21 days in July – the 2005 Douglas Bader Foundation E2E ride re-blogged

Woke early, first into breakfast, no-one (including the whole Hostel) was up. Walked a mile down the road with the camera, came back, made a cup of tea, and still there was no-one else up. Went back to bed…

Today is the other restday. I used it to think, sleep and visit the distillery. Jenny rode round the island. (Little) Jim, ever the canny accountant, bought a rover bus ticket and managed to do 100 miles bussing round the island for £4. Rob, Nathan and Big Jim were hussled at golf by Andy. Nigel, Rhona (she’s back) and Colin the Gripper went shopping for food with Kiera and Cathy. Generally everyone did their own thing.

While we were all taking it easy in the morning Nigel, the team mechanic, was cleaning, checking, and tuning the bikes. Nigel has left his cycle shop in Sidcup to come and support this venture for the whole 3 weeks. Apart from fixing the bikes, Nigel and his GPS receiver see us through city centres and his van always has water, energy drink (and bars) and bananas on board. Now that we’re the other side of the border I can release the picture of Nigel rectifying a local authority error when we were unable to proceed along a published cycle path because of a bolted gate. Go, go, gadget Nigel!

This evening Rob, Nathan and I were presented with a bottle of whisky by Nigel who had bet that we couldn’t beat the main group to Ludlow after staying behind to watch the All Blacks vs Lions game last week. 

It seems such a long time ago now. Only 6 days to John O’Groats.

Tomorrow, ferry back to the mainland…