The Tour - Day 7 to 9 (THE END!)

After far too little sleep (about 3 hours, a waste of a hotel room really!) I was up at 3 in the morning for a quick blast through the streets of Dieppe to get on my ferry. The ferry took about 4 hours during which I actually managed to get a few more minutes of sleep. After about 10 months I was finally back on British soil and for the first 2 minutes it felt great. After that I made it onto British roads and was reminded that drivers here really don't give a crap about cyclists. To emphasise the point a French car was beeped for not immediately overtaking me as we left Newhaven.

As I was staying at Pete's that night and I arrived in London at about 2 I decided to have a tourist-y ride around the centre. I crossed the river to Buckingham Palace, rode down the mall, through Trafalgar Square, past St. Paul's and down to London Bridge.... hence all the photos. I ended up at Pete's not long before he arrived home from work. That weekend I stayed in London and had my first rest day quickly followed by my second.

After my two rest days I was back on the bike for the last leg. As I had become used to not sleeping in the tent I decided to leave all of my camping gear at Pete's house to save weight. I pre-booked a hotel in Nuneaton to spend my last night at before home. The route from London to home was pretty much straight up Watling street all the way.

Despite the strong headwind all day I got to Nuneaton quite early and had time to chill in my room for a while until I was ready to go and destroy the biggest steak on the menu at the restaurant next door. The next day I had only just over 70km to go so I woke late and ate my crappy Travellodge breakfast and got back on the road. Even though it was only a short distance the last day wasn't brilliant as the wind was even stronger and more directly in my face than the day before!

Above is the route that I took, marked with the stops I made each night and below are the statistics for the last 3 days.


Day 7 - Dieppe to Southgate
Distance: 124.85km       Time: 6:09                Average Speed: 20.29kmph


Day 8 - Southgate to Nuneaton
Distance: 147.78km       Time: 6:39                Average Speed: 22.18kmph


Day 9 - Nuneaton to Stone, HOOOOME!
Distance: 71.69km         Time: 3:17                Average Speed: 21.76kmph


So that is it, my travelling adventure (great big holiday) now all finished. This is the last blog entry , I hope you enjoyed it or at least tolerated it or managed to ignore it. I guess now it is time for me to get one of those job things and stop avoiding life or whatever...