The wind in our willows

And we are off!

First of all we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who came to see us off on Monday. Your support mean a lot and we would not be able to do this without you. Also thank you to the guys at Reading Bicycle Kitchen who escourted us from Reading for the first 20 miles. 

Our first day began with a few tears from Finola as we rode away from Reading and our family to begin the first of 32000 miles. We rode along peaceful country lanes and the sun was shining. It was a fun ride to windsor when we left the bike kitchen guys and we heading off towards london...only we didn't really know the way. Ash from the bike kitchen went along with us to Richmond but we had to make our way to muswell hill, which is up a very steep hill. We were due to arrive at Fin's uncles house for 6 but we arrived closed to 830! One very big hill.

Thank you Ray for putting us up, we then went onwards through London (getting lost again!) and towards Kent where the winds really picked up, I mean it was force 5 gale and our speed was dropped to about 5mph! It was so windy chairs and table were blown everywhere and we had to cycle onwards into the wind all the way to Dover.  We cycled to a small village called lynsted where we stayed with a woman called Jo. She rented us her summerhouse and we relaxed and recoverd from another 100km day.

We set off towards Dover where the winds battered us again and we could not get any headway. We did stop for lunch in Canterbury since Fin had a prezzos voucher from work meaning we had a three course lunch with a bottle of wine. It was most likely the bottle of wine which caused us to take the wrong round out of Cantrebury meaning we added a further 15 miles of headwind into Dover. We cycled past all the lorries queing down the dreaded Jubilee way and arrived lost trying to check two bicycles onto a ferry

Finally we made it---were going to FRANCE!! The adventure continues and we had a beer onboard to celebrate. 
Pictures are coming but I have lost the cable which connects the camera to the computer!! I'll pick up on in Dunkirk tomorrow :)

Thanks
Tim & Fin