I – Dieppe to Vendôme
Just as with many of life’s great adventures, this journey across two continents began against the epic backdrop of a 5am drizzle in a dreary French industrial port.
Awaking from an undignified 2 hour snooze on the floor of the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry, Seb and I rolled onto the French shore with spirits high and core body temperatures low. In my hasty preparations, I had assumed that a rain jacket would be surplus to requirements for 6 months of bikepacking. To my great surprise, Murphy’s Law had held true, and by the end of day one a strong drizzle had taken up residence in the Channel area. Thankfully my friend Joe’s dad had comr in clutch, and generously donated a spare cycling rainshell alongside a healthy portion of fish and chips as we waited for our overnight ferry in Newhaven.
Even so, within minutes of rolling down the ramp into Dieppe we were both sodden and shivering, and with every shop shut for at least 2 more hours we decided to plough on into the countryside in the hope that the cycling would warm us up.
Unfortunately we were very much still learning the ropes with our navigational devices (I had just figured out how to turn on my Garmin), and guided through the darkness by our cheap bike lights in the rain and darkness it took several attempts for us to find our route out of town. Undeterred, we eventually found our abandoned railway and felt a giddy sense of excitement as we overtook one of our fellow ferry companions, a middle aged man on a Brompton bike, and sped along the straight, flat trail at the heady speed of 20 kph.
Once dawn had turned to morning and the locals started to stir, we indulged ourselves in freshly baked pastries, coffee and jus d’orange in one quaint village after another. Despite our early start, by the time we arrived in the historic city of Rouen the sun was high above us, the morning drizzle having taken a temporary hiatus. Parking our bikes up outside the cathedral, we took turns admiring the ornate architecture inside. I can only hope the saints looking back at us weren’t too disturbed by the sight of two lycra-clad lads, clip-clopping around the pews in cycling shoes.
Seb’s insistence on visiting every historic church and cathedral along our route ensured a leisurely pace would remain over the coming days. Not that I was complaining – having done zero physical preparation for this trip, my legs were struggling to adjust to the novelty of pedalling a heavy bike up and down very gentle hills all day.
We soon found ourselves lost in a forest on trails that would be tricky even on a mountain bike – a phenomenon I have since discovered to be fondly referred to as getting ‘Komooted’. Still getting used to riding our fully loaded touring bikes, there was plenty of pushing and numerous low-speed falls as we lumbered on. Emerging from the forest at last with more bruises and less dignity than we started with, aware that the sun would be setting soon we had to quickly come up with a plan B, and found a nearby campsite to rest our weary bodies. After a 12 hour day in the saddle, a stove-top feast of instant noodles, rice and hot chocolate left us happy and full as we fell asleep in our cozy tent for the first time.
An overnight puncture in Seb’s front wheel further delayed our already-slow departure the next day, and by the time we left the campsite at the second attempt, the morning had almost entirely slipped us by. Despite the early setback, we made good progress, cycling through empty country roads under a grey sky that constantly threatened to burst, passing old farm buildings that could have been straight out of a Tudor documentary. The heavens finally opened as we happened to be searching for a lunch spot, and we came across a conveniently-located old marketplace in an empty village, with a roof that we could shelter from the rain under as we ate our brie and baguettes.
While preparing for this trip, one of the few pieces of research I had done was to read a blog called ’20 things that every bikepacker learns’. I can’t say I remembered many of them, but the one that stuck with me was ‘the devil is real and he manifests himself as a strong headwind’. This afternoon we certainly learnt that this is no lie. We braced ourselves through a long slog into strong headwinds and plenty of rain as the green valleys of the morning transitioned into dense forests. The tough conditions only meant that we appreciated the occasional splash of sunshine and encouraging smiles from locals even more.
As the light started to fade and we started to look for a nearby campsite, we realised that we were in danger of not reaching anywhere before closing time. I floated the idea of wild camping but Seb was having none of it. Instead we raced to the nearest campsite on the edge of the Parc du Perche, arriving mere minutes before it closed. After a dinner of camping stove noodles the night before, we decided we’d earned ourselves a proper meal and indulged ourselves in the set menu before settling down for the night as a light rain drummed gently against the tent.
I awoke unimpressed to find the rain was still going strong, reluctant to leave my warm dry sleeping bag. Sebby was in a much better mood, gleefully demonstrating the ‘swish and flick’ technique to dry out a wet tent before we hit the road. Another day of quiet roads through rolling fields and empty forests ensued. While this was by no means the most exciting backdrop for another 110km day, it was made far more enjoyable once the rain finally relented. We were starting to grow in confidence, and with spirits high we arrived in Vendôme in good time, admiring the flying buttresses of the medieval abbey before finding a campsite to set up our tent.
