumes for our chance to disembark.  After being released, we headed over the front gangway and into the car park to meet up with the DA team.  Unfortunately we had the wrong car park but, after a quick call to Jo, we headed up over a road bridge and down to where we should have been, between the two DA vehicles that would convoy us to our hotels.
We had to wait for a group of 100 or so charity cyclists to go past before we took off into the night.  No passport checks either, despite having it to hand all day.  We cycled through the very quiet streets of Calais before the bulk of our peleton was delivered to the more central of the two hotels.  A smaller group of about 22, including me, headed for the Kyriad Plage, arriving about 10 minutes later at our chosen point.  The bike lock up was a conference room in the hotel which also contained the welcome sight of our backs waiting for collection.

I found my way to my room and talked to Dave my roommate about him getting the first shower while I admired just how small the twin bed room was; one which I was about to share with some random bloke I'd just met earlier that day.  I wandered back out to talk to the DA reps on some random topic and then chatted to Rachel as we headed back to the rooms.  Dave headed off for a beer, so I grabbed a shower and put on the kettle to make a Lemsip.  I really didn't feel like drinking, I just wanted to lie in my bed and get some sleep and try and shake off this sick feeling.  I tried writing down what we'd done that day, but started to just nod straight off, so I put my iPod on and passed out.

135km travelled, including the bit to the hotel in Calais.  6 hours 30 minutes on the bike plus a couple of hours of stops for food, water and the 90 minutes spent crossing the English channel plus unrecorded down time waiting around to get on and off the ferry.  Bed was probably around 11pm French time.  That was the first day.