Cycle tour day 1

Day 1; messy, soggy, but with good stew.

First time waking up in our tents was nice, I slept well and things seemed alright. It was a dry, fresh morning to start our day.

We were kinda getting used to cycle touring again but we left by about eleven o’clock.
The mosquitoes here though.
It does not matter where you are or how long it takes them, they will find you. They will come in droves. Nothing will stop them.

A few bites later we arrived at a motorway we apparently had to cycle down. We, of course, did not want to do this. Instead, we walked our bikes down over a kilometer of motorway side ditch filled with every kind of rubbish you can imagine and enough loose rocks to make the gravel trails we had been cycling on cry. We were forced to cycle the last hundred meters or so but we found a gap in the traffic that let us get through just before the next car raced past. You do not know motorways until you have felt a lorry roaring past you at 110 kilometres per hour just a meter away from you.

We found a supermarket where we could grab some extra food and snacks. We ended up staying a bit longer than expected because of a situation. Then the rain started. Not powerful, just enough that after a few hours of riding through it we were rather soaked.

Just as I am writing this I am hearing someone outside our tents. They are singing something? I don’t know what. They were going down the main road, but I didn’t hear a car. It might have been a hiker or someone on a walk. Either way they’re gone now. Back to the blog.

We spent the last ten kilometres of our day just looking for somewhere where we could cook in the dry. After checking several spots, we found somewhere with some rocks for tables, good ground, and no active logging operations. We decided to make some stew. It tasted amazing! Stuff tastes so much better when you’re cycle touring, there’s just no comparison.

Our tents are up now and I am listening to the gentle pitter patter of the rain on the top of my tent. It’s a lovely sound. Stuff is drying all around me in my tent, it feels like I’m sleeping in a closet. Anyway I have to get some sleep now :p

Dist: ~44 km