While this was by no means the most exciting backdrop for another 110km day, it was made far more enjoyable once the rain finally relented. We were starting to grow in confidence, and with spirits high we arrived in Vendôme in good time, admiring the flying buttresses of the medieval abbey before finding a campsite to set up our tent.
Looking back, these early days pedalling through gentle French hills, never more than a few kilometres from a bike shop, cafe or campsite, were a world away from the intensity and remoteness of what I would experience deep in rarely-visited corners of Africa in the coming months. But, at the time, even with a (marginally) more experienced companion and the safety net of Western Europe, I felt daunted and close to overwhelmed several times a day.
I struggled to balance the fully loaded bike in even the mildest of crosswinds. My heart would race with anxiety every time I’d lock my bike up and enter a bakery in fear that it wouldn’t be there when I returned 3 minutes later. My legs and arse did not take kindly to the new experience of spending multiple hours at a time on the bike every day, despite wearing padded shorts for the first time. I was constantly in fear of a bike mechanical, with quite literally no idea how any of it worked.
And yet, as the days passed, I slowly grew to set aside these fears of things that might happen but were outside my control, and learnt to enjoy being on the bike, watching the fields and forest slowly pass by, and look with astonishment and excitement at Google Maps to see just how far we’d come in a matter of days.
In truth, if I’d been dropped straight into the Congo or the remote mountains of Guinea, I strongly doubt that I’d have been able to get started at all. It would have all just been too much, way too far outside my comfort zone. But as luck would have it, my route South through France, then Spain, then Morocco, then the Sahara, would slowly ramp the difficulty level in such a way that my comfort zone increased in parallel to the new challenges I was facing: the relative safety of companionship and easy days in the saddle in France prepared me to then ride solo through the physically challenging mountain ranges of Spain, which in turn readied me for the first few weeks in Africa with its accompanying chaos and novelty, while still cycling down the relatively developed coast of Morocco where I was never too far from a tajine or a mechanic.
Of course, this was far more by chance than intention: if you’ve read my previous blog post it will be abundantly clear that I could hardly have been less prepared for this mammoth adventure. But as it so happened, the gradual increase in challenges as I pedalled South allowed me to grow in confidence step by step. And so by the time the hardest months were in full flow – 1000s of miles from the nearest bike shop on rugged roads, suffering from food poisoning and struggling to replace calories – I had the mental resilience to trust that I could keep going and find a solution to new problems as and when they arose.
II – Vendôme to Bordeaux
We waved goodbye to Vendôme under sun and blue skies, getting 50k under the belt in no time as we entered the Loire Valley. As the day went on and with our bladders threatening to burst, we pulled over in a seemingly empty field to answer the call of nature. Mid-mission, the rumble of a green tractor appeared out of nowhere, and we braced ourselves for the wrath of an angry French farmer as it halted beside us.
Defying the French stereotype, a friendly farmer hopped off the tractor and introduced himself as Désiré. We described in our best French our journey through France so far and our plans ahead, and he pulled out a pen and paper from his tractor to draw us a map with some lunch suggestions.
After a lengthy inspection of Tours Cathedral, we ran out of water as the temperature hit 32°. A sequence of unsympathetic French shopkeepers denied our requests to refill our bottles from the tap, but eventually we were able to acquire some deep heat and top up our water bottles at a local bike shop. While at the time the heat felt pretty brutal compared to the cold drizzle of the past few days, by the time I was in Central Africa 32° would feel like a relatively mild day.
As we we pedalled away down the Loire valley the next day with the road to ourselves and a kind sun above us, I opened up to Seb about my doubts about why I was doing what I was doing, and how the uncertainty of my own internal motivations to be undertaking this journey through Africa had grown into an uncomfortable anxiety.
In response, he told me about his pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago four years previously, during which he spent a whole summer quietly walking down dusty tracks across northern Spain, reflecting on life in the company of fellow pilgrims from all walks of life. As he explained, the simplest definition of a pilgrim is ‘someone who goes on a journey, with the intention of eventually returning having been changed in some way’.
This struck something deep in me – maybe I was a pilgrim of sorts. On a journey? yes. With the intention of eventually returning? yes. And to be changed in some way? Also yes.
I realised that maybe I didn’t need to have a highly detailed and logical reason for why I was doing what I was doing – but simply, to be changed. And this gave me great comfort. I wasn’t sure how my journey would change me, but I was certain that it would be for the better. In the coming months, when days were tough and I was doubting my purpose, I often thought back to this conversation with fondness.
After treating ourselves to a second breakfast of fruit and pastries on the riverbank of Châtellerault, we reached Poitiers and fought our gear ratios up the steep hill to the Église Notre-Dame la Grande as the temperature hit 36°. Following a tip from a fellow bikepacker on the train to London a week earlier, I had signed up for WarmShowers – a sort of couchsurfing website for bikepackers – and we were astonished to be offered a house to stay in for the night. We were welcomed into the home of Denis and Corinne in the old village of Ligugé who gave us a bed, a meal, and a much-needed laundry wash. They explained to us that their son was a bikepacker, and that they wanted to share the hospitality with cyclists that they would hope their son would receive while on his own travels. I felt deeply moved by their kindness towards us complete strangers with almost no notice and no expectation of anything in return, and felt such an encouragement that there is so much generosity in this world as I fell asleep in a bed for the first time since leaving London a week before. Corrine would be the first of many people I met along the journey who would continue to keep in touch, commenting on my Instagram posts and offering support from afar as I continued through Africa.
With our pals Ella and Izzy joining in a rental car, we were treated to a couple of ‘rest days’, cycling just a light 50km from one campsite to the next. We would swim, play cards and irritate our fellow campers as, for just a moment, things felt back to normal. Knowing that ahead lay many months alone, it was joyful yet bittersweet to laugh and frolic with some of my closest friends and enjoy those last moments together.
Day 10 marked the end of the road for Seb. After a gentle morning cycling through quiet vineyards and forest tracks reflecting on our experiences over the last few days, we parted ways at Bordeaux train station. 5% down, and over 16,000 km of pedalling down an entire continent separating me with my end goal. Riding out of the city I felt a genuine sense of fear for the first time since I had left London. This felt like the hard launch of this trip. Leaving Seb in Bordeaux and going to the shop and having to think for the first time, a) what do I need for a night wild camping in the woods with no running water or electricity and b) how do I shop for myself, was a tug in the gut that a 10 minute trip to Carrefour should not have elicited. Yet, in a weird way, it was also exhilarating to pedal away by myself and just have myself and the huge expanse of an entire continent ahead of me. The feeling of being truly self sufficient for the first time in my life was both terrifying and freeing in a strange but very real tension.
III – Bordeaux to Elizondo
It was a tough evening. Leaving Bordeaux at 5:30pm with another 65km still to do was always going to be a challenge. I succumbed to a Maccies midway through, which meant it was 9pm and getting properly dark by the time I cycled down a busy unlit main road towards Sanguinet. I decided to put my lights on and reflective coat, feeling genuinely fearful in my mainly black outfit as cars sped by at 110km/h, beeping and flashing at me as they overtook. With dread, I realised that somewhere along the way my back light had fallen off, and as it became properly dark I resorted to the strategy of throwing myself into the roadside ditch whenever a car approached from behind to avoid being hit.
Eventually I made it to Sanguinet and settled on a small forest by the ocean to camp in. Finding a spot in the dark to wild camp was deeply stressful as all I could think about was people coming and finding me in the night. Eventually I found a spot away from the path where I made a clearing in the bracken and slowly set up my tent for the night, and, after a minor gas disaster, cooked up a big pasta with dried sausage and tinned tomatoes on my camping stove – a meal which would become a favourite in the coming weeks.
I lay in my sleeping bag with 110km worth of sweat on my body, half expecting a torch and barking dog to appear from the outside. Yet despite it all, I fell asleep with a strange sense of excitement. Alone, listening to the sounds of the crickets and cicadas in this forest, and with the adventure of a lifetime ahead of me.
Waking up to a gorgeous sunrise glinting through the trees and a wave of excitement and relief that I had completed my first wild camp trouble-free, I hit the road early, with flat coastal cyclepaths and lots of shade keeping away the worst of the heat. Stopping for coffee and WiFi in a super touristing beach down felt incredibly jarring, having just spent the night in a patch of bracken. I couldn’t have felt more different to the pensioners at the table across as I sipped my café au lait and scoffed a pain au chocolat.
While I did miss Seb’s companionship, riding solo remarkably cut down the amount of stoppage time, and after an extremely mundane day on flat cycleways I rolled into a campsite with 140km under my belt – by some distance the longest ride of the trip so far. After my night in the woods, I was extra-grateful for a shower and running water as I celebrated completing the first 1000km of the journey.
Sipping a café au lait and enjoying my daily WiFi in an empty Bayonne cafe the next morning, I found myself facing a dilemma: continue South-West along the coast, avoiding the Pyrenees but at the cost of a busy and unexciting route; or divert South-East and head straight into the mountains. Growing in confidence a little, I made what felt like a big decision to go for the harder but more exciting option, and resolved to take on the mountains and climb into the lower Pyrenees. I was more than happy to say goodbye to the flat featureless cycleways of southern France as a cool breeze sparked a new thrill as I wound my way up into the mountains. It wasn’t just the geography, but also the culture that was noticeably changing around me as I approached the border, with many of the French town names on street signs graffitied out, symptoms of the tension over the national and cultural identity of the Basque Country region into which I had entered.
Approaching the Pyrenees did mean the first serious climbing of the journey and a real test of my maximum gear ratio. Unsurprisingly, I spent much of the morning out of my saddle as I dragged my 50kg bike up 15-20% gradients, refusing to accept the self-imposed humiliation of getting off the bike and pushing. After the giddy heights of a 21kph average speed the previous day along the flat, shaded cycleway, my expectations for the day had to decrease substantially after I realised it had taken a whole hour to climb just 8km.
As the day went on and I climbed further up into the foothills, I eventually found a bit of a rhythm, and spent most of the afternoon meandering up a long 15km climb through alpine meadows and shady forests towards a distant mountain pass. The glorious views around every twist in the quiet road under a cloudless sky were made even more special as a contrast to the relative mundaneness of the previous week cycling across the French interior.
As I rounded the final corner and the Otxondo pass emerged through the trees, I felt a rush of elation as my Garmin pronounced ‘climb complete!’. I parked up my bike at the picnic spot, surrounded by the ruins of Franco-era defensive bunkers. While the pass itself was less than 600m above the seafront where I had had my coffee that morning, this was by far my biggest climb on two wheels to date. As I munched on my chorizo and cheese baguette and admired the stunning views of the Baztan valley to the South and the French coast to the North, the anxieties I had been carrying with me since leaving Seb in Bordeaux momentarily left. For the first time since leaving home, I felt at peace.
Knowing that all that lay between me and my hostel bed in Elizondo was a 12km descent, with time to kill I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to give my new drone its maiden flight. After slowly figuring out how to assemble the drone and its remote control, I felt a rush of excitement as the rotors whirred into action and the drone levitated above the ground, awaiting instructions. I was a kid at Christmas with a new toy, giddily flying the drone back and forth over the valley feeling like some kind of cinematographic wizard.
Unfortunately I also succumbed to the overconfidence of a kid with a new toy on Christmas day, and decided it would be a brilliant idea to fly the drone through a thin doorway in the ruins for some epic footage. I carefully lined up the drone in the gap, and gently flew it forwards. Alas, it didn’t quite go to plan. As the drone drifted slightly off course, I made the classic error of mixing up my Right and Left, veering it straight into the wall as I attempted to correct the drone’s course. I watched in horror as it repeatedly threw itself sideways into the wall, dramatically whining and scratching, before crashing to the ground, rotors still spinning in a desperate attempt to obey the command to keep flying. The moment is immortalised by the drone’s camera, with the raw footage displayed in full below for the reader’s viewing pleasure, as a reward for making it this far. Thankfully, the lack of audio meant that my horrified “Oh Fuck!” as I ran forwards to try to limit the damage was lost to the winds of time.
I hastily packed away the scratched-but-still-functioning drone into my rear pannier, my sunburnt face masking my embarrassment as a lone Spaniard, who had watched the full debacle, offered some unsolicited retrospective piloting advice. I took this as my sign to leave, and, still slightly shaken, I began my descent into the Baztan valley. The embarrassment was quickly forgotten as adrenaline took over, gravity now on my side as I whizzed through the forest at the heady speeds of 55kph. This may not seem too dramatic to a seasoned road cyclist, but as a relative stranger to my unwieldy steed, it took full concentration to maneuver the heavy beast around the hairpin bends without losing control and stacking it off the side of the road.
As I freewheeled down the valley with the September sun on my back and 1200km of riding across Spain ahead of me, a tentative hint of self-belief entered my thoughts for the first time.
Life was good